[Sca-cooks] food in season and how to cook it (was OLD thread )

[Decker, Terry D.]

> chiles, tomatoes, watermelon, okra, peaches.  I suppose
> peaches would have
> been the only thing, period wise, that would have been
> available to me.

Watermelon is African in origin and appears in the Tacuinum Sanitatis.  Okra
is Asian in origin, but I know of no pre-17th Century references, although I
would suspect okra was known in Europe by some time in the 16th Century.

> When did brown sugar come into use?

The first European references to sugarcane are in the 4th Century BCE (IIRC)
and refining sugar appears to have been developed in the Middle East by the
5th Century.  The Islamic expansion of the 7th and 8th Centuries spread it
around the Mediterranean.

Sugar was originally a medicine.  It became a spice and flavor enhancer and
then a major ingredient.  Usage appears to increase with increasing European
control of sugar producing area.

Bear