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

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

I wrote:
>  1. Most New World ingredients didn't enter the Ottoman Empire - which
>  encompassed most of North Africa (including Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt),
>  the Levant (now Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel-Palestine, Iraq, and
>  Anatolia) - or Persia and Central Asia until the ** 18th ** century.

Bear puzzled:
>  But they quickly adopted, maize, chili peppers, and squash, which leaves me
>  wondering why those items and why not others?

My comments are based on what i've read in books and essays by modern 
Turkish and European scholars and writers on food, cuisine, and 
dining culture (including an essay on McDonald's vs. traditional 
"fast" food).

I guess it depended on when the plant arrived. I know chilis and 
squashes entered pretty early. When was maize adopted? Since what 
i've read tends to focus on courtly and on urban food, there's little 
mention of maize It doesn't feature much in urban food of the 
"better" classes.

I know from reading it was more often eaten by the less well off - i 
am guessing it also had to do with the local environment.

In Indonesia, there is wet rice cultivation on Java and Bali and most 
of Sumatra. But there is also dry rice cultivation as one goes east 
of the Wallace line and also much use of maize.

So i'm guessing that in more arid regions of Anatolia maize was 
readily adopted... but i'm just guessing.
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita