[Sca-cooks] watermelons

[JIMCHEVAL at aol.com]

Thanks, Guillaume.

Actually, this begins to raise an entirely  different question: how the 
hell did Anthimus know about ANY kind of  melon?

"Medieval lexicographies and an illustrated Arabic translation of  
Dioscorides' herbal suggest that sweet melons were present in Central Asia in  the 
mid-9th century. A travelogue description indicates the presence of sweet  
melons in Khorasan and Persia by the mid-10th century"

Though he's often  careful to flag a food as not found in northeastern 
Gaul, right off one has to  wonder if he had seen it elsewhere, rather than 
referencing it as a food known  to Theuderic. But by this account, he was 
unlikely even to have seen it in  Byzantium.
 
Otherwise, "The time and place of emergence of sweet melons is obscure, but 
 they are generally thought to have reached Europe from the east near the 
end of  the 15th century. "


Jim Chevallier
www.chezjim.com

FRENCH  BREAD HISTORY: Late medieval  bread
http://leslefts.blogspot.com/2015/06/french-bread-history-late-medieval-brea
d.html




In  a message dated 7/26/2015 12:52:14 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
guillaumedep at gmail.com writes:
Medieval emergence of sweet melons, Cucumis  melo (Cucurbitaceae)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22648880