[Sca-cooks] Spanish Pepper?

[Stefan li Rous]

Alizaundre de Brebeuf related:
<<< At my annual "siege cooking" contest at Pennsic this year, one of  
the
contestants included dishes spiced with "Spanish pepper" - a Capsicum
pepper, not a Piper species- which she insisted went back to Roman  
times and
was ironclad-documentable to our time period. >>>

I think Frederick had the appropriate if undiplomatic answer to this.

All capsicum peppers are New World. Doesn't mean they aren't "period",  
but that was not what was claimed.

I think Johnnae's hypothesis that they were thinking of long pepper is  
a good explanation. But just because the Romans used something, by  
itself, I think is poor evidence of something being "period" or  
medieval. A lot of stuff the Romans had was not available several  
hundred years later.

But these folks were insisting that this "Spanish pepper" was a  
capsicum, so it wouldn't be long pepper, but perhaps they were just  
mistaken on it being a capsicum. What ports was long pepper imported  
through? If it was mainly through Spain/Portugal I could see it being  
called a "Spanish pepper". Just as the English for the large, New  
World bird is "turkey" because the English first learned of it through  
the Turks.

Phlip said:
<<< He certainly deserved to
win- I was just happy I was able to help him with the "dormice in
honey" concept ;-) Brighid, they were your dormice, considering they
were made out of radishes ;-) >>>

Radishes in honey!!!?  I'm not sure that that is better than dormice  
in honey. :-)

<<< I still feel that the black-eyed peas were OOP. Can someone go back
over that? I think we could use turkey more easily than black-eyed
peas.>>>

We already have pretty good proof that "turkey" is period, but not  
medieval. And other New World foods, in period northern Italy and Spain.

We have discussed black-eyed peas here before. I'd like to hear a  
summary on them again, as well.

I will be running a New World/Old World Foods game at our demo this  
Saturday. I've done this for the past few years after hearing about it  
on this list. Now I have non-SCA organizers specifically asking that  
we (ie me) run this game again!  Apparently it has gone over well with  
both children and adults and they've let the organizers know. And I  
was concerned that I was boring a lot of people with my speel as I  
pointed out when they chose correctly (and not) and gave facts about  
various food items.

I've considered adding a can of black-eyed peas, fairly well known  
here in the South, but I avoid using foods that *I'm* not sure of.  
Doesn't keep me from including a can of kidney beans and one of  
garbanzo beans. :-) Or a tin of "Hungarian" paprika. Or a flour  
tortilla.

<<< I think we ought to tell folks what was done for that challenge ;-)
Frederich and I had a ball, and it served to get Rowan, our other
teammate, more interested in period cookery. >>>

Please do. I have several examples/stories of various siege cooking  
contests in the Florilegium. More could be nice. I also have heard  
very little about this past Pennsic, which unfortunately I couldn't  
attend.

Stefan

--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/marksharris
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****