SC - OT Vegetarian Vampires (was Absinthe)

[CBlackwill@aol.com]

- --- RANDALL DIAMOND <ringofkings at mindspring.com>
wrote:
> >>>>I'm a little hesitant to accept Flandrin's
> arguments, but I would like
> to
> verify the facts he puts forward.
> Bear <<<<
> 
> Well, so would I!  What you just posted from
> Flandrin's
> was basically the same data I was using in my
> argument
> about turkeys (and to some extent potatos) in
> Mediterranean
> coastal regions earlier this year, garnered from
> other sources.
> I don't have any idea where the original documents
> are, but
> there seems to be a lot of coherent statements
> floating about
> that supports a widespead acceptance in the early
> 16th century
> in certain regions.

This is what the Oxford Companion of Food says about
turkeys:

When turkeys reached the Old World, they appear
(unlike other foods from the Americas, such as
tomatoes and potatoes) to have diffused swiftly and
been consumed enthusiastically.  In England in 1541,
they were cited amongst large birds such as cranes and
swans in sumptuary laws; their prices had been fixed
in the London markets by the mid-1550s; and Tussar
(1557) spoke of feeding turkeys on runcivall pease,
and of eating them at Christmas.

Liliane Plouvier, in a learned paper (of the 1980s)
about the early history of turkeys in Europe, found
that Queen Marguerite of Navarre is recorded to have
raised turkeys at Alencon in 1534; and 66 turkeys were
served at a feast for Catherine de'Medici in 1549.  In
Belgium, turkey prepared three different ways (boiled
with oysters; roast and served cold; and in a pasty)
was served in 1557 at a banquet held in Liege. 
Reasons for this speedy acceptance are not hard to
find. The turkey would have been seen as similar to
the domestic poultry familiar in Europe since ancient
times, and confused with guinea-fowl; and there anyway
a firm medieval precedent for eating all sorts of
fowl, wild and tame, large and small.

[snip]

When it came to cooking turkeys, they were rapidly
assimilated into various styles of cuising
contemporary with their arrival in Europe.  Plouvier,
examining early recipes, found that there were several
for turkey in Italy by 1570 (e.g. in Scappi's 'Opera
dell'arte del cucinare'); besides being spit roasted,
made into paupiettes or little poached quenelles, they
could be stuffed, stuck with cloves, encased in a
coarse crust with the head exposed, and baked. 
Recipes were published in Germany by the 1580s, but
the turkey recipes only appeared in France during the
'culinary renaissance' of the 17th century, when La
Varenne gave several recipes, including one requiring
a truffle-perfumed bouillon.

In England, turkeys were being made into pies during
the reign of Elizabeth I, and soon afterwards Gervase
Markham (1615) recommended that they should be roast,
and served with a sauce of onions, flavoured with
claret, orange juice, and lemon peel.

Huette

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