[Sca-cooks] Period food myths

[david friedman]

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>Just to go through the list and sort as I understand their periodicity for
>Europe at the end of the 16th century.
>
>Probably not: Tomatoes, allspice, sweet potatoes, macadamian nuts, and
>chocolate as we know it

There is a reference to tomatoes being eaten, fried in oil, in Italy
in the 16th century; Jan Longone cites it (Longone, Jan, From the
Kitchen, The American Magazine and Historical Chronicle Vol. 3 No. 2
1987-88.).

...

>What I did not incude are coffee and tea.  Anyone want to take a run at
>them?

Coffee and tea both, I believe, come into use in England (along with
chocolate) in the mid-seventeenth century. Coffee starts spreading
through the Islamic world c. 1400; I don't know of any evidence that
it was familiar to europeans before 1600, although no doubt at least
a few would have encountered it. I think tea only starts coming into
Europe in the early seventeenth century, although again there would
be a few Europeans who had encountered it elsewhere.

Incidentally, there is an article in the _Miscellany_, webbed on my
site, that covers a lot of this stuff.
--
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/