[Sca-cooks] Basque Food

[Terry Decker]

Basque and Catalans are different in both location and language.  Catalan is 
a Romance language.  Basque is not related to any major language and is 
lumped  into a group of unrelated languages including Japanese, Ainu, 
Korean, Elamite, Etruscan, Merotic, Sumerian and Hurrian (according to the 
quick ref).  Catlan is spoken from Andorra East into Catalonia and 
Roussillon (Fr.) and the Balearic Isles.  Basque is spoken at the opposite 
end of the Pyrennees, primarily in the provinces that make up Navarre and, 
at one time, Gascony and Aquitane.

To my knowledge, there are no extant Basque recipes from the SCA period.

Bear




> Try to find the paperback--
> The Original Mediterranean Cuisine: Medieval Recipes for Today
> by Barbara Santich.  There's at least some Catalan in that one.
> Write-up from Prospect Books reads:
> An exploration of cookery in the Mediterranean region before Columbus 
> returned, bringing tomatoes, potatoes, pumpkins and peppers, chillies and 
> corn in his wake. Barbara Santich wrote her doctoral thesis on Catalan 
> cooking of the late middle ages and this wonderful book gives the essence 
> of her conclusions and provides brilliant recipes to recreate the savour 
> of time and place. Devra did carry it too.
>
> Hope this helps,
> Johnnae