SC - Mundane - Period recipe help!

[Christi Rigby]

In a message dated 5/9/00 3:00:47 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
JGedney at dictaphone.com writes:

> It is one thing to say that they were eaten at some banquets in Imperial 
>  China, and one incident of them being sent to Asia Minor, but another to 
>  say that that makes them a standard item of fare in a Feast in a 
>  Eurocentric Society, celebrating Eurocentric events and activities.

    Oh goody... another chance for me to call "foul" on Western Eurocentrism.

    The documentation she mentioned includes several period recipes from 
Ottoman Turkey, all calling for tomatoes or tomato sauce.  (You remember the 
Ottomans, don't you?  At one point they ruled half of Europe, in case no one 
remembers.)

    Folks, lets try to remember that Europe is more than England, Spain, 
France, Germany, and Italy.  Or, as they say here in Trimaris, "Just 'cause 
it ain't Celt don't mean its not period."

    The documentation for the mummy/tomato seeds is a Discovery magazine, 
published this year (and no, I don't remember the issue number... mostly what 
I remember after she showed it to me was thinking "son of a gun").  As for 
"trading in bulk", apparently there was enough bulk traded to have an 
elephant appear on a wall of Inca heiroglypics.  And mummies in Mexico 
wearing Chinese-style jade jewelry.

    Conclusive proof?  Maybe not.  Overwhelming, even?  Maybe not.  
Convincing?  Yes.  Very.

    So be unconvinced if you insist.  But while you're at it, try to be less 
smug about it.

    Suleyman