[Sca-cooks] Buckwheat was (Latkes was Probably OOP but justwondering.)

[Terry Decker]

I'm curious as to your source for the introduction of buckwheat to Eastern
Europe.  There is some archeological evidence that buckwheat was used prior
to the Middle Ages, although K.A.W.H. Leenders suggests that this is
infiltration from higher strata in his paper on buckwheat at
http://kuhttp.cc.ukans.edu/kansas/orb/essays/text06.htm .

Leenders can be considered questionable because he mistakenly places the
origin of buckwheat in the Near East or North Africa, although it is
possible that it may have been spread during the Islamic expansion.
Buckwheat is of Asiatic origin.

The Rus Primary Chronicle doesn't mention buckwheat, but food references in
it tend to be very general and there are few mentions of specific grains.

Dembinska provides the fact that two types of buckwheat were known in Poland
during the Middle Ages, Fagopyrum esculentum and F. tartaricum (Tartarian
buckwheat).  Tartarian buckwheat appears to have been introduced during the
Mongol Invasions of the early 13th Century.

I did try to check a paper on analyses of Medieval dung which I remember as
having references to buckwheat, but the URL failed.

Bear

>Well, not exactly. Buckwheat groats IS buckwheat kasha. But kasha is a
>generic term for groats, and buckwheat doesn't appear in Eastern Europe
>until the 13th or 14th century.
>
>-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa