[Sca-cooks] I'm B-A-A-C-K....

[Terry Decker]

Actually, the credo should be "no peppers, tomatoes, potatoes (sweet or 
Irish) or chocolate before 1492, and only as can be documented afterward." 
General use for coffee in the Middle East begins about 1450 expanding 
through most of the Islamic world in the next 70 or so years and introduced 
on a very limited scale into Italy prior to 1600.

Since the Black Death World Tour was primarily in the 14th Century, the 
maize is really an anachronism.

Bear


> In one chapter I worked on, John made the inevitable non-specialists food
> mistake.  The Brits, as we all know, use the word "corn" for any gain, so 
> after
> reading a few British sources, he felt perfectly safe describing an 
> English
> peasant chomping away on an ear of corn.  When I told him that it  was a
> not-very-creative anachronism, he demurred at first until he remembered 
> that the
> Indians introduced the Pilgrims to corn.  I thought of you guys as  I 
> recited
> the credo:  "no peppers, no tomatoes, no "Irish" potatoes, no  chocolate 
> and
> unless you are talking about the East, no coffee either...(Is  that 
> right?)
>
> Laurie