[Sca-cooks] Evidence of tomato eating in late 16th century Italy/Germany?

[Terry Decker]

>I haven't been following this discussion, since I thought it was well
> established that tomatoes were being eaten by the end of or period. 
> There's a quote somewhere about their being eaten fried in oil in Italy; 
> someone may already have mentioned it.
>
> On the other hand, with tomatoes and some other very late period 
> foodstuffs, while we have evidence that they were eaten we don't know much 
> about how. Does anyone have an actual period recipe using tomatoes? 
> Potatoes? Maize? Peanuts?
>

For potatoes, not a recipe per say, but a description of how to prepare 
them.  It is from a letter between Landgraf Wilhelm IV von Hessen to the 
Kurfrst Christian I von Sachsen in 1591.

"If they are cooked these tubers are very good to eat. But you must first 
boil them in water, so that the outer shell (peeling?) gets off, then pour 
the cooking water away, and cook them to the point in butter."

>From the letter, the potatoes are obviously a gift of a botanical specimen 
and notes about culinary experimentation rather than the preparation of a 
general foodstuff.

Bear