SC - cooking in a pit or on a spit

[Aelfwyn@aol.com]

I have just been reading the first chapter of a multi-volume work called
_The Citrus Industry_, which goes into considerable detail about what the
evidence is on what citrus fruit came into use when and where. This is a
summary of its conclusions.

The author of this chapter, Herbert John Webber, concludes that all citrus
are native to southern Asia and the Malay Archipelago. Cultivated citrus go
way back in China; the earliest mention he knows of concerns tribute
(oranges and pummeloes) given to an emperor around 2200 B.C. A Chinese book
on oranges written in 1178 A.D. describes some twenty-seven varieties of
sweet, sour, and mandarin oranges, as well as kumquats and citrons.

The citron seems to be the first citrus fruit known in the West, having
become established in Persia by around 500 B.C. and spreading slowly around
the eastern end of the Mediterranean from there. The Romans of the first
century A.D probably grew citrons in the southern parts of Italy and knew
of lemons and sour oranges, although it seems to be debatable whether or
not they grew them. The collapse of the Roman empire seems to have left
citrons growing, in part growing wild, in Sicily and southern Italy, and no
other citrus surviving in Italy.

The Arabs continued the spread of citrus fruit; by the 10th century the
sour orange was known and there were references to importing new varieties
from India, and by the 12th century lemon, sour orange, citron, and pummelo
had all made it as far as Spain and North Africa. There is also a 12th
mention of the pummelo in Palestine by a Christian pilgrim, and a
13th-century Arab reference to what is probably lime. By the 13th century
lemon, sour orange, citron, and what is probably lime are described from
northern Italy.

The sweet orange is mentioned in a few documents from the second half of
the 15th century as growing in Italy and southern France, and seems to have
been fairly widely grown in southern Europe by the early 16th century. In
1520 or thereabouts the Portuguese brought a new and superior sweet orange
variety from China, which then spread around the citrus-growing areas of
Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Mandarin oranges do not seem to have
made it to Europe until the early 19th century.

The pummelo or shaddock, which is a thick-skinned citrus fruit about the
size of a grapefruit, seems to have followed the same paths across Europe
and the Arab world as the sour orange and lemon. It was introduced to the
West Indies by the 17th century; the grapefruit, probably a mutation from
the shaddock, is first mentioned in 1750 from Barbados.

Elizabeth of Dendermonde/Betty Cook


============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================