[Sca-cooks] Recipe for fried avocado from Trudy's North Star

[Decker, Terry D.]

> Ah, Jeeze, Bear, you're taking all the fun out of it.
> They flew them in on their Medieval Boeing jet- 3
> dragons pulling a Rus troika.
>
> Phlip

What can I say, wet blankets r us.

> I don't much care when they were introduced in the US, that's
> all after SCA
> period.

Actually, it is of interest.  Everyone knows the Spanish settled San Agostin
in the mid-16th Century, so obviously they imported the first avocados and
set up the original avocado orchards in what was to become the U.S.  Whether
or not they actually did bring in avocados is open to debate, but if they
did, avocados didn't catch on and had to be re-imported in the 19th Century.

> The earliest citation I find online is 1519, not by Cortez
> but "Suma de
> Geografia" by Martin Fernandez de Enciso.
> <http://www.arc.agric.za/institutes/itsc/main/avocado/origin.htm>

AFAIK, Cortez never wrote an account of his expeditions and the attribution
of his finding the avocado is as apocryphal as that of Columbus finding it
(of course, I haven't read Peter Martyr, so I can not say that the account
does not appear there).

Encisco commanded an expedition into the Isthmus of Darien in 1513.  He lost
command of his forces to a creditor-fleeing stowaway, Vasco Nunez de Balboa,
who went on to cross the Isthmus and become the first conquistador to reach
the Pacific.

I didn't know about "Suma de Geografia," but I'll add it to the book list.
This discussion also reminds me that there was a recently published
translation of Balboa's papers and letters, which may provide more
information.

>
> I'm just proposing a "what if?" exercise.  It could happen;
> avocados can keep
> for a couple of months under refrigeration, what about in
> cold sea water?

That creates a different set of problems which I doubt the avocado would
survive.  The avocados are more likely to have gotten to Europe as seeds or
seedlings.  It would be interesting to try to find when and where they first
start appearing in the botanical literature.

  What
> would 16th Century English sensibilities make of the "butter
> pear"?  Is it too
> rich for Lenten use, or a handy vegetarian substitute for
> beef marrow on fast
> days?
>
> Selene, mean and green in Caid

I have nothing against speculation, but I like to make my speculations as
accurate as possible.  Were I to try to answer your questions, I would first
ask, "How did the 16th Century Europeans in the New World, view and use the
avocado?"  The changes and differences between the native and European use
of the avocado would likely mirror how they would be used when the arrived
in Europe.

Bear