[Sca-cooks] new food history show

[Decker, Terry D.]

Actually, I don't see too many things to quibble about in the article.

I'm of the opinion the potato was adopted because inflation devalued wages
and the rising population needed to eat, rather than being a direct cause of
the population explosion, but it is debatable.

It simplifies the transfer of foodstuffs between the New and Old Worlds by
limiting it to Columbus's voyages, but the Spanish followed an aggressive
policy of cultivar exchange which they probably inherited from the Moors.

The statements on sugar are reasonably accurate but simplistic.  On cattle
raising, I must take exception.  The first cattle ranch may have been in
Florida, but you don't necessarily need a ranch to raise cattle.  Given the
hundreds of thousands of cattle driven across Europe during the 15th to 17th
Centuries (see Braudel for the basic analysis), a lot of people knew how to
raise cattle.  What they may not have been able to do is introduce the
economies of scale large area open range grazing can provide, but the number
of cattle flowing into Central Europe from the Steppes makes one wonder.

The 1530 date is also open to debate.  The first colonization attempt I know
of was that of Panfilo de Narvaez in 1528 and it was less than successful.
The successful colonization was during the 1550's with San Augustine being
founded in 1565 (IIRC).

The Canaries are off the Morrocan Coast rather than the coast of Spain,
although I will admit it was "Spanish Morroco."

I guess I'll have to tape these to see how well Wolf does his homework.

Bear


> I saw this article in today's paper, but I watched Enterprise
> and missed th=
> e show. I will try to catch the show on Saturday. Check your
> local listings=
>  for it. It will be interesting to see how acurate it actually is.
>
> Aislinn
>
> A culinary history lesson
>   Burt Wolf's new series, What We Eat, traces how food has
> affected history=
>  in the past 500 years.
> By JANET K. KEELER, Times Staff Writer
> =A9 St. Petersburg Times
> published October 9, 2002
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> -------------=
> -----
>
>       Burt Wolf
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------
>
> Burt Wolf eats up trivia like it's a big bowl of pasta and
> still leaves roo=
> m for a slice of sinful pie.
>
> It was the Swiss who figured out how to make fine chocolate
> from the cacao =
> bean.
>
> Szechuan food wasn't spicy until Portuguese traders brought
> chili peppers t=
> o China.
>
> Potatoes were responsible for the population explosion in
> northern Europe t=
> hat led to the Industrial Revolution.
>
> These are some of the food history tidbits that the TV food
> and travel jour=
> nalist dishes out on his new 13-week PBS show, What We Eat,
> debuting tonigh=
> t. The show explores how the Old World and New World were
> linked through th=
> e exchange of plants and animals during Columbus' voyages
> from 1492 to 1502=
> . This year marks the 500th anniversary of the explorer's
> fourth, and final=
> , voyage to the New World.
>
> Wolf marvels at how Columbus' voyages changed the course of
> history and he =
> never really even knew where he was. When Columbus first made
> landfall in 1=
> 492, he thought the crew had made it to the East Indies. They
> were likely i=
> n the Bahamas.
>
> "He had no clue at all," Wolf says by phone from Napa,
> Calif., where's he w=
> orking on episode No. 12, "The Story of Wine in the Americas."
>
> The series, shot on location in the United States, the
> Caribbean, Europe an=
> d Mexico, shows how food has affected history in the last
> five centuries.
>
> For instance, sugar cane, native to India, was introduced to
> the Middle Eas=
> t and then to medieval Europe as a medicine and rare spice.
> In the 18th and=
>  19th centuries, sugar heavily influenced British government
> policy, from w=
> ages to wars. In those days, sugar held the cache that oil does today.
>
> Wolf traces the history of sugar cane in next week's episode,
> "How Sweet It=
>  Is: The Story of Sugar." Part of the episode was filmed at a
> South Florida=
>  sugar plantation. Florida is also featured in episode No. 4,
> on livestock.
>
> "The first cattle ranch was in Florida," Wolf says. "No one
> in Europe knew =
> how to raise cattle (except) a small group of people in
> Spain. And by 1530,=
>  they had big cattle ranches in central Florida."
>
> You'd think Wolf, who has reported on the global food scene
> for years, woul=
> d know everything there is to know about food. Every episode,
> though, held =
> some surprises.
>
> "It was amazing," he says. "Every day I was walking around
> saying 'I didn't=
>  know that, I didn't know that.' " He learned the most, he
> says, about chil=
> i peppers.
>
> "Capsaicin, the ingredient that makes chilis hot, is also the
> active ingred=
> ient in Vicks 44 and Robitussin," he says.
>
> Wolf relied on historians, anthropologists, journalists and
> professors to a=
> ssist him in his research.
>
> "Many were people in their late 70s and 80s, out of the
> politics of univers=
> ity life and open to talk about their feelings," he says. If
> that sounds dr=
> amatic, so is food history. For instance, one of his sources
> explained how =
> Columbus' mother-in-law had a sugar plantation in the Canary
> Islands, off t=
> he coast of Spain. She planted cane along with small pox.
>
> Tonight's episode, "When Money Grew on Trees: The Story of
> Chocolate," foll=
> ows the cacao bean from a Mexican plantation to a chocolate
> bar in the Unit=
> ed States. After watching the show, you'll come away with
> great respect for=
>  the Swiss chocolate houses. Taking the tiny, hard cacao bean
> from finicky =
> plants grown only near the equator and figuring out how to
> extract cocoa bu=
> tter to make creamy chocolate is an amazing feat.
>
> Wolf says that food events happening today will be studied in
> years to come=
> .
>
> "There are still enormous shifts in what people eat or don't
> eat today," Wo=
> lf says. "There is extraordinary starvation in Africa and
> Asia right now, a=
> nd they'll have to shift their food base to survive."
>
> That means returning to crops that worked well for them in
> the past, he say=
> s. And they'll need help from other nations to accomplish that.
>
> "Everyone is talking about self-sustaining agriculture," Wolf
> says. The dan=
> ger is relying too heavily on one food source, he says. He
> sees that happen=
> ing in the United States with corn, the topic of episode No. 7.
>
> "Corn is amazing," he says. "There are 2,000 items in the
> supermarket, and =
> 1,900 have corn in them. Corn is what drives American
> industry; it's the bi=
> ggest food in America. But it's very scary when we narrow
> what's available =
> to us."
>
> To prevent the devastation that would occur if disease wiped
> out corn crops=
> , scientists have developed bioengineered strains. The
> results of these exp=
> eriments might be studied by food historians 100 years from now.
>
> Wolf's culinary history lesson is worth a watch, especially
> for food lovers=
>  who want to know more about what they eat.
>
>