SC - You think it's not period??

[Decker, Terry D.]

Go take a look in the Florilegium.  We've had a lot of discussion about
white potatoes and there is a lot of documentation in that section.  

Potatoes are not North American in origin.  They are South American.  And
they probably did not reach North America until at least the 16th Century, a
good 500 years after the Norse venture in the New World.  I would not put
much stock in this reference being for a New World root vegetable unless it
appears in (IIRC) the Greenlander's Saga or Eirik's Saga.

As for "foreign white root", that could easily describe parsnips or carrots,
which appear to be of Asiatic origin and may not have found there way into
Scandinavia before the 8th Century.

The fact that he blew you off when you asked about the documentation is the
most telling point against the credibility of the information.  People who
have really found something are usually willing to share their sources and
take the bows for the achievement.

Bear

> On a slightly different topic (the original one was tomatoes 
> in period 
> Turkish cooking), someone tried to convince me this weekend 
> that red-skinned 
> potatoes are period because a) they grow wild in North 
> America and could have 
> been found here by the Vikings who came to North America; and 
> b) some Norse 
> document or saga refers to a "foreign white root".  Needless 
> to say, I was 
> not about to accept his word as documentation, and got referred to 
> "authenticity police" when I said I would like to evaluate 
> the evidence for 
> myself.
> So, can anyone give me more detail on where this 
> "documentation" might have 
> come from, and what merits it might have?
> 
> Brangwayna