fd-New-World-msg - 3/16/08 16th Century food of and from the New World. NOTE: See also the files: fd-Caribbean-msg, fd-Spain-msg, turkeys-msg, pineapples-msg, berries-msg, spices-msg, 16C-Tomato-art, tomato-hist-art, tomatoes-msg, chocolate-msg, vanilla-msg. ************************************************************************ 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 ************************************************************************ 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. See also-- http://www.mnh.si.edu/garden/welcome.html 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. De -----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 <the end> Edited by Mark S. Harris fd-New-World-msg 12 of 12