[Sca-cooks] Corn Bread

[a5foil]

> Someone on our Kingdom list is arguing that old line: if they had
> ingredient X in period, they must have had cooked dish Y. In this
> case, the discussion is centering around...
>
> Cornbread
>
> My experiences in Europe indicate that even today, corn, i.e., maize,
> is not a commonly eaten food. This person is arguing that since
> Renaissance Europeans made bread, they must have made cornbread once
> they discovered corn.
>
> I think that this is not a logical argument. Can anyone point out the
> pros or cons of this discussion? If i'm wrong, i'm willing to admit
> it.

Logic doesn't enter into the argument. People who make these kinds of
arguments already know better - that's why they rationalize a particular
persona to justify New World ingredients. Such people aren't interested in
the pros or cons - all they really want is an excuse. So, save your breath
and your energy, because these folks generally don't care.

Other people on the list have addressed corn/maize and its use in pre-17th
century Europe. Modern cornbread is right out (cornbread leavened with
baking soda/powder and buttermilk). There is evidence for flat corn cakes,
as others have pointed out. It is possible that some enterprising baker even
tried sourdough bread made with corn (bleh!), though I suspect that would
probably have been unsuccessful given the lack of gluten in the grain.

>
> Another person says that since they have a late period Spanish
> persona, they can freely eat tomatoes, potatoes, and corn.

Freely? Not as a medieval/renaissance reenactor, but possibly if they were
reenacting 17th-18th century Spanish Colonial. Again, save your breath.
These people are relying on the absence of documentation to the contrary,
not on evidence of the practice.

> IIRC, there is some evidence in the 16th c. for tomatoes cooked as a
> vegetable in Italy (and maybe Spain), and sweet potatoes (but not

Tomatoes appear in Spain and Italy as botanical curiosities in the first
half of the 16th century, but not as a widely used food. The Spanish were
first interested in the pharmaceutical potential of these New World plants,
not their potential as a common food ingredient. Tomatoes don't appear in
the available pre-17th century Spanish cookery books as a staple. I have no
doubt (but also no proof) that someone experimented with little, hard,
bitter, yellow, mildy toxic, tomatoes early on, just as Raleigh did with
tobacco. But the results were not remarkable enough to warrant writing down
in anything that has survived and been studied.

> *white* potatoes) eaten in Spain in period. However, i don't recall

IIRC, there is some evidence suggesting that white potatoes were a subject
of medical experimentation at the Hospital Sangre in Seville in the 1570's,
again, as a pharmaceutical. However, we all know what pranksters period
physicians were, and I strongly suspect it was a case of having a captive
audience and deciding to see what would happen if they fed the New World
tuber to patients. Sounds like a subject for a Far Side comic...

A single source of evidence of medical experimentation does not yield the
conclusion that potatoes were freely used in pre-17th century Spanish
cuisine.

> maize coming up on this list as a food eaten in Spain or other parts
> of Europe in the 16th c.
>
> I welcome all information - particularly about corn, i.e., maize.
>
> Anahita
>
> The discussion has also been about chocolate and stew, which someone
> in the thread insisted that just because there's no evidence, it's so

The making of chocolate is neither simple nor obvious (nor pre-17th century,
unless I'm mistaken). IIRC, the pre-17th century use of cocoa by the Spanish
was as part of a medicinal beverage based on observations of the Mayan
pharmaceuticals, and it was made of ground, roasted cocoa beans, ground
capsicum, and hot water. Stimulating, yes, but hardly pleasant.
Unfortunately, my collection of post-Columbian herb and medical
documentation, where I picked up these trivial tidbits, is packed away.

If any of these folks has solid evidence of these ingredients being widely
used in pre-17th century Spanish culture, I'd be very interested.

Thomas Longshanks