[Sca-cooks] Officially serving modern food at SCA events
Terry Decker
t.d.decker at att.net
Tue Jan 29 20:34:27 PST 2013
These days I wonder if period potatoes are being served at feasts in the
rural reaches of the Outlands. I have had a presentation entitled "Batatas
and Papas -- Potatoes and the SCA Feast," which is revised every couple of
years as I find more sources and which contains late period recipes for
sweet potatoes and white potatoes. I presented the latest revision at the
last Known World Cooks and Bards and had a couple of comments from some of
the good rural folk that the local meat and potatoes crowd were going to be
having a little more period feast in future.
At the same talk, Duke Cariadoc asked a very interesting question, "When did
sweet potatoes reach the Islamic world?" The answer so far, is that it
appears sweet potatoes arrived in Moslem West Africa as part of the
Portuguese slave trade early in the 16th Century. Slightly later, they were
introduced into India via the spice trade, such that by the early 19th
Century, they were a major crop in Mughal India. Introduction into North
Africa and the Middle East is far more nebulous, but I suspect that it may
have arrived via the Red Sea and Persian trade. Other possibilities are by
caravan from West Africa or via the spice trade from Italy. I'll make this
revision when I locate some solid references.
Bear
> Soups and roasts are as period as they generally want their food to be -
> give them their potatoes and corn and they are happy. So, our fledgling
> culinary guild has a lot of educating to do.
>
> Richenda
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