[Sca-cooks] No Sugar in 10th Century??

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Balthazar wrote:
>This is an article on Food and Drink in Anglo-Saxon
>England.  I read it slack-jawed, particularly because
>I found it on a 'TeacherNet' web site.  Can anyone
>verify these claims?

>< My Comment: No parsley?  No oranges? Hmmnn...>

Yes, no oranges (i thought you were on the list for these
discussions, but maybe it was before your time, Balthazar). Oranges
originally came from East or Southeast Asia. They were brought by
Muslims into the Near East and eventually into Muslim Spain. But the
first oranges were not the sweet ones we now eat, which IIRC, were
developed in the mid to late 16th c. The first were bitter or Seville
oranges, which are nowadays made into marmalade. They are sometimes
available at the Berkeley Bowl Market near me in California.

But no parsley? That puzzles me. It's true that the curly or frizzy
parsley we usually see is a recent development, but i thought they
had flat leaf parsley - often called Italian parsley in modern
markets - in England early on...

>"...Garlic and wild onions
>helped to give the meat from old animals some flavour
>and were used extensively."

Huh? Old animals have no flavor? Older animals are generally tougher,
but they usually have plenty of flavor.

><My Comment: Of course we already know that all meat
>in the middle ages was old or spoiled...>

BTW, Hrolf, Balthazar was just joking here. This is one of those
comments made by SCAdians who claim that Medieval food isn't edible
to the "modern palate" and it also shows up in mundane newspapers and
even some books on food - shame on the authors.

><My Comment: Is this true? No sugar in 10th century
>England?>

I will trust Hrolf's dates here, as i'm not quite certain when sugar
reached England. But it was a somewhat rare commodity, even when it
was imported, which some folks speculate is why it was sprinkled on
top of all sorts of dishes along with spices, to be showy. It was
imported from the Muslims, who had gotten it, IIRC, from India into
the Near East early on. It apparently became pretty common by the
16th century, which I have heard is why there are so many sweets and
fruit preserve recipes from Elizabethan and later cookbooks.

>"...Almonds, walnuts,
>beech-nuts, hazel nuts and chestnuts were eaten too."

Were almonds common in England by the 10th century? I thought they
were more Mediterranean...

Anahita