[Sca-cooks] Why bother to import the cheap stuff?

[Terry Decker]

To the first question, the answer is limited production.  Rice is a marginal 
crop in a desert as there are limited areas with enough water to grow it. 
The rice was being imported from almost the only source (there was some 
imported from India at even greater expense).  It is roughly 200 years until 
there is enough rice cultivation elsewhere around the Mediterranean to meet 
the demand.  BTW, there is a similar issue with sugar cane in this period.

With molasses, I think you're putting the cart before the horse.  There was 
increasing sugar production in the Arab world from about the 9th Century on 
and in the 15th and 16th Century there was European competition from the 
Azores and the Canaries.  The price dropped significantly during this period 
and sugar refining came to the Low Countries.  Molasses was manufactured in 
Europe and was part of Columbus's provision on the first voyage.  Sugar 
production in the West Indies began in the 16th Century.  It expand with a 
growing demand for sugar and rum.  Molasses was often shipped as the raw 
material of rum production.  In the case of the British triangular trade, 
molasses would more often be shipped to North America than to Europe.

Slavery and the plantation system made large scale commercial production 
possible, which permitted the West Indies to set the prices and control the 
European market.  Old World sugar production declined and the West Indies 
filled the gap.  The price drop you are thinking of came between 1645 and 
1680 when the production was large enough to cause a 70 per cent decline in 
the price.  The expansion of production and the reduced prices are an 
expected relationship, but I see the export of molasses as an artifact of 
increased production and a growing demand for rum rather than a drop in 
price.

Bear

-----Original Message----- <clipped>

Urtatim said:
<<< Since there are a rather limited number of recipes using rice, I wonder 
if perhaps they were getting broken rice from Persia. When I can, I'll go 
thru al-Warraq again and list all the mentions. >>>

Really? I assume by “broken rice” you mean broken kernels? I would also 
assume this means a lower quality of rice. But why would you spend the time 
and money to import less than the best?

b) Molasses wasn’t imported to Europe from the sugar cane plantations in the 
New World until after the price of sugar had fallen tremendously from where 
it once was. It was certainly just as available earlier.

Stefan