[Sca-cooks] Yams was Substitute for Potatoes?

[Judith Epstein]

On Aug 24, 2009, at 6:19 PM, David Friedman wrote:

>> Good thing I'm not intending to portray a European.
>
> You've rejected Sepharad as a possible home?

Yes. I've posted before, albeit on other SCA lists, that my intent is  
to portray a Mizrachi Jew or an Indian Jew -- haven't decided which,  
but Europe is off the list for me.

> I believe that the old world yams are native to subsaharan Africa. I  
> wouldn't think there would have been many Jews there in period,  
> although I suppose traders are possible.

Right, traders. Especially Jewish ones, who were known to  
*individually* travel the known world -- not just one family trading  
in northern India, meeting up with another family at the end of their  
route in China, who meets up with another family on the end of their  
route in... Individual Jews covered continents with their footprints.  
Yet another reason I'm happy to choose to portray a Jew (the first  
being that it's so much easier to keep the mitzvot in and out of  
persona).

Judith / no SCA name yet