SC - Is Arrowroot Period?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Hank wrote:
> 
> If I may be so bold as to pose this question a little differently, why is
> arrowroot not period even if its source is the new world.  Trading with the
> "new world" dates to as early as 400 - 500 AD (Irish) 1065 (Norse) and 1500
> (Spanish) all of which are period.  We know that the Norse traded European
> foods to the natives, it made them sick! So why not the reverse?  I am a
> "new cook" but if we really mean by "period" European, then we should say
> so.

Documentation for intercontinental trade prior to Columbus is a little
shaky, unfortunately. We have reason to believe it may have occurred,
but not a whole lot of reasons to be sure it did. This would go
arm-in-arm with the fact that the Europeans, who might well be expected
to keep written records of such trade, apparently did not, at least not
in any form accessible to us. The Americans in question have a body of
oral tradition that goes back, in spots, as far as the Neolithic Era and
beyond, but as I say, the age and depth of the reporting is not
universal. For that matter, it's hard to say what is literal truth, what
is metaphor, and what is just plain fiction, which is the problem with
most of the documentation we're now discussing.

The reason we don't simply say "period European" is that there are some
New World foods that did have an impact on European eating habits before
the end of period. Whether or not they typify, and therefore accurately
represent, pre-1601 European eating habits as a package deal, is open to
debate. 

But regarding the simple question of, if we have reason to believe
somebody like Saint Brendan, for example, traded European foods with the
Americans he may or may not have encountered, why wouldn't American
imports be regarded as "period" (a term I hate because it's almost
always necessary to qualify it in some way), I can only ask, honestly,
if you have any reason to believe that American imports such as
arrowroot _did_ have any impact on European eating habits prior to
Columbus' voyages to the New World and back?
 
Yes, the Arawaks _did_ use aru-aru for both culinary and medicinal
purposes. (And note that more modern Europeans saw fit to name this
plant in English according to its medical properties, unless you argue
it is just a corruption of the Arawak name.) Is this knowledge helpful
to somebody recreating, say, 14th-century English aristocratic eating
habits? If one is studying an Arawak meal from, say, 1375 C.E., I'd say,
yes, go for it, if you really have reason to assume it belongs there. 

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com