[Sca-cooks] Redaction exercise

[TerryDecker]

While your friends believe vanilla was used in Gotland in the 16th Century, 
the question I have is, what is the recorded evidence?

Although Columbus was able to obtain some cacao beans in 1502 on his fourth 
voyage when he captured a canoe of trade goods, they were not in significant 
quantity to make an impression on Spain.  I have yet to find any evidence 
that he encountered vanilla.

Vanilla and cacao are both Mexican products and are generally believed to 
have been introduced into Spain by Hernan Cortez after his conquest of the 
Aztecs in 1519.  While I'm certain small amounts of of both made there way 
to Spain for the use of conquistadors who had developed a taste for cocoa, 
the first record of a commercial shipment of cacao from Mexico to Spain 
occurs in 1585.  There are no records of any vanilla shipments available. 
The introduction of cocoa with its accompanying vanilla to the Spanish court 
probably occurred in 1544 when Dominican friars brought some of the native 
inhabitants of New Spain to court.

Cocoa with vanilla was known to Elizabeth's court, for in 1602 her 
physician, Hugh Morgan, suggested that vanilla might be used as a flavoring 
in it's own right rather than as an ingredient in cocoa.  He also provided 
Clusius with specimens of the vanilla bean, which Clusius formally described 
in 1605.  The fact that Clusius, arguably the greatest botanist of the 
period, suggests that vanilla was not in extensive use by the Habsburgs 
before 1576.  Clusius was the prefect of the Imperial medical gardens under 
Maximillian II, son-in-law of Charles V and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire 
from 1564 to 1576.  Charles V (1519) aka Charles I of Spain (1516) was the 
King of Spain when cacao and vanilla were brought into Spain.  While I have 
no problem with vanilla being introduced into Gotland from Spain by German 
traders, I do question that it occurred in the 16th Century.  More likely it 
was in the 17th Century as cocoa and coffee served with vanilla came into 
wider use.

Linnaeus and his attempt to grow vanilla is immaterial to the early dating 
of vanilla in Sweden as he is 18th Century.   He failed because natural 
pollination of vanilla is by the Melipone bee which is only found in Mexico. 
The pollination problem was resolved by Charles Francios Antoine Morren of 
Liege in 1839 and a practical hand pollination method was developed on 
Reunion Island in 1841.

Bear

-----Original Message----- 


I asked my Swedish friends, they said Linneus tried to grow vanilla in
Sweden but he never succeded. According to them vanillan come to Gotland
through German traders and they got it from Spain, after 1502. Spain and
Austria was the same empire for several centuries and I guess the
discoveries from Columbus come at the same time to Toledo, the imperial
capital then, and to Vienna.
When we talked about the 16th century I was speaking about 1530 or 40, the
peak for Gotland.
Ana


On Sat, Mar 8, 2014 at 2:50 PM, TerryDecker <t.d.decker at att.net> wrote:

> The pancakes may be Medieval, but the vanilla in them certainly is not.
> Vanilla beans enter Europe no earlier than 1519 and the Spanish began
> importing them for culinary purposes only in the latter half of the 16th
> Century.
> They were very scarce and truly expensive until 1839 when the method of
> hand pollination was discovered and the cultivation of vanilla spread out
> of Mexico to other tropical areas.  The production of vanilla extract (the
> most common method of using vanilla) is also a 19th Century process.
>  Unless there is a documentable recipe dating to the 16th Century, the 
> odds
> are vanilla is a late addition to the recipe.  I do have a recipe for a
> kind of cake where the whole bean is used, but it appears to only date 
> from
> the late 18th Century.
>
> Anise (Pimpinella anisum) is an Eastern Mediterranean plant used since
> Antiquity, so it was probably available.  Star anise (Illicium verum) is a
> plant of Southeast Asia.  Since star anise is primarily used a less
> expensive replacement for anise and it only begins appearing in European
> recipes in the 17th Century (according to the work of Jill Norman).  Its
> entry into Europe is probably due to Ottoman control of the anise trade 
> and
> European expansion into Asia.
>
> Bear
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Johnna I lived in Gotland in the Baltic Sea in Sweden one year and the
> island was a part of the Hansa League ruled by the German cities. They 
> took
> to Visby, in Gotland, anise, star anise and vanilla. Gotland is the only
> place in Sweden you can eat vanilla pancakes, the islands speciality,
> direct from the Middle Ages.
> Ana