SC - Okra

[david friedman]

At 1:48 AM -0500 2/21/99, Philip & Susan Troy wrote:
>Cathy Harding wrote:
>>
>> Good Evening all,
>> A qustion came up after dinner tonight.  Where does okra originate?   Would
>> it have been available or used in the area which is now armenia or other
>> parts of the middle east prior to 1600?  Does anyone have references to it
>> in period recipes?
>>
>> We have looked in the Andalusian  recipes in the Miscellany, and did not
>> find it.
>
>Off the top of my head, I believe okra is of African origin. It is now
>common across North Africa and the Middle East, but I don't know how
>common it is, or was, in Spain. Dried okra is, I think, a common Middle
>Eastern staple (I can buy it strung on threads in the local Lebanese
>grocery), and it seems like this would be a good way to ship it to
>places where it is inconvenient to grow it, if it was something people wanted.
>
>Of course, the absence of a given food from the Andalusian recipes
>sampled in The Miscellany doesn't necessarily mean they're absent from
>the primary source. It may simply be that His Grace and/or his team-mate
>redactors haven't gotten to an akra recipe yet, or that okra may appear
>in another recipe collection from Al-Islam.

1. It doesn't appear in the Charles Perry translation of the Andalusian
cookbook.

2. According to Harold McGee's book, okra is native to tropical Africa and
Asia, was cultivated in Egypt in the 12th c., but there is no mention of it
in "ancient western sources."

David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
ddfr at best.com
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/


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