[Sca-cooks] OT - A little history

[Daniel Myers]

On Thursday, July 31, 2003, at 02:53 PM, <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net> 
wrote:

>> What does appear clear, though, is that until the early 19th Century, 
>> when
>> Jefferson "proved" their safety and made a big deal of feeding them 
>> to his
>> ambassadorial guests, the Tomato did not appear as a common European
>> foodstuff, even in Italy.
>
> Well, Gerard was of the opinion that they were commonly eaten in Italy
> when he wrote his herbal, and that was in the late 16th century, or if 
> it
> was an unmarked addition by Johnson, it was early 17th century.
>
> So I think it's NOT clear that Europeans didn't eat tomatoes.

I'd say that called it into question if *Italians* ate tomatoes in the 
late 16th or early 17th century, but it's still fairly certain that 
they weren't common in 14th century England, or 13th century France, or 
even 15th century Denmark.

Period for one place and time < > period everywhere in Europe.

- Doc


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  Edouard Halidai  (Daniel Myers)
  http://www.medievalcookery.com/
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