SC - European Food

[Bronwynmgn at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/9/2000 8:30:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
JVButlerJr at aol.com writes:

<<  Now wait just a cotton-picking minute!  She posted something she thought 
 would be enlightening and was slapped down because her contribution didn't 
 conform to someone else's idea of "European".  When she protests her 
 treatment, you jump on her back for daring to ask a question? >>

What I saw was someone posting that there was documentation of some sort for 
tomatos being eaten in China during period.  This is great if you are doing a 
period Chinese feast.
What was pointed out was simply that just because tomatos were eaten in China 
during period doesn't mean that they were eaten anywhere else in period.  As 
an example, if I am doing a feast based on a 15th century Western European 
cuisine, I can't therefore say, "oh, the Chinese had tomatos at this time, so 
I can serve them with this feast, too".  If I am doing a feast based on 
period Chinese cuisine, or perhaps some other eastern country (and I freely 
admit to not studying this area, because my persona would never have 
encountered it; I want to be able to cook dishes she might have known), then 
I would certainly consider using tomatos.

This isn't Eurocentrism.  This is making the point that what holds true for 
one country/region at any given date doesn't necessarily hold true for 
another country/region at the same date.  It's good scholarship.

We like to clarify things on this list.  One of those things is that saying 
"this is period" doesn't make much sense unless you specify the 
country/region and date.  Just because they were planting potatoes in Spain 
in the 1500's does not make it a certainty that they were eating potatoes in 
Finland in the 1500's.  (And in fact, planting potatoes in Spain doesn't 
constitute proof that people were eating them; maybe they were fed to the 
oxen. Maybe they were used to make starch for clothes. I haven't seen the 
particular source, so I don't know exactly what it says.)

Brangwayna Morgan