[Sca-cooks] Fw: Fw: More on potatoes and chilies

[Phlip]

OK, here's Gene's response to my query. I'm including my question to him, so
that y'all know exactly what I asked- I had also fwded my question to Paul
to him, so he was up on what we were discussing.

Thanks, you two ;-) Your input, as ever, is very valuable ;-)

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gene Anderson"
To: "Phlip" <phlip at 99main.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 6:49 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: More on potatoes and chilies


>          The sweet potato case is pretty well known, from Ping-ti Ho's
work
> way back in the 50s.  It was introduced by the Spanish from Mexico to the
> Philiippines (as shown by the universal use of the Nahuatl [Aztec] name
> "camote" there).  Then Chinese merchants trading in the Philippines
> discovered it would be great for their homeland, Fujian, and brought it
> back, in the 17th century.  Maybe end of the 16th, but no documentation
> till the 17th, and then referred to as a new thing.  It spread rapidly all
> over east China.
>          White potato:  probably not till 18th century, maybe even 19th,
> and apparently by French missionaries.  It doesn't grow well in most of
> lowland China, so it really got going only when missionaries got to the
> mountains and wanted to introduce better crops for those areas.  I dare
say
> somebody tried it before that, but it didn't really catch fire till it got
> popular in mountain and upland areas in the 19th c.
>          Chiles:  Introduced by the Portuguese, later also the Spanish, in
> the 16th century, all over Asia.  Accepted almost immediately in the
> spice-loving lands of South and Southeast Asia.  Spread to China probably
> from Macau (Portuguese) in the 16th century, and probably also overland
> from India in the 16th or 17th.  Of course nobody keeps track of such
minor
> matters!  Caught on in the center-west especially (Hunan, Sichuan, &
> neighboring provinces) because they already had a hot cuisine, using spicy
> herbs and the native Chinese brown "pepper" (actually a citrus relative).
>
> All these caused population increases.  Sweet potato provided a great crop
> for sandy, poor soil.  White potato does better in cold, wet mountains
than
> other crops.  Chile is vitamin-rich and grows in tiny bits of soil under
> horribly poor conditions of all sorts.  The seedlings are delicate, but if
> you can start them you have a plant that will survive drought, flood,
heat,
> cold (some), anything, and still produce lots of vitamin-rich,
> mineral-rich, stimulating fruits that also have antiseptic value and so
are
> good for preserving stuff.
>
> Maize was introduced in the 16th century too, also from Macau and India;
> caught on in 18th through 20th; displaced foxtail millet and other
> lower-yield (but more nutritious) summer crops. Now a main crop, but
mostly
> for animal food, as in the US.  It too released demographic explosions,
> this time in upland south and hot parts of the north.  It provided a
> high-yield grain for warmer areas that were well watered but couldn't be
> irrigated (too hilly, etc.) and thus wouldn't do for rice.
>
> Ping-ti Ho's article "The Coming of New World Food Crops to CHina," 1957,
> is still the latest word on a lot of this--a comment on how good his
> scholarship was, but also a sorry comment on how little further work has
> been done.
>
> best--Gene
>
>
>   At 02:51 PM 6/9/2004, you wrote:
>
> >OK, I'm proofing Paul's new book, and found the following information.
Since
> >Paul's citing you as a source, what evidence do you have for the
> >introduction of chilies and potatoes into China? It's a subject of great
> >interest to many SCA Cooks- we're working on food timelines in several
> >directions.
> >
> >Do you know where they were introduced from? Were they introduced
> >simultaneously, perhaps from a single ship load, from a particular
European
> >country? This might help us get a hook on when that country (or
countries)
> >had sufficient to consider them a trade item.
> >
> >Thanks,
> >
> >Saint Phlip,

Saint Phlip,
CoDoLDS

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
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