SC - Current Pennsic Cookery Classes

[Huette von Ahrens]

> The OED reference dovetails nicely with Swahn's fair at Treviso.  Treviso
> lies northwest of Venice, was a Venetian trading partner, and came under
> Venetian control in the 14th Century.  Venice was involved in the Asiatic
> spice trade and would later come to monopolize it.  While it doesn't rule
> out West African spices, the spices at Treviso were most likely of Asiatic
> origin.  Do you have any idea of the source of his information about the
> fair?

Unfortunately, I do not have the reference, though I recall seeing mention
of just such a tournament in tournament books. I'll look for it.

However, on what do you base the contention that the Venetian trade was
exclusively in Asiatic spices? They were buying from Arabic trading
centers, rather than going direct to and from Asia. In this case, you
would need an Islamic source, as the Arabs routinely spun fairy tales
about the origins of various spices for the 'edification' of their
customers.
 
> Since, the OED does not reference grains of paradise with this same date, it
> is possible that Swahn is using grains of paradise as a synonym for
> malagueta pepper.  I do question his etymology for melegueta pepper.

I also question his etymology, but a quick look would tell you why the OED
doesn't give the same date, as neither reference is in English. [OED
references only recorded instances of the word in English, of course.]

> As to the spice trade, the question is not so much whether A. melegueta
> could have been available in Europe, but whether it could have been
> available in commercial quantities.  Given the travel conditions between the
> Mediterranean and the Niger Basin, I question that the markets of Europe
> were supplied by caravan with A. melegueta in quantity.  Gold, being
> imperishable, could be traded from point to point, as conditions permitted,
> but perishable commodities require more expeditious delivery.  

Not that expeditious. Delivery of spices from India was actually
agonizingly slow, leading some to the theory that the use of relatively
significant quantities of spices was a reaction to the fact that by the
time they got to market, spices might be several years old and had lost
some of their potency. When you see lists of what can travel far and still
keep, spices, along with textiles and metals, are mentioned.

> Do Swahn and Wilson provide any sources to support their statements that
> grains of paradise came to Europe from West Africa prior to the Portuguese
> navigation of the coast?

Wilson gives two references, though I'm not sure it's to the trade rather
than to the price of grains of paradise:
H.S. Redgrove, _Spices & Condiments_ (1933), p. 281; M.S. Giuseppi, 'The
wardrobe and household accounts of Bogo de Clare, A.D. 1284-6',
_Archaelogia_ (1920), 70, p. 32.
 
> Being unfamiliar with Porta, why do you consider him an unreliable source?

Where Porta describes scientific procedures he may well be an accurate
witness. However, comparing him against similar works of the time, I would
say that when it comes, for instance, to household helps, he lets his
theory and the works of the ancients run away with him, rather than
documenting actual practice. (In other words, he's a secondary source from
a credulous time, about as reliable as the modern New Age health gurus!)

Further-- and more to the point--, in the sidenotes for the work online,
an article by Derek Johnson from the Smithsonian institution (1957), which
includes the admission, "He had a distinct tendency to embroider the truth
a little by stretching a point here and and point there, so as to bring
out the full wonder and marvel of the world, striving nevertheless to
retain coherence and rationality of the whole. "

If Culpepper tells me that apothecaries sell cardomom under the name
grains of paradise, I would tend to believe him... he trained to be an
apothecary. However, Porta may well be simply repeating some statement (as
medieval and Renaissance secondary sources do) that he has garnered, no
more reliably than a modern secondary source. 

Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at tulgey.browser.net
disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks for me.
   "My hands are small I know, but they're not yours, they are my own"