[Sca-cooks] Tomatoes

[grizly]

-----Original Message-----
> > > > Greetings
 So after several dozens of e-mails the question still stands. Are Tomatoes
period or not? <<SNIP>> < < < <

I contend that the first question continues to be definition of "period or
not".  Until there is a clear explantaion of what that prhase actually means
to the person asking thwe question, there can be no meaningful answer.  All
of the stuff you said is well thought out and well reasoned.  It does not,
however, answer your above question . . . a yes or no binary decision.

In my small little world in West Georgia, it is more important to understand
all that other stuff you said than to play the "period or not" game that has
very dangerously many interpretations, deinfitions, applications,
permutations, agitations, undulations and aggregations.  Using Ras' personal
viewpoint, the tomato is very definitely, in Western Europe, Early Modern in
terms of cusine and cullinary useage . . . Rennaissance at earliest.

Now we have argued when tomatoes showed up and were used how, we have to
start a brand new argument about what the SCA "period" is.  Totally
irrelevant to the issue of tomatoes (or any other food product), but
absolutley required for the "period or not" argument.  Seems cleaner to talk
about how a given item or technique was introduced to various cultures and
times, how it spread, and who was most likel to have availed themselves of
it when, where and how.

THEN, whoever wants to use that information can fit it into whatever
personal idiom they have for what date we cut off, what social structure
they want to play with, and what theme of activity is their preference.  We,
the researchers and seekers of knowledge, don't have to muddy our task with
intention and application so much as clarity/accuracy of information and
propagation of that information.  When we then start appling what we've
learned (which we all do), then we become the consumers of the knowledge,
which has its own challenges and rewards.

niccolo difrancesco
(I promise this is the last exposition about "period" as a term of
demarkation)