[Sca-cooks] Maize

[Radei Drchevich]

My Hortis Guide "Botanical Distionary of all species cultivated in North 
America" states that "Maize" is of New World Origin, probably peru.

At what time where the Ottoman Turks planting Maize?

>From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
>Reply-To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
>To: "Christiane" <christianetrue at earthlink.net>,        "Cooks within the 
>SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
>Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] How the turkey got its name ...
>Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 19:07:53 -0600
>
>Fascinating article, but it's got some problems.
>
>The term turkey was apparently used for Guinea fowl before the North 
>American turkey arrived in Europe and transferred to the larger bird when 
>it arrived.  The assumption has been that the Guinea fowl were being sold 
>as exotic meats from the sophisticated and wealthy Ottoman empire.  I 
>suspect that the Turkish use of "Ethiopean fowl" for Turkey is based on 
>better knowledge of where Guinea fowl derive, which suggests they may have 
>returned to Europe via Turkey.  The Romans ate Guinea fowl which they had 
>imported from Africa and called the Numidian hens.
>
>To my knowledge, there were no turkeys served at that first Thanksgiving 
>and it was maize supplied by the natives that kept the Pilgrims from 
>starving.
>
>The "hindi" or "Indische" came about because of confusion over the East and 
>West Indies.  Foodstuffs which originated in the (West) Indies often became 
>labelled as being from India (check out capsicum peppers in Leonard Fuchs 
>herbal as a fine example).
>
>I'd also be careful with the translation of "gallapoula."  The scientific 
>name for the turkey is Meleagris gallopavo.  Meleagris is the Greek word 
>for the Guinea fowl and gallopavo essentially means "cock peacock."   I 
>don't have the resources at hand, but this comes across as problematic and 
>deserving of a closer study of the etymology.
>
>Maize is called "Gran Turco" or "Turkisch Korn" (Fuchs) because the 
>Ottomans planted it heavily and apparently Europeans were primarily 
>introduced to it from Turkey.
>
>The "chulluk" is, according to one source, a woodcock, which would probably 
>not have been introduced to Europe from Turkey.  I'd place my bets of the 
>Guinea fowl.
>
>Bear
>
>
>

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