[Sca-cooks] New World Foods

[Lilinah]

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

My LibraryThing
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/lilinah