[Sca-cooks] Asia to Middle East to Europe

[Daniel Phelps]

I wrote:
> >
> > I suggest that yogurt, henna, bananas, coconuts, frequent bathing, gun
> > powder, certain medical practices, lenses and eye glasses, faceted gem
> > stones, distillation, perfumery, certain board games, true porcelain,
> > certain mathematical/accounting concepts, calendar reform and temperance
> > caught on significantly later in Europe.  I'm just not sure if all of
these
> > came out of Asia first.

 Giano replied to my some what tongue in cheek, or is it cheeky(?) list:

>
> I think there is a problem with many of the items listed. Some of them are
> simply climate-dependent. The banana can not catch on in Europe before
> refrigerated rapid transport, for example.

Yes many items that traveled from Asia to the Middle East are climate
dependant and did not travel well north before refrigeration, the banana
being a prime example.   Please note that the question did not specify why
an item did not catch on in Europe until later only requested that shcy
items be named.

Yogurt is another example.
> Anthimus mentions in his 'Observations of Food' something called 'melca',
a
> kind of coagulated milk popular at the time. It is not yogurt, but it is
not
> likely to have been different enough for anyone but a connoisseur to
> appreciate the difference. Hence, no need.

I will be happy to concede yogurt.

 And rest assured I can say from
> experience that madder will stain skin and fingernails as reliably as
henna
> (wooden spoon next time).

Hmmm... like effect but not the same item.  Seems to me that an item would
not spread north if the local equivalent is just as good or better.  Thus
another reason why an item would not move.
>

> Frequent bathing and perfumery were both popular in many parts of Europe -
so
> popular that, on occasion, the church had to intervene and limit the
> practice. Of course this, too, is background-dependent, and I doubt a
crofter
> in rural Scotland got to bathe very often, but that was not a question of
> choice. Sources indicate that bathing daily was common practice among, for
> example, the urban upper classes of Salerno in the 12th century.

Freqeunt bathing would thus be another climate dependant item tempered with
cultural issues as well?  No religious injunction to do so in Europe and
indeed occasional religious proscription against the practice.  Regarding
perfumery it is my understanding that many of the bases for complex scents
are semi-tropical or tropical in nature and/or based on the mass cultivation
of various rather temperature sensitive flowers.  That and the preparation
techniques were closely held/secret.
>
> When did true porcelain make it to the middle east? I know of glazed
pottery
> that looked a bit like it, but these, too, were copied in Europe
(Theophilus
> Presbyter records recipes for the glaze).

To Europe with the Portuguese and later the Dutch out of China in16th and
17th century a imported luxury pieces I think... then later as a process.
To the middle east in trade some what earlier and definately to the Ottoman
Empire in trade if the Chinese pieces in the Turkish National Museum are
good examples.  That being said I don't know when true porcelain actually
made it to the middle east as a process.  I am reasonably sure that it was
earlier than the 16th century and the technique closely held.
>
> As to calendar reform and mathematics, I am not friends with numbers, from
> what little I do understand the Computus of Bede is quite complex, and
> matters calendaric were something of an obsession in Dark Age Europe.
> Indian-derived Arabic numbers took longer to be accepted there, that is
true.

I was thinking of the calendar reforms of Omar (the Persian better know for
his poetry).
>
> Finally, temperance was much appreciated in medieval Europe, though more
often
> in praise than practice. Among many others, the Regula Magistri (and, I
> believe, Benedicti) restricts alcohol of any kind to the sick and
Tannhäuser
> is very clear on the fact that a noble man *never* drinks to excess.

While I figure that temperance was practiced or at least recommended in both
arenas at least in the Moslem world it was religiously enjoined.  I admit
that it is a bit of a cheeky addition.
>
> It is often assumed (and entire history books are based around it) that
> medieval Europe lived in self-imposed darkness for centuries until it
finally
> decided to learn from the civilised nations around it. This account is
rather
> flawed, for one thing because it takes places like England, the Rhineland
or
> Northern France as its baseline for 'Europe', and for another because it
> assumes that the Europeans would have been freely able to 'learn'. I think
> the modern Third World makes a better analogy. It is not that Africans are
> ignorant of mobile phones, soap or flush toilets. Also, if we look at all
of
> Europe, we see more of a civilisational cline, from a high level in Greece
> and Italy to - comparatively - primitive poverty in the Baltic or
Scotland.
> And even these civilisations are now known to have been far more refined
than
> originally assumed.

In the main I quite agree but I suggest that these arguements are some what
irrelevant to the question at hand.  We are talking about how and if
specific items and techniques orginated and spread.  The forces that slow
such spread are to my mind:

climate and perishability issues
no period bananas commonly found in Denmark mayhaps or quat for that matter.

cultural issues,
I suppose the making of eunuchs is possibly a good example of a practice
which may be argued to have spread from Asia to the Middle East but only in
very special cases, such as in Italy, north.

closely held techniques such as  porcelain

lack of interest in an item for which no immediate application seemed to
present itself

Local equavalents were as good or better for the same purpose

The novelty did not justify the expense, i.e. the coconut.

Daniel