[Sca-cooks] The Pepper Trail

[James Chevallier]

(a new and interesting claim 
considering the high grain European diet of the day) that Europeans were 
carnivorous 

 This seems to be an echo of the old back and forth of whether the Romans ate less meat than the Germans. The Roman claims that the latter lived mainly on meat and dairy have been criticized as cultural stereotypes, but in fact archeaology seems to confirm that they certainly ate a lot of both (though they were farmers as well, which you would think the Romans would have noticed, given the remarks about grain drinks and the frequent demands for land by Germanic groups).  Certainly in France meat became more important than it had been in the Roman diet (which was pretty varied, even if it had a lot of meat in it),
The fear many felt that fasting would make them sick is probably one sign of how important meat had become to the French diet. And the fact that many people lived on grains doesn't necessarily mean they wanted to; things like limits on hunting forced the poorer classes increasingly onto a vegetarian diet, but not by choice. 

 

Jim Chevallier
www.chezjim.com

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Terry Decker <t.d.decker at att.net>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Sat, Mar 29, 2014 7:21 pm
Subject: [Sca-cooks] The Pepper Trail


I've recently add Jean Andrews "The Pepper Trail" to the reference shelf and 
it is worth some commentary on this list.

This book is coffee table format and nicely illustrated.  It is divided into 
two sections; the history of peppers and their spread through the world and 
then how and where they are used in various cuisines (including modern 
recipes).  There is a section of notes to the text.  And there is a rather 
extensive bibliography.  The first section is a biology monograph 
masquerading as popular non-fiction.

The author, Jean Andrews (1923-2010) was a noted Texas academic with a PhD 
in Biology and degrees in Home Economics and Marine Studies (according to 
one bio).  She has written a number of books, the best known being Shells 
and Peppers:  The Domestic Capsicums.  She was not a historian, which is an 
important consideration in regards some problems I have with the book.

Beginning with Leonhardt Fuchs botanical description of some of the capsicum 
peppers in 1542, Andrews undertakes to describe the migration of certain 
species of capsicums from South America into Mexico and, more importantly, 
into the West Indies using a combination of botanical and historical data. 
She then uses contemporary and modern sources to lay out her view of how and 
when the peppers moved from Spain to Portugal and into West Africa and Asia. 
In part, her argument addresses the idea that maize, beans, sweet potatoes 
and squash were commonly grown together in the New World and moved into the 
Columbian Exchange at roughly the same time and probably as a group with the 
peppers being an adjunct plant that likely moved with them.

Andrews concludes that New World crops were being grown in the Azores, 
Madeira, the Cape Verdes and in Guinea between the Senegal and Niger Rivers 
by 1502.  That is, before the first Columbian landing on the mainland and 
before the Portuguese slave trade's entry into the Caribbean in 1509. 
Adding a reference to Duarte Barbosa commenting on the export of Mihlo 
grosso (maize) from Gujarat, India in 1516 provides an interesting picture 
of just how swiftly the New World crops entered the non-European Old World.

I've spent the past couple of days just going over the references.  The book 
is worth reading for anyone with an interest in the Columbian Exchange.  The 
references to various sources alone are worth the effort.

That said, there are problems, not with the carefully sourced references, 
but with some of the general commentary.  Remembering that Andrews is not a 
historian and her Home Economics was a Bachelor Degree, she introduces some 
of the shibboleths we've been debunking on this list for years; dreadful 
food, hiding the odor of spoilage, and (a new and interesting claim 
considering the high grain European diet of the day) that Europeans were 
carnivorous (although that may be a relative comparison to other diets of 
the period).  Note that there are no references for these particular 
opinions and they are likely an artifact of Andrews's prior education.

If you are interested, the bibliographic data is:

Andrews, Jean, The Pepper Trail:  History and Recipes From around the World, 
University of North Texas Press, 1999.

I picked up my copy from Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller Co.

Bear 

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