[Sca-cooks] NEW PROJECT - Food Timeline - Hugh big Project

[Decker, Terry D.]

Don't let my questions keep you from a worthy effort, but be aware most
timelines are of only limited use because the are broad in scope, but
shallow in scholarship.  Here are some questions I use when consulting any
timeline and a consideration of the problems in establishing a food
timeline.

What are the criteria for inclusion?  First documented appearance?  Common
use?

What is the required documentation?  Primary source?  Secondary source?
Apocryphal source?  And what are the requirements for verifying veracity?

How fine a geographical and temporal granularity?

To give some examples of the problems:

White potatoes.  I recently read a paper which places white potatoes in the
Low Countries in the 1580s.  Technically this is true, Charles Lecluse
(Carolus Clusius) received the first potatoes known to have arrived in the
Low Countries in 1588.  Clusius was a botantist, studying and writing about
the plant.  They were not in common use and probably were not in common use
until the 18th Century.  The paper seems to make the assumption that simply
because the potatoes were there, they were being eaten.  How would this be
entered?

Bananas.  The first bananas known to be commercially sold in England in
1633.  This represents one stalk, transported live from the Indies,
harvested and sold in London.  Bananas may have been marketed in England
prior to that (there is some current historical research into the matter),
but they would probably have been irregular and expensive luxury items.
General usage does not begin until the late 19th/early 20th Century.  What
is the proper date for the timeline?  Should there multiple entries
detailing the differences?

Rye.  Most sources place cultivated rye as being about 5,000 years old.
Excavations at Abu Hureya have produced rye seeds 10,000 years old similar
to cultivated rye, but no sign of cultivation.  A possible explanation is a
natural hybridization produced by a harvesting and reseeding of wild rye
fields with part of the harvested grain (a form of cultivation which would
leave no signs other than the hybridized grain).  Which date(s) will you
use?

Most timelines are one dimensional (time) with a granularity of one year or
greater and a general locale as part of the entry.  You are looking at a two
dimensional (time and place) timeline with granularity of one year divided
by at least countries and more likely parts of countries (regions) to
maintain historical perspective.  Bibliographic and research notes may add a
third dimension.

I would recommend that you establish and publish criteria for inclusion and
documentation of entries, then keep to them.  It would make for a far more
useful timeline than Trager's The Food Chronology.

Bear


> To create a documented TimeLine that provides food, fruits,
> vegetables and such for different countries adn times and
> when they arrived and was used and you can search to see what
> all was used in like 10th cent wales, my time period, so if i
> am doing a feast and what to know if lemons were available
> and i can use them on the table or in a dish then i look them
> up and see that ....
>
> Morvran