[Sca-cooks] olives in period Russia

[Stefan li Rous]

Giano said:
> I don't think olives grow very well in any part of
> the Kievan Rus (checking school atlas - nope, the
> northern boundary of modern olive cultivation
> skirts the southern Black Sea coast), but olive
> oil was a trade good in the later middle ages

So Misha, when is your persona? To do a good job on
persona it needs to be tied to a specific time, not just
an area.

> (witness many period German and English cookbooks)

I must have missed this. Is this really the case? Does the olive
oil only show up as a Lenten/fast day exception? Butter was
restricted on some days whereas olive oil wasn't. Apparently
this did cause some friction between northern and southern
Europe.

If olive oil was in northern Europe only as a fast day
substitute, would this be the case in Russia which was
Orthodox Christian and not Roman Christian?

> and anyone involved in trade would be able to get
> their hands on it, through Novgorod or the Black
> Sea ports. Where you can take olive oil you can
> take pickled olives . . . so now you need a reason
> for your persona to want to.

And be willing to pay for it. When you say "pickled" olives
are you talking about packing them in olive oil? or in vinegar
or brine? I might see some olives being added to the oil if
the oil was the main thing wanted. Carrying jars of brine or vinegar
with olives in them doesn't sound as likely since the cost is
just as high as a jar of olive oil, but there is quite a lot
less of the final product.  Olives can be dried though. Were the
olives imported to northern Europe dried? or pickled?

--
THLord  Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas         stefan at texas.net
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