[Sca-cooks] Late-period Caribbean food (was Asking a favor of Phlip]

[Dan Phelps]

Was written:

> One of the sources for information about New World food is the "Historia
> Moral y Natural de la Indias".  It was published in 1590, and was written
by
> Jose de Acosta, a Jesuit priest who spent over 15 years in various parts
of
> the New World.  The entire book is available online in Spanish at:
> http://cervantesvirtual.com/FichaObra.html?portal=0&Ref=600

Snip:

> En las islas que llaman de Barlovento, que son Cuba, la Española, Puerto
> Rico, Jamaica, se halla el que llaman manatí, extraño género de pescado,
si
> pescado se puede llamar animal que pare vivos sus hijos, y tiene tetas, y
> leche con que los cría, y pace yerba en el campo; pero en efecto habita de
> ordinario en el agua, y por eso le comen por pescado, aunque yo cuando en
> Santo Domingo lo comí un viernes, casi tenía escrúpulo, no tanto por lo
> dicho, como porque en el color y sabor no parecían sino tajadas de
ternera,
> y en parte de pernil, las postas de este pescado: es grande como una vara.
>
> In the Windward Islands, which are Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica,
> there is what they call manatee, a strange kind of fish, if one can call
"fish"
> an animal which bears live young, and has teats, and milk which it raises
> them on, and grazes on grass in the field, though normally it lives in
water,
> and because of theat, they eat it as fish, although when I ate some in
Santo
> Domingo on a Friday, I almost had scruples, not so much because of what I
> have said, but because in color and flavor they resembled slices of veal
from
> the haunch, the slices of this fish; it is as big as a pike.
>
Is there any further information regards the cooking and eating of the "sea
cow" in period either in the New World or the now extinct variety which
lived in the Indian Ocean?  I have been told that manatee is still or until
recently was ocasionally eaten in Cuba in rural areas.

Daniel

>
> Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
> Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
> rcmann4 at earthlink.net
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-cooks mailing list
> Sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
> http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/listinfo/sca-cooks