[Sca-cooks] Indian Maize in Italy in period??????

[Nick Sasso]

> -----Original Message-----
> > Comments???  Could they be using the term "maize" or
> "Indian Maize" the
> > same way other writers used the term, "corn"...i.e., just another
> > reference to a kind of flour, but not to what we know as corn?
>
> I think that's interesting, but doesn't especially upset the
> apple cart
> in terms of when corn appeared for culinary use.
> What I'd be interested to know is whether this was a serious,
> food-producing planting, or essentially an experimental one.
> --
> Adele de Maisieres


I'd also like to know if it GREW.  I have much personal experience that
simply placing a seed in fertile soil with water does not assure a living
plant . . . let alone viability to produce anything edible if it does grow.
What we have rock solid (sort of) evidence of is that someone ordered a
servant to put a/some "Indian" grain in some dirt somewhere in Castello.
That is about the end of direct evidence, and the beginning of the leap(s)
on which are based further assumptions of widespread eating of maize.

Depending on the language of origin, I'd also like to see the original word
and translation to find out if there is any other possible meaning that
could be derived in addition to "Indian" grain.  The syntax also seems to
suggest it could have been planted in a  garden and not in an entire field
". . . in the garden at the Villa at Castello."


niccolo difrancesco