SC - Ann Hagen's footnotes on Anglo-Saxon pigs

[Stefan li Rous]

Gwynydd asks:
>The question has been raised in this house about whether coconuts were used
>in SCA period in Europe.  I have done some major searches on-line and have
>come up with the following facts:

>1) in 1280 the coconut is mentioned by Marco Polo who calls it an Indian
>Nut;
>2) It was first called a coconut by English explorers in 1555 because the
>indentations on the base of the nut resembled monkey (coco meaning either
>monkey or monkey face, I can't remember which.

"Coco" in both Spanish and Portuguese  languages signifies a grinning
face.  Cocos nucifera (coconut) was first noted by the Portuguese in India
and
was originally called "the Nut of India" by many early sources. The
Portuguese
historian Oviedo Y Valdes (1478-1557) notes in La General y natural
historia de las Indias, the following:  'This frute was cauled Cocus for
this
cause, that, when it is taken from the place where it cleaueth there are
seen
two holes, and aboue them two other naturall holes, which altogether, doo
represent the gesture and fygure of the cattes called Mammone, that is,
munkeys, when they crye: which cyre the Indians caule 'coca'.'

>From early Elizabethan times coconut shells were carved elaborately and
mounted in silver gilt frames as goblets and commemmorative pieces.  The
earlier ones on a trumpet base as flagons.   It seems doubtful however that
the coconut was in sufficient supply in period other than its use in oddity
pieces.  Culinary uses were not likely in Europe at this time.

Akim Yaroslavich
"No glory comes without pain"