[Sca-cooks] new world foods; old world names

[elisabetta at klotz.org]

And speaking of New World foods....

I am helping my friend Matt cook his first feast, and it will be at 
Seraglio in
November, and the theme this year is the Levant. Of course this means research
for both of us, but hey any excuse to buy more middle eastern cuisane 
cookbooks
is fine with me.

So here's the question part of the e-mail.

While we were talking about types of foods and recipes part of the discussion
went like this:

ME: There are certain foods that we eat which may not be the same strains as
they ate or the same food.
Matt: like what?
Me: Well, they had apples, but they were different strains then US apples. A
Macintosh or Raeburn would be a good substitute. And watermelon, but I 
think it
was smaller...
Matt: Well the watermelon we eat are berries, are these berries?
Me: I don't know, we'll have to look it up.
Matt: ok, what else?
Me: Peppers would be chinese peppers, not American peppers. There's a Lebonese
hot sauce, but I know it uses chili peppers now, so we'll have to see if A.
it's period and B. what they used instead of chili peppers.
Matt: would they have chinese foods and spices?
Morgaine (autocrat): Yes, they were the start of the Silk Road. Pumpkins
Me: yeah, pumpkins weren't big and orange...
Morgaine: no squash, they were gourds
Matt: what types of gourds?
Me: I'm not sure, we'll have to look it up. Watermelons are berries?
Matt: yes.
Me: ok.
Matt: asparagus?
Morgaine: different strain, don't use them.
Matt: artichokes?
Me: I know they were used in Roman times, I don't know if they were 
used in the
Levant. This is where the research part comes in.

ok, you get the idea. So here's the question:
Peppers and watermelon and pumpkin/gourds. Can anyone recommend some sources
that I can pass on to him and use myself? And whose idea was it to use
established food names for newly discovered foods?

:)
Elisabetta