[Sca-cooks] Seljuk/Rumi/Sufi Cuisine

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

I wrote:
>(sarcasm on) She also includes such 13th century
>Anatolian favorites as butternut squash and
>zucchini, both New World in origin. (sarcasm off)
>And yet she is careful to exclude other New World
>plants, such as tomatoes, potatoes, bell peppers,
>and chilis from her recipes.

Angharad wondered:
>Is she suggesting them as substitutes for the period 'gourd'? I've seen this
>done before (and done it myself, upon occasion).

I would have no problem with that, although getting various edible 
gourds is not that difficult if one lives where there are Middle 
Eastern, South Asian, Southeast Asian, or East Asian markets. And now 
that i have been using them, i find them far preferable in flavor and 
texture to zucchini, which is very watery by comparison.

Nope, she presents butternut squash and zucchini as ancient Seljuk 
vegetables. Now, someone on this list mentioned that perhaps there 
was a translation problem.

Now i recently got another modern Turkish cookbook written in English 
by authors who are both British and Turkish, Classic Turkish Cooking 
by Ghillie and Jonathan Basan (the s is an s with a cedilla, 
pronounced like sh). In that the authors mention the history, 
basically accurate, of a number of now popular items (including the 
New World origins of tomatoes, potatoes, and chilis, but are 
surprisingly reticent on bell peppers). But they present marrow 
(basically British for big zucchini) and zucchini as ancient Turkish 
vegetables.

So i suspect that more than one modern Turkish author of cookbooks 
knows that tomatoes, potatoes, and chilis are New World, but 
apparently doesn't know that squashes are New World in origin.
-- 
Urtatim [that's err-tah-TEEM]
the persona formerly known as Anahita