[Sca-cooks] Plantains: Period for Old World?

[Terry Decker]

> In another thread, we discussed the notion that tomatoes were first
> used (at least, in the Near East) as they would originally have used 
> either eggplants or plums. This weekend, I tried four varieties of  plums 
> in a dish that I usually make with one to four varieties of  tomatoes 
> (depending on what's fresh and juicy at the market), and WOW,  was that 
> good.
>
> So. I know bananas are Old World (Period for Asia, Africa, and the 
> Middle/Near East). I was reading on Joe Pastry blog 
> (http://joepastry.web.aplus.net/?blog=1&page=1&paged=2 ) that plantains 
> are often for a lot of the things that normally use  potatoes. I'm 
> wondering if potatoes, when first brought back from the  New World, were 
> used in ways that they would have normally used  plantains.
>

Plantains are primarily a food of East Asia, the Asiatic islands, South 
India, and East and Central Africa.  Given the problems with raising various 
types of Musa and maintaining the fruit in transit, Middle Eastern use of 
the plantain was probably limited to those areas with close proximity to 
East Africa.  To my knowledge there are no European recipes for plantains in 
period (and please don't confuse Musa and Plantago, they're two different 
critters sharing the same common name).

Sweet potatoes (Ipomea batata) enter the scene first.  They are encountered 
in the West Indies by Columbus.  They are introduced into the slave trade by 
the Portuguese and are brought to Asia by them.  They were probably 
introduced into the Phillipines, Japan and China by the Spanish in the 
middle of the 16th Century.  Europeans knew sweet potatoes very well and ate 
them.  At the time, they were referred to as potatoes or Spanish potatoes by 
the English.

The white potato (Solanum tuberosum) wasn't encountered until the late 
1530's and while samples were given to the Vatican gardens in the 1540's, it 
doesn't show up as a foodstuff in Europe until around 1570 and that as a 
single line in a hospital record.  John Gerard recieves a sample in 1586 and 
Carolus Clusius gets one in 1587.  While the white potato probably got a 
toe-hold during the Thirty Years War, it's not until the 18th Century that 
the white potato becomes a primary foodstuff in Europe.  The history is such 
that it argues for late adoption of the potato elsewhere in the world.

> This is confusing as I try to word it, so let me try again. Here's a 
> supposition (which I'm not married to, and I'm just as happy to have  it 
> shot down as to have it triumphantly confirmed):
>
> 1. The Old World had recipes, techniques, or treatments that used 
> plantains as the starch.

But not in Europe.

> 2. Potatoes were brought from the New World to the Old World.

Around 1540 in Europe, but with little use before 1600 and no general 
adoption until the 18th Century.  And there was probably no spread of the 
potato to areas using plantains prior to 1700.

> 3. People weren't sure what to do with potatoes, so after a bit of 
> suspicious glaring, they started to use them in the dishes that had 
> originally used plantains.

Supposition.  The people who first encountered potatoes observed the natives 
and knew how to prepare them.  They were brought back, but not immediately 
adopted.  By the time potatoes arrived in regions where plantains were 
eaten, the people bring them knew how to grow them and prepare them.

> 4. Plantain use waned while potato use waxed.

I'd like to see the evidence for this one.  Plantains are now grown in the 
West Indies, where they weren't before.  Since plantains are still widely 
used, it is much more likely that potatoes were added to the diet rather 
than replacing plantains.

> 5. Recipes evolved as time passed, sometimes very slowly and sometimes 
> rapidly.

But only provably, if you have a series of recorded recipes.

> 6. Now a dish that uses potatoes COULD conceivably be made with  plantains 
> instead, and it MIGHT be Period. (Documentably? Probably  not, or someone 
> would have surely crowed about it and done it by now,  right? But it might 
> be "reasonably Period" or "Peri-oid," right?)
>

Coulda, woulda, mighta, bunk.  The known facts and time frame run against 
your supposition.  I would suggest that it would fall in the category, 
"Fantasy Period."

> Shoot me down fast, please, before I get really excited about trying 
> something like this. Start with whether plantains are Old World, or 
> whether they're a species of the Musa genus that only developed after 
> bananas made it over to the New World, so I know whether this weird 
> thought may have any basis whatsoever in reality.
>
> Judith

Bananas and plantains derive from seeded ancestors and have been 
domesticated for so long, they need human assistance to propogate.  Bananas 
from the Canaries were transplanted to the New
World by Fra Tomas Berlinga in 1516.  Plantains arrive later, probably with 
the rise of the sugar plantations in the late 17th Century and the expansion 
of the African slave trade.

Now for the one conradictory piece of evidence; the Tudor banana.  A few 
years ago, during the archeological excavation of a Tudor midden in London, 
the diggers encountered a member of genus Musa in situ.  This would place it 
in mid-16th Century London.  Further investigation revealed that it is a 
plantain.  Before you leap to any conclusions, let me point out that this 
find is an anomaly.  It has no context of use or history, nor does it appear 
to have any relationship to any surrounding artifacts.  There is a lot of 
speculation about where it came from with at least one group thinking it is 
from the West Indies and another Asia.  My personal opinion is that it was 
harvested in the Canaries and was loaded on a fast ship for England (green 
Musa can survive about two weeks of unrefrigerated transit).  There was a 
market for exotic fruit (oranges, lemons, etc.) in London and one of the 
researchers is looking into records for more information about exotic fruit 
in London.

Prior to this find, the first known record of a Musa in London was in 1633. 
One banana stalk transported live from the West Indies, studied, and the 
fruit sold in a London grocery (owned by the man that edited and expanded 
Gerard's Herball).

Bear