[Sca-cooks] Redaction exercise

[TerryDecker]

You're making a false equivalency.  Neither cacao or vanilla was grown in 
the Canaries, while sweet potatoes and (probably) white potatoes were. 
Until 1841, vanilla could not be propagated outside of Mexico.  IIRC, the 
first recorded shipment of cacao was from Veracruz in 1585.

Bear

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

Writing of possibilities:

The current earliest iron-clad reference to potatoes in Europe is 1567, the 
potatoes being shipped from the Canaries to Antwerp.  The Netherlands were 
then under Spanish/Habsburg control, with a number of the governors being 
Austrian.  This gives an example of a *possible* quick route, via the 
Netherlands, from Spanish territory to Austria.

This is not direct evidence.  It does demonstrate that the effective 
'distance' for chocolate or vanilla could be much faster than would appear 
simply by looking at a map.


Thorvald