[Sca-cooks] Natural Magick as a Culinary source?

[Stefan li Rous]

Captain Elias said:
> Sorry I did not read that correctly....

Yes, I missed the mais comment also.

> I often get a related question from students when I mention "Roman
> corn ships",

Argh. My first thought was "What kind of dip would go good with  
'Roman corn' chips" :-)

> such as the great ships recovered at the bottom of
> Lake Nemi. So I geeked on that and missed your emphasis...
>
> It looks like it.
> The Spanish brought Indian corn to Europe quite early in the
> conquest, but it remained rather a curiosity, as I understand it.
> Natural Magic was first published in 1550-1560 or so, which is
> late enough that he could have had soem experience with maize.
> Certainly the Spanish and the Italians of Naples were in great
> communication at the time, as Naples was under spanish rule at
> that time for close to 100 years.
> So it is possible that he got a chance to see some maize.

Thanks for the Spanish connection to the Italians. We've talked  
previously about maize replacing wheat in northern Italy during late  
period, but I don't remember any mention of the Spanish actually  
using maize.

A few Florilegium files on this subject in the FOOD-BREADS-GRAINS  
section:
maize-msg         (38K)  9/ 9/04    Discovery of maize (Indian corn)  
in the
                                        Americas and its introduction  
to Europe.
polenta-msg       (22K) 10/ 1/01    Period polenta. Wheat and maize  
polenta.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****