[Sca-cooks] New World Foods
Lilinah
lilinah at earthlink.net
Fri Apr 25 17:04:20 PDT 2008
I'm putting together a list of New World foods, things for new
historical cooks to watch out for, both in assessing other people's
modern versions of historical recipes and in trying to make their
own. A few show up in 16th C. food recipes, but many don't. I want
this to be brief, i don't want a lot of detail, but i do want it to
be basically accurate.
Did i make any gross inaccuracies? Perpetuate putrid myths? Leave out
something significant?
I get this list as a Digest, so sometimes i don't see responses for
many many hours, the class is tomorrow, and i'll be leaving the house
quite early - it's a long drive to the site. So if anyone has
comments, please *send them to me directly*, as well as to the list,
otherwise i may well not see it until i get back.
lilinah (at) earthlink (dot) net
-------
New World Foods
These were not known in Europe until some time after 1492. Bearing in
mind that the SCA covers at least 1,000 years, and often more on the
early side, the 16th century is only 10% or less of our period.
Second, unlike modern people, people of the past were not generally
in a big hurry to try new foods. A few New World items were adopted
in the 16th C. but most were not. Among those fairly quickly adopted
were sweet potatoes and turkey and some bean were also fairly quickly
adopted.
Occasionally there is mention of some of these plants in published
herbals or being grown in botanical gardens. Neither is an indication
that they were commonly eaten, only that they were known, and were
considered exotic. Additionally often items were more quickly adopted
by trade partners rather than Spain or Portugal.
So beware of any modern versions of period recipes from earlier than
the 16th century that use any of these ingredients.
Allspice
Also sometimes called pimiento (not to be confused with the bell
pepper of that name), or Jamaica pepper - i have found no evidence
for its use.
Beans - all beans.
A number of other pulses were known in the Old World, but not beans.
Among the pulses that were known include garbanzos/chick peas, black
eyed peas and other related pulses, fava beans, dried peas, lentils.
Bell Peppers
No evidence of their use within SCA period. They may be a later breed
of pepper and seem to have been adopted by cultures around the
Mediterranean.
Chile Peppers
They were brought back to Spain by Columbus, and were considered of
medicinal value and also used as trade goods with Asia. Even today
fresh chile peppers are not a common part of European cuisine.
Various forms of dried peppers are used as paprika, and a few of them
are somewhat spicy.
Chocolate
While a chocolate beverage was known in Mexico, it was mixed with
chiles and was an aphrodisiac for men, not a dessert drink. The
Spanish created a very thick sweet chocolate beverage in the 16th C.,
for which we have some early 17th C. recipes. But it was not drunk
elsewhere in Europe, and was primarily for the upper classes.
Corn/Maize
Corn is still something of a mystery to most modern Europeans,
although they are starting to become familiar with young sweet corn
on the cob. Most that is grown is a dry and not tasty variety meant
as animal feed. Cooked corn meal is used commonly in only a few
places, being the modern polenta of Italy and the mamaliga of
Romania. There are four recipes in Scappi that may include soaked
dried corn.
Pineapple
While it was sometimes grown as an exotic plant and was eaten by
Columbus's crew, i have found no evidence that it featured commonly
in European cuisine.
Potatoes
Potatoes are from South America and were not known until some years
into the 16th C. White potatoes and their relatives were not popular
in Europe for quite a long time beyond the end of SCA-period and when
finally adopted were often considered as food for the poor.
Squash - all squash summer and winter
They only ate young gourds in the Old World prior to the 16th C. I
have found some evidence to suggest that squashes were sometimes
eaten in some places in Europe in the 16th C.
Sweet Potatoes
We generally eat two varieties of sweet potatoes in the US, a
red-brown skin with an orange interior, and a purple skin with a
drier starchier yellow interior. Sometimes one variety is called a
yam, but it isn't actually a yam. There are a number of recipes using
sweet potatoes, sometimes called batatas, in 16th c. Spanish and
English cookbooks.
Tomatoes
They were not known until after Cortes found them in Meso-America
around 1519. There are a few rare mentions of pan frying tomatoes in
late 16th C. Spain and Italy, but they are not common and while they
were grown in England for some time, their use was not common there
well into the 19th C. They seem to have been more readily adopted in
places around the Mediterranean. For more details see:
http://home.comcast.net/~iasmin/mkcc/MKCCfiles/16thCITomatoReferences.html
Sixteenth Century Italian and Spanish Tomato References
by Johnnae llyn Lewis, Helewyse de Birkestad and from the East
Kingdom Brighid ni Chiarain
Turkey
The turkey was adopted in Europe in the 16th century. Our word
suggests it was from the Eastern Mediterranean, while the French
work, dinde, suggests it was from India.
Vanilla
This seed pod from an orchid was known in Europe by the very late
16th c., but not used in food. It found rare and occasional use in
medicine or as a fragrance.
--
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita
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