fd-New-World-msg

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fd-New-World-msg – 3/16/08

16th Century food of and from the New World.

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NOTICE -

This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.

The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors.

Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s).

Thank you,

Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous

Stefan at florilegium.org

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From: "Phlip" <phlip at 99main.com>

To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Recipe direction

Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 11:09:46 -0400

> We are planning our event for next year. The autocrat loves my idea of"

> Defending the Americas." Doing an Incan/Mayan/Am Indian vs Spanish

> menu for our Defending the Gate.

> I can find SOME Mayan recipes, but not enough. Any direction ya'll can head

> me in? Yes, we always have dual feasts.

> Soffya Appollonia Tudja

well, as it happens, I've been doing some research in that direction, and

I've been discussing it with Gene Anderson, since he spends a fair amount of

time every year involved in Mayan archaeology. I've been cooking a

conjecturally period meso-American meal at Pennsic every year.

The first thing that you need to keep in mind, is that, just as many

foodstuffs we use today came from the New World, and thus aren't generally

period for our European reenactments, many european foods were equally

not available in the New World until late.

The meso-americans ate a very lean diet- they didn't have the pigs for fat

until the europeans brought them over, so fried foods are very unlikely.

Thus, I use anasazi beans, boiled, rather than fried, or refried.

Tortillas were available, but corn tortillas, not the flour kind, and were

basicly used as a wrap for whatever might have been cooked- they were also

eaten alone, as we might eat a piece of bread.

Fish and waterfowl provided a large part of their protein intake. Hot

peppers seem to have been generally available, tomatoes less so. Turkey was

fairly available, but venison tended to be reserved for the upper

classes.

Pototoes were available, but different sorts, depending on the when/where.

sweet potatoes would have been fairly likely, our white potatoes, as I

understand it, weren't found until fairly late, when the interior of the Sa

continent was broached.

Chocolate/chocolatl was considered strictly a ceremonial drink, usually

mixed with hot peppers. There is some evidence that it was sweetened, but

again, only in very limited areas. since the european honey bee is an

import, they got some sweetening from a couple varieties of wasps, now

almost extinct, and ants- apparently this honey didn't travel very well.

The meal I make, other than the boiled beans, consists of duck enchiladas,

sauced with a tomato/hot pepper sauce- one year, thanks to akim, we included

venison enchiladas. Gene, however, told me the following:

Wasps etc yeah, but most of the pre-Columbian honey came from a

domesticated stingless bee, Melipona beecheyi. It survives but has become

rare; there are attempts to propagate it again. Most honey today is from

European bees, but Africanization has made those risky and hard to work

with. Those African bees really do sting!

Duck enchiladas: probably not. Try stewing the duck with achiote and

allspice and chiles, thickening the sauce with corn flour, and then baking

it in a pie with crusts made of corn meal made into dough with the stock

from boiling the duck. More authentic. Major pre-Columbian dish.

Incidentally, cacao is a Maya word (loanword into English). But they don't

seem to have used it much in sauces, unlike the Aztecs (from whom the word

"chocolate" comes).

best--Gene

I'm still looking, but I hope this helps ;-)

Phlip

Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 12:33:02 -0400

From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Subject: Re: [SCA-cooks] Recipe direction

Sophie Coe did a book called

America's First Cuisines which was published

in 1994.

Her husband Michael Coe is the Mayan expert

who was at Yale. He's the author of a number of

Mayan books.

Johnnae llyn Lewis Johnna Holloway

Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 06:45:30 +0100

From: UlfR <parlei at algonet.se>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] pre-Columbian foods

To: SCA Cooks <Sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Christine Seelye-King <kingstaste at mindspring.com> [2003.11.02] wrote:

> We are thinking foods that were here when the Westerners got to

> land.

If you are looking for actual pre-contact food you may want to take a

look at The Billetin of Primitive Technology

(http://www.primitive.org/backissues.htm). There have been several

articles about food, and one issue (#13, still available according to

their web-site) focussed on the subject. This is where you'll find

people who are at least as fanatic about authenticity as we are here,

but with a plaeolithic focus (done "right" a stone age tool has to be

made

using stone age tools).

Considering the season acorns come to mind. Properly leached -- hull¸

grind, rinse, rinse, rinse... -- they are quite good.

Also the fall hunt would have been going on (last chance for migratory

birds, etc).

UlfR

UlfR Ketilson ulfr at hunter-gatherer.org

Date: Sun, 02 Nov 2003 10:13:28 -0500

From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pre-Columbian Foods

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

ranvaig at columbus.rr.com wrote:

> New World foods include key lime

> Ranvaig

Key Limes as I understand them from my readings on citrus fruits

(I did read about things other than oranges.) are representative of the

limes that developed in the New World after the Conquest. The Spanish

took citrus trees with them on the early voyages and they rapidly took

off in the islands and Central America in the later part of the 16th

century.

Other works that might prove helpful to the topic at hand are:

Todorov, Tzetan. The Conquest of America. 1982, 1984.

Rozin, Elisabeth. Blue Corn and Chocolate. 1992.

Super, John C. Food, Conquest, and Colonization in Sixteenth-Century

Spanish America. 1988.

Hays, Wilma and R. Vernon. Foods the Indians Gave Us. 1973.

Weatherfors, Jack. Indian Givers. 1988.

Kavasc, Barrie. Native Harvests. 1979.

Sokolov, Raymond. Why We Eat What We Eat. How the encounter between the

New World and the Old chnaged the way everyone on the planet eats. 1991.

There are dozens more including a number of modern cookbooks that

feature Native American foods.

http://www.mnh.si.edu/garden/emeritus.html

http://www.mnh.si.edu/garden/history/welcome.html

feature details about the Smithsonian's Celebration of the Columbian

Exchange in the early 1990's. The bibliography is at:

http://www.mnh.si.edu/garden/bibliography.html

Johnnae llyn Lewis

Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 10:40:14 EST

From: Devra at aol.com

Subject: [Sca-cooks] New World Food

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Sophie Coe's book is 'America's First Cuisine', a very

Interesting book.

Devra Langsam

www.poisonpenpress.com

Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 10:22:23 -0500

From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pre-Columbian Foods

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Another cookbook worth checking out:

The Plymouth Plantation New England Cookery Book

by Malabar Hornblower. 213 pages in the paperback edition. Harvard

Common Press. December 1990. It's OP but available used.

Johnnae llyn Lewis

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 09:24:54 -0500

From: "Marcha" <nigsdaughter at satx.rr.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Old World vs. New World

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

> Anybody have a handy list or web site with Old World and New World

> fruits and veggies?

> -Helena

Try "A Boke of Gode Cookery on How to Cook Medieval" It lists not only

what was available then but what was not. i.e.: New World vs. Old World. It has really helped me. Bertha

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:51:45 -0700

From: David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Old World vs. New World

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

> Anybody have a handy list or web site with Old World and New World

> fruits and veggies?

> -Helena

We have an article with some such information towards the end of the

recipe section of the _Miscellany_.

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/miscellany_pdf/Miscellany.htm

David/Cariadoc

www.daviddfriedman.com

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 15:15:34 -0400

From: <kingstaste at mindspring.com>

Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Re: Old World vs. New World Fruits

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Old World Fruits include:

apple, pear, quince, apricot, peach, cherry, grape, raisin, orange

(sour), watermelon and other melons,* strawberries, berries, fig,

plum, pomegranate, date, currant, and prune. Pineapple and bananas were

known, but unusual.

Nuts available were hazelnut, almond, pistachio, pine nuts, walnut, and

chestnut.

*Period varieties of these fruits, as well as other vegetables and even

some now-extinct game animals, are similar to those we can get readily

today, such as cantaloupe, honeydew, cranberries, blueberries,

zucchini, and domestic rabbit.

New World Fruits include:

pineapple, strawberries, blueberries, cranberry, raspberry, blackberry,

black raspberry, custard apple, papaya, guava, avocado, currant,

crabapples, gooseberry, coconut, chayote, star fruit, key lime, cacao

(chocolate), tomatoes, tomatillos, ground cherry (a relative of

tomatillo, not a cherry);

Nuts include brazil nuts, black walnuts, pecan, hazelnut(Corylus

americana), cashew, pumpkin seeds.

(other New World Foods)

bison, wild pig, turkey, moscovy duck, rabbit, fish, shrimp, shellfish,

crawfish, lobster, eggs of duck and other birds, frogs, dog, iguana,

guinea pigs;

corn, wild rice, amaranth, quinoa, sunflowers, arrowroot, cassava

(yuca), beans, lima beans, peanuts, zucchini, pumpkin and squash

(yellow-flowered squashes), potato, sweet potato, green beans,

jerusalem artichokes

Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 23:04:30 -0800

From: Susan Fox-Davis <selene at earthlink.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] New World Foods

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Vincenzo wonders...

> In addition, the historical record is probably incomplete --

> can we say with certainty, when, for example, vanilla appeared

> in German cuisine? ... etc.

This is a very good question, and if you read German, it may be answered in

THE NEW HERBAL OF 1543 by Leonhart Fuchs, available in a modern facsimile

copy. I do not read German but the index is in Latin species names, which

helps. Many of the plants are pictured including "Turkish Corn" [maize],

capsicum peppers and various squashes like pumpkins.

Selene

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 13:20:02 -0600

From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] New World Foods

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

I would start with a webbed text in English by a Spanish author who

discusses the foodstuffs marginalized in both the New and Old Worlds by the

trade established between the two. I don't have the URL or any other info

handy, but it was a superb piece of work which you should be able to find

with Google.

Bear

Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 17:45:03 -0500

From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Some recipes from Nova Scotia c.1610( still

period ??)

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

I own one called A Taste of Acadie.

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Acres/2162/review2.htm

http://www.gooselane.com/gle/recipe.htm

http://www.villagehistoriqueacadien.com/onlinestores.cfm

There are a number of Plimoth colony cookbooks. The best of them

used Markham and Murrell as their sources, but most seem OP at the moment.

http://www.plimoth.org/ is a good place to look.

Johnnae

Micheal wrote:

> Dishes from Port Royal ( the order of good cheer 1610 time period)

> http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/cheer/recipes.html

> Just thought I throw out that one unfortunately there are no

> references and only a modern interpretation recipes are available .

> But fast on a track of a book which is of the same period and place

> with some originals. Hope springs eternal. Called a taste of Arcadia

> anyone hear or have such a book. Has anyone ever gone over the any

> possible books from the first settlements in America. Like Plymouth

> Rock, since I have found a reference to that area under minced meat.

Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 18:13:01 -0500

From: "Denise Wolff" <scadian at hotmail.com>

Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Some recipes from Nova Scotia c.1610( still

period ??)

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

http://www.plimoth.org/learn/history/recipes/recipelist.asp

Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 11:04:37 -0400

From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] New Netherlands (was Re: When DID the

Renaissance End???(was:Nocino,period cordial or not

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Christiane wrote:

> Oh, and for the food-related content: what is a typically Dutch dish

> for the 17th century period in the New World?

> Gianotta

Check out the work of Peter Rose.

http://www.peterrose.com/

This is her area.

Johnnae

Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 06:45:47 -0600

From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Turkeys ARE Period!

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

> The quote means that "Turkeys are Period" in certain places in Europe and

> England by 1500=1540... That doesn't mean that it was period for prior to

> that time (not Italian quadrocento, not "Viking", not the Court of Richard

> II of England, not Anglo-Saxon.

1527 rather than 1500 with the first goodies from the newly conquered lands

in Mexico.

> Johann, isn't there also some reason to think that the Turkey came in

> through the trade routes from the middle East and thought of as native to

> India or Turkey?

> Regina

I'm not Johann, but I can answer that with an almost definitive "No." While

several things are thought to have come into Europe from North America via

Asia, the connection is the Spanish trade between the Philippines and the

West Coast of Mexico and South America, the Manila galleons. The Spanish

did not enter the Philippines until 1543 and the trade with Mexico didn't

start until 1564. The entrance of the North American turkey into Europe

pre-dates both of these events.

Chili peppers, although Fuchs identifies them as being from India, appear in

his herbal of 1541, so they obviously came in the front door. White

potatoes, however, appear at such a late date, that there is speculation

they came into Europe from Chile via the Manila trade.

Bear

Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 14:26:06 -0600

From: "otsisto" <otsisto at socket.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Turkeys ARE Period!

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

I think you are thinking of maize as the new world food that was thought to

have come from Turkey. Gerard refers to it as Turkey corn And clarifies to

the reader that it does not come from Asia minor which is the domain of

Turks but through Spain from the Americans.

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

> Johann, isn't there also some reason to think that the Turkey came in

> through the trade routes from the middle East and thought of as

> native to India or Turkey?

> Regina

I'm not Johann, but I can answer that with an almost definitive "No." While

several things are thought to have come into Europe from North America via

Asia, the connection is the Spanish trade between the Philippines and the

West Coast of Mexico and South America, the Manila galleons. (snip)

Bear

Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 23:33:06 -0600

From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Turkeys ARE Period!

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

There was quite a bit of confusion as to where things came from. Fuchs

(1541) refers to chili peppers as Indische and Calcuttisha Pfeffer and maize

as Turkishe Korn (if I got the spellings correct). That beats out Gerard by

half a century.

In the case of maize, it probably came into Europe on Columbus's first

voyage and was transferred to the Ottoman Empire via Northern Italy (read

Genoa or Venice). The Turks were early adopters and European travelers who

encountered these new crops in Asia Minor may have been rightly confused

about their actual origin. In the case of maize and chili peppers, it may

have been the Turks who introduced them to Central Europe.

There is also the consideration that tying foods to Turkey or India may have

initially been a marketing ploy. Columbus found the New World in 1492.

Around 1501, Amerigo Vespucci floated the idea that South America was a

separate continent from Asia. And in 1521, Magellan took off on the voyage

that would prove the Americas were not Asia. So even if the original

thought was the East and West Indies were the same islands, it didn't last

long.

Bear

Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:35:31 -0800

From: David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Turkeys ARE Period!

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

> There was quite a bit of confusion as to where things came from. Fuchs

> (1541) refers to chili peppers as Indische and Calcuttisha Pfeffer and maize

> as Turkishe Korn (if I got the spellings correct). That beats out

> Gerard by half a century.

If I remember correctly, Finan, John J., Maize in the Great Herbals,

suggests that maize was referred to as "Indian corn" not out of a

confusion between the New World and Asia but because Pliny described

something that sounded similar called "Indian corn" and maize was by

some misidentified with that.

David/Cariadoc

Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 14:01:55 -0500

From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Turkeys ARE Period!

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

On Dec 16, 2006, at 12:35 PM, David Friedman wrote:

>> There was quite a bit of confusion as to where things came from. Fuchs

>> (1541) refers to chili peppers as Indische and Calcuttisha Pfeffer and maize

>> as Turkishe Korn (if I got the spellings correct). That beats out

>> Gerard by half a century.

> If I remember correctly, Finan, John J., Maize in the Great Herbals,

> suggests that maize was referred to as "Indian corn" not out of a

> confusion between the New World and Asia but because Pliny described

> something that sounded similar called "Indian corn" and maize was by

> some misidentified with that.

I think part of the problem may be with license taken in illustrating

certain grains on the ear, either when an artist is working from a

description of an item he has not actually seen, or in taking

shortcuts for convenience (for example, the illuminations of mail

armor that looks like chicken wire). It occurs to me that there might

have been illuminators or printers that could look at, or have

described to them, an ear of sorghum, which has a largish, oblong

ear, and a multitude of grains speckled on it more or less randomly,

like giant, mutant millet, and portray it with a series of straight

lines in a grid pattern (as we tend to get with maize). If you've

never seen either, it's not a problem. It's a foreign grain from the

Mysterious Orient, a.k.a. Turkish Grain. If you're familiar with

Asian or African sorghum, it's not that much of a stretch; you shrug

and move on. It's only when you're only familiar (or mostly familiar)

with maize that it's really easy to assume that that is a depiction

of an ear of maize.

In short, it could be a coincidence that the illustrated ears of

Turkey Corn could look more like maize than what they might actually

be intended to depict.

If ya folla...

Adamantius

Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 21:52:28 -0600

From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Turkeys ARE Period!

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

>> There was quite a bit of confusion as to where things came from. Fuchs

>> (1541) refers to chili peppers as Indische and Calcuttisha Pfeffer and maize

>> as Turkishe Korn (if I got the spellings correct). That beats out Gerard

>> by half a century.

> If I remember correctly, Finan, John J., Maize in the Great Herbals,

> suggests that maize was referred to as "Indian corn" not out of a

> confusion between the New World and Asia but because Pliny described

> something that sounded similar called "Indian corn" and maize was by

> some misidentified with that.

> --

> David/Cariadoc

Fuchs didn't connect maize with Pliny's Indian corn, which I think may have

been pearl millet, rounder and smaller than maize seeds but similar enough

to be confusing if you have never seen a specimen.

Dodoens copied Fuchs and expanded on Fuchs' work making the connection to

Pliny's Indian corn. Dodoens severed the connection in the 1583 edition of

his herbal. Gerard copied Dodoens but I don't recall him making the

connection to Pliny, so he may have used a later edition.

The best information I've found on this conundrum is a small article from

the New England Historical Geneological Society discussing how the Pilgrims

identified Indian corn which can be found at:

http://www.newenglandancestors.org/publications/NEA/6-5_018_Pilgrim.asp

I particularly like footnote 8.

Bear

Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2007 11:05:06 -0400

From: Robin Carroll-Mann <rcmann4 at earthlink.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Gastronomica on Spice Trade, Apicius and

Martino

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Perhaps Lady Brighid can fill you in more on the Spanish manuscripts

> which include New World foods. I don't remember if there are any New

> World foods in her translation of Ruperto de Nola's 1529 "Libre del

> Coch" or not, but she may be familiar with later manuscripts as well.

There are no New World foods in de Nola. Granado (1599) has some,

probably taken from the Italian, Scappi. (Mistress Helewyse could tell

you better than I what's in Scappi.) Granado contains recipes for

turkey and guinea pig, and possibly New World beans and squashes. No

tomatoes.

I've seen some mid-18th century tomato recipes, but that's not helpful

for this question. In the absense of cookbooks, the answer might be

found in household accounts, letters, and other records of daily living.

Brighid ni Chiarain

Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom

Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 09:46:08 -0400

From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] the Peacock Harper Culinary Collection

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

The Peacock Harper Culinary Collection "headquartered" in glorious

Blacksburg, Virginia, home of Virginia Tech

now has a webpage. http://www.culinarycollection.org/aboutus.htm

They are doing a lot on cookery and Jamestown this year.

http://www.culinarycollection.org/history.htm

They also publish a culinary newsletter

http://spec.lib.vt.edu/culinary/CulinaryThymes/

Johnnae