[Sca-cooks] Iberian Peninsula

Stefan li Rous StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
Wed Feb 27 21:23:46 PST 2008


Suey replied to me with:
> Unfortunately, like many (most?) Americans I don't know much about
> the various regions and nationalities of the Iberian Peninsula.
>
> I have just added this request to my "article request list" for the
> Florilegium. Sometime I'll even finally get around to getting this
> list online.  :-)
>
> "9) During the Middle Ages, the Iberian peninsula (now composed of
> Spain, Portugal and the British possession of Gibraltar) was a
> variety of shifting regions and nationalities. An article contrasting
> the different areas and/or the history of the peninsula would be of
> interest."
>
> If anyone has further ideas for this list or would like to see the
> list to perhaps look for article ideas, please email me and I'll send
> it or get it online. Like the Florilegium, this list is not just
> confined to cooking and food subjects.
>
> Stefan

<<< Thanks a bunch. I know I am one of the people who should contrast
Iberian regions with respect to foods but the words don't pop into my
  head. Yes I know lard here and olive oil there, rice here and legumes
there but I have never made an outline of the products. I know I should
try to do it but I need help. >>>

Okay, I hadn't realized that there could be that big a contrast  
between different areas of the Iberian Peninsula. I figured the food  
would be fairly similar throughout the area and that any olive oil/ 
lard differentiation would be between further north in Europe and the  
Mediterranean region. So if there were regional differences that big,  
it might make a good article.

But I'm not even sure how many different regions there were or are or  
how they are related now or through our period of study. So I was  
thinking originally of more broad articles on regions/cultures/ 
historic comparisons/overviews. Something more for us uneducated  
masses, at least to start off with. Even a suggested bibliography or  
a review of books on the region would be good. Was Moorish influence  
uniform throughout the area, changing perhaps from south to north? Or  
was it more broken up than that? Of course more scholarly articles  
would be of interest as well.

The number of folks in the SCA with personas centered on the British  
Isles is much greater proportionally than their population or even  
their historical impact on the real Middle Ages. Part of this is  
because there is more material available in their native language  
(English or American) than for other cultures with the possible  
exception of some cultures like the Viking Norse. I'd like to  
encourage folks to learn about other cultures as well.

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 ****





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