[Sca-cooks] Tomatoes( was Philip)

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jan 12, 2006, at 4:01 PM, Micheal wrote:

> Admantious share the scotch with Philip, no fault , no fowl. But  
> when does a pan, pot, bowl, cease to be simply a Pan?

And what is it when it is on three legs in old age? It doesn't cease  
to be a pan, but when a dish is named for the vessel (as paella has  
been alleged to be), it means that the ingredients are not, or were  
not, originally, set in stone. So, for example, a period civey is  
probably no longer a civey if you omit the onions: its identity was  
originally determined by its ingredients (today the onions are often  
omitted, but the name remains). Chowder, on the other hand, is  
alleged to be named for the cooking pot, and it could contain almost  
anything, and all this modern fuss about the One True Authentic  
Chowder is almost certainly Revisionist History at work.

Lacking all other information, I would have assumed paella was named  
for the rice, but various pieces of evidence exist to suggest it is  
in fact named for the cooking vessel (i.e. patella, etc.). However,  
if that's the case, then it opens up the possibility that paellas  
need not contain rice to be paellas, but in addition, may have been  
totally different beasties once upon a time, as long as it was cooked  
in that type of vessel.

So what's the goal of your research project here? Are we trying to  
prove paella is a period dish because there's a period vessel with a  
similar name, or are we trying to prove that period paella is similar  
to modern paella (which may or may not prove to be the case)?

Either way, you sort of need to defecate or get off the patella, as  
one might say. Either the Valencia Tourist Board is a legitimate  
source for info on paella or they're not, but without some pretty  
strong evidence, I'm inclined to think that if the dish is as old as  
they claim, it probably didn't originally contain tomatoes. Certainly  
there are recipes out there which don't include them...

Adamantius




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04