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bananas-msg - 2/22/08

 

Period bananas. Evidence for when and where they were known and used. Recipes.

 

NOTE: See also the files: fruits-msg, fruit-apples-msg, fruit-quinces-msg, nuts-msg, sugar-msg, vegetables-msg, fruit-melons-msg, pomegranates-msg, fruit-citrus-msg.

 

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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: ayotte at milo.NOdak.EDU (Robert Arthur Ayotte)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Period fruits?

Date: 8 Dec 1993 08:02:24 -0500

Organization: North Dakota State University ACM, Fargo ND

 

:   But no bananas or pineapple unless you get to Africa.

 

: My secondary source research (Tanahill, and the Encyclopedia Britannica)

: told me that Bananas were exported to the New World at the end of period by

: the Spanish and Portuguese, where bananas themselves are indigenous to Asia

: and not Africa.  Do you have more information? I found these sources to be

: sufficient to convince me to work with banana, but I could be convinced

: either way.

 

      According to McGee, bananas were native to india and malaya, it arrived in Africa around 500 AD.  Europeans knew it as the indian fig.  

 

      Bananas originally had fairly large seeds, and in some

parts of the world they can still be found growing wild with the black

seeds taking up nearly 1/3 of their interior.

      Somewhere I remember hearing that bananas were known in Rome, but

were not considered fitting food for humans.  The date would have been

sometime around the time of the first Ceasers.

 

: It is safe to say, however, that modern bananas are not even close to period

: ones, its true. But they are closer to period bananas than, say modern pears

: would be...

 

:     Tibor (ever-learning)

: --

: Mark Schuldenfrei (schuldy at math.harvard.edu)

 

      The seeds in bananas are rock hard and vary from 1/4 inch to

almost 1/2 inch.  How the seedless varieties were found is unknown.

 

Horace

 

 

From: hrjones at uclink.berkeley.edu (Heather Rose Jones)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Period fruits?

Date: 8 Dec 1993 16:44:52 GMT

Organization: University of California, Berkeley

 

Robert Arthur Ayotte <ayotte at milo.NOdak.EDU> wrote:

>     Bananas originally had fairly large seeds, and in some

>parts of the world they can still be found growing wild with the black

>seeds taking up nearly 1/3 of their interior.

>almost 1/2 inch.  How the seedless varieties were found is unknown.

>

>Horace

 

The "seedless" varieties are modern polyploid hybrids. (They actually do

have seeds, but they are small and infertile.) I learned something

fascinating in this regard in my university genetics course: statistically

speaking, something like one in every thousand (exact number forgotten)

bananas ought to have large, fertile seeds due to the proper combination

of ploidy in the gametes involved. Why don't we ever see _any_ in the

markets? Because fertile bananas are easily identifiable visually and

are removed from the bunch before being shipped. To get this back

more on topic, specialty groceries around here carry about a dozen

different varieties of non-standard bananas, but I have no idea whether

any of them are ones that would have been available.

 

Keridwen f. Morgan Glasfryn

 

 

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 15:41:44 -0500

From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>

Subject: RE: SC - Fw: [TY] Fruits From 'New World'

 

> My questions are:

> 1) Approximatley when did the Pineapple reach England (and

> surrounding areas)?

 

According to the quick ref, Columbus introduced the pineapple (Ananascomosus) to Spain in 1493.  I haven't seen anything as to when the pineapple reached England, but I suspect it is in the 17th Century, after England establishes colonies in the Caribbean.

 

> 2) Waht other 'New World' fruits were discovered and when...

 

Also attached to Columbus' return in 1493 is the plantain (Musaparadisiaca), a relative of the banana.  The fruit is similar to the fruit of genus Plantago which appears to have been cultivated in Europe at the time and was also known as plantain.

 

> -Ly. Ganna

 

Bear

 

 

Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1999 16:32:22 -0700

From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>

Subject: Bananas (was RE: SC - Hummus and Other Questionably Period Foods)

 

At 2:38 PM -0400 7/5/99, Michelle \"TJ\" Brunzie wrote:

>Like bananas - I'm sure

>bananas have come up already - which I was wondering about because I have

>this book (which isn't *that* historical) which asserts that bananas were

>introduced to Europe by Muslims.

 

Could be.

 

Taciunem Sanitatas, which is a 14th c. latin book based on an Arabic

original, has a picture of bananas by someone who has clearly never seen

one, and says they are grown in Sicily. Sicily had been Muslim, was

conquered by by Normans in, I think, the 12th c., but may still have been

to some degree culturally Muslim later.

 

Also, there was a recent story about a 16th c. banana peel someone found in

England.

 

David/Cariadoc

http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

 

 

Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 10:34:24 -0500

From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>

Subject: RE: SC - Unhistoric things we serve WAS:Shepherds Pie

 

> Warning! Warning Will Robinson!  Andrea..... Bananas are

> period dating back to pre-Roman times.  Hannibals army

> were among the first Western Europeans to taste bananas.

 

Pliny specifically gives credit to Alexander the Great's army which invaded

India and provides a description of the banana.  The fruit was apparently

unknown in the Mediterrenean Basin in 1st Century CE, so I doubt Hannibal

found any on his alpine elephantine excursion.

 

The best evidence is that bananas were brought to the Middle East and North

Africa around 700 CE as part of the Islamic expansion and were brought to

Central Africa as part of the Arab slave trade.  They are believed to have

arrived in Madagascar about 300 CE during a migration from Indonesia and

were traded into South Africa from there.

 

> They were grown

> in the Canary Islands by the Portugese before the discovery of the

> New World.   A number of items now grown so extensively in the

> New World are actually Old World!  

 

The Portuguese found bananas in West Africa and imported them to the

Canaries where they began cultivating them.  The Spanish took the Canaries

in the late 15th Century and in 1516, bananas were transported to the New

World.

 

> True, period bananas are not

> similar to modern breeds you get at the Safeway, but they are

> absolutely period!  To find recipes, you will need to look at early

> Islamic and Judaic cookery (they will be hard to find I

> think).  Period

> bananas look more like those stubby reddish ones you see on

> ocassion in some larger stores.

>

> Akim Yaroslavich

 

While there has been selective breeding to improve the stock, the banana

varieties available today were available in period, though they may not have

been in a commonly frequented local.  IIRC, the Cavendish, which is today's

common yellow banana, is out of Asia and is the choice commercial banana

because it is hardier than the Big Mike (originally from the Canaries) that

it replaced in the trade and that small yellow and small red bananas were

also being grown in the Canaries.

 

Bear

 

 

Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 00:58:12 -0700 (PDT)

From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>

Subject: SC - Bananas

 

Here is what the Oxford Companion to Food says about

bananas:

 

It seems likely that edible bananas date back several

thousand years in India.  There were certainly known

by repute to the Greeks in the 4th Century BC, when

the army of Alexander the Great encountered them on

trees in India.  PLiny the Elder, writing several

centuries later, recorded the incident and cited the

name "pala" for the fruit.  This name passed into

classical Greek and is reflected in some modern Indian

names. The classical writer Theofrastus repeated a

legend that wise men sat in the shade of the banana

tree and ate its fruit, whence the pleasing but now

obsolete botanical name M. sapientium, meaning 'banana

of the sages.'

 

The banana reached China about AD 200, when it is

mentioned in the works of Yang Fu.  However, it was

grown only in the south, and was considered a rare,

exotic fruit in the north, an attitude that lasted

well into the 20th Century.

 

During the 1st Millenium AD, the banana also arrived

in Africa, probably taken directly from the Malay

region to Madagascar.  By the end of the 14th century,

the fruit was being cultivated right across the

continent to the west coast.

 

During the same period, it was take eastward through

the Pacific Islands.  The Arabs had spread cultivation

through their lands south of the Mediterranean before

AD 650, but no farther north than Egypt, the climate

of South Europe being too cool for the plant.

Consequently, the banana remained unknown to most

Europeans until much later.

 

THe first serious European contact with the fruit came

not long after 1402, when Portuguese sailors found it

in West Africa and took it to the Canary Islands.

That is why the European name 'banana' comes from a

West African word, the Guinean banema or banana.  The

Canaries have remained an important banana-growing

area ever since, and it was from there that a Spanish

missionary, later Bishop of Panama, took banana roots

to American in 1516, after which the new plant spread

quickly through Central America and the northern parts

of South America.  For some reason, the Spaniards saw

a likeness between the banana tree and the totally

different plane tree (plateno), which is how the

plantain got its confusing name.

 

Huette

 

 

Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 12:18:50 -0600

From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>

Subject: RE: SC - Bananas?

 

>What references, if any, do we have for bananas used as foodstuffs during

>our period?

>

>Malachias

 

Pliny describes bananas and their consumption in India based on Nearchus'

invasion of Northern India around 325 BCE.  Apparently the fruit was not

brought back to Greece at that time.

 

The fruit was brought to Africa from Southeast Asia about 325 CE by a

migration to Mozambique.  A second importation to North Africa occurred

after the Arab conquest of Nothern India at the beginning of the 8th

Century. Between the two importations and the Arab slave trade into Central

Africa, bananas spread to the West Coast of Africa by the 15th Century.  

 

There are supposedly references to bananas in some of the Arab texts, but I

have not found the texts or translations.

 

The Portuguese found bananas in West Africa and brought them to the Canary

Islands after the islands were taken from Castile in 1425.  The bananas were

under cultivation when Spain retook the islands in 1496.

 

Oviedo records the importation of bananas from the Canary Islands to the

Caribbean in his "Historia general y natural de las Indias, Islas y

Tierra-Firme del Mar Oceano" in 1517.  While there are a few quibbles, the

evidence suggests that this is the initial introduction of bananas into the

New World.

 

The banana which turned up in a Tudor trash heap represents, in my opinion,

an anomalous import from the Canaries.  Two professionals commenting on the

origin of this particular banana suggested the New World and Southeast Asia.

Both are doubtful, since bananas last only about 10 to 14 days after cutting

without carefully controlled refrigeration.

 

While the banana was eaten in Africa, Asia, and probably Arabia and the

Levant during the SCA period, it is a tropical fruit, and its perishable

nature severely limited its use in Europe.  The banana was not a

commercially viable crop outside of the tropics until the advent of steam

powered transportation.

 

Bear

 

 

Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 18:54:26 -0800

From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>

Subject: RE: SC - Bananas?

 

At 12:18 PM -0600 12/18/00, Decker, Terry D. wrote:

>There are supposedly references to bananas in some of the Arab texts, but I

>have not found the texts or translations.

 

_The Four Seasons of the House of Cerruti_ is based on an Arab text,

of which I think the Latin version is Taciunum Sanitatas. It mentions

bananas as being grown in Sicily, I believe, but the picture was

pretty clearly drawn by someone who had never seen one.

- --

David Friedman

ddfr at best.com

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/

 

 

Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 22:59:12 -0800 (PST)

From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Tina=20Nevin?= <thorngrove at yahoo.com>

Subject: RE: SC - Bannana

 

If you would like to see a photo of the Tudor trash heap bannana skin,

take a peek at my webpage here:

http://www.geocities.com/thorngrove/banana.jpg

 

Ciao

Lucrezia

 

 

Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 10:00:08 -0600

From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>

Subject: RE: SC - Bannana

 

> Thanks Lucrezia.

> Which museum is that from?

> I am curious as to what they say about it's presence.

>

> Beatrice

 

The Museum of London.  Here's a further URL for your perusal:

http://www.museum-london.org.uk/MOLsite/forum/lbc4.html

 

I would point out that we really can not say the banana was eaten in England

within the SCA period.  A single banana peel represents an archeological

anomaly. It may be of Tudor origin or it may be an intrusive artifact.  

 

If you want a banana recipe presumably medieval and Arabic, but of no

provable provenance, try slicing a banana into a dish, add blanched almonds

and honey, stir to mix, pour sesame oil upon it and serve it forth.  

 

For the experimental and not overly historically accurate, prepare them like

wardens in syrup or bake them into a tart.

 

Or, based upon Pliny's commentary, you might serve it in that most unusual

of ways--raw.

 

Bear

 

 

Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 02:22:19 +0100

From: TG <gloning at Mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE>

Subject: SC - Bananas

 

I.

The 11th century Taqwim al-Sihha of Ibn Butlan (Tacuin sanitatis) has an

entry on bananas with one sentence on how to eat them. Here is a rough

English paraphrase based on the Editor's French translation of his arab

edition:

- -- 'To eat it with sugar and honey helps to make good use of it (?).

Make sure that the banana is ripe and thoroughly peeled and drink some

perfumed wine afterwards'

- -- "La manger avec du sucre et du miel aide la faire bien apprcier,

surtout quand elle est mre, bien pele et suivie d'un vin parfum".

(Elkhadem 155)

 

The strange pictures in the _Four seasons of the house of Cerruti_,

David mentioned, might be explained by the fact that this passage was

later understood to refer to a different kind of plant (Latin printed

ed. 1531: musae, poma paradisi, German ed. 1533: Paradiespffel).

 

II.

According to Maxime Rodinson's 'Recherches sur les documents arabes

relatifs la cuisine' [1950; Inquiries into the arab texts pertinent to

cookery], there are two recipes with bananas in the 'Kitab al-Wusla ila

l-Habib' (Book of the connection to the friend; 12th century; later

manuscripts). As far as I know, there is no edition of this text yet,

but at least Rodinson's summary [On donne ci-dessous un sommaire du

contenu de l'ouvrage; 130] indicates, that there _are_ two banana

recipes:

- -- 'Two dishes of meat with bananas'

- -- "2 plats de viande aux bananes" (p. 138).

 

Th.

 

 

Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 08:51:12 -0500

From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>

Subject: RE: SC - What would you do?  or 2 months to freak out

 

> > Umm. I'd hate to see a possibly rare, even one-time import of some

> > bananas used to justify the use of bananas as period.

>

> Havent seen any updates yet refuting it.

 

AFAIK, there has been no conclusive finding with regard to the banana peel.

Bananas were in use in the Middle East and Africa at the time.  In the late

15th Century, Portuguese explorers found bananas on the West Coast of Africa

and transplanted some to the Canary Islands.  In 1517, banana shoots were

transplanted from the Canaries to the New World.

 

Because they are extremely perishable (10 to 12 days after cutting), they

are more likely to have been used where they were grown than imported into

Europe. The banana trade in the U.S. and Europe becomes a business only

after the advent of reliable steam transportation.

 

Bear

 

 

Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 15:02:22 -0400

From: "Peters, Rise J." <rise.peters at spiegelmcd.com>

Subject: RE: SC - bananas

 

What's even worse is that the bananas they would have been eating... those

lovely things they grow in the Canaries -- taste completely different from

what we buy at the supermarket.  But they are over-ripe and brown within

hours after they are removed from the trees, and when something has to be

sacrificed for marketability/transportability, the something is always

flavor.

 

I ate bananas on Gomera, in the Canaries, until I just about popped.... and

it was a long time before I could stomach the ones at home again.

 

 

Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 13:58:08 -0500

From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>

Subject: RE: SC - bananas

 

> I think Bear's main point was that until the creation of faster

> transportation (steamship?), bananas just didn't last long enough to

> get from their point of origin to England in an edible condition.

>

> Stefan li Rous

 

I am of the opinion the banana peel is a period anomaly unless it can be

reasonably demonstrated that it is an intrusive artifact.  It was originally

reported that the peel was encapsulated in the midden leading the excavating

archeologists to believe it was not intrusive.  The peel is anomalous

because it is the only one discovered and there are no references to bananas

being imported into England before the 19th Century.

 

From Oviedo, we know that the Canary Islands had bananas in 1517 and that

the priest who would later become the Bishop of Panama was the first person

known to import banana shoots into the New World.  The Canaries are within

10 days sail of England for a fast ship, so bananas could be imported from

the Canaries (or Madeira, which is closer and probably also had bananas

under cultivation).  

 

Bananas were known and eaten in the 16th Century.  However, the idea that

they could be a regular import into Europe is not very likely given the

unreliablity of sea travel and the perishability of the fruit, especially

when one considers the difficulties of getting the fruit to market even

after the developement of steamships.

 

Bear

 

 

Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 15:14:09 -0500

From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>

Subject: RE: SC - bananas

 

> I have read that bananas were eaten by Near Easterners in period,

> however. So perhaps at a Near Eastern banquet, although i haven't

> found a recipe that includes them yet.

>

> Anahita

 

Thomas Gloning provided the following a while back:

 

The 11th century Taqwim al-Sihha of Ibn Butlan (Tacuin sanitatis) has an

entry on bananas with one sentence on how to eat them. Here is a rough

English paraphrase based on the Editor's French translation of his arab

edition:

- - -- 'To eat it with sugar and honey helps to make good use of it (?). Make

sure that the banana is ripe and thoroughly peeled and drink some perfumed

wine afterwards' - -- "La manger avec du sucre et du miel aide la faire

bien apprcier, surtout quand elle est mfre, bien pele et suivie d'un vin

parfum". (Elkhadem 155)

 

According to Maxime Rodinson's 'Recherches sur les documents arabes relatifs

la cuisine' [1950; Inquiries into the arab texts pertinent to cookery],

there are two recipes with bananas in the 'Kitab al-Wusla ila l-Habib' (Book

of the connection to the friend; 12th century; later manuscripts). As far as

I know, there is no edition of this text yet, but at least Rodinson's

summary [On donne ci-dessous un sommaire du contenu de l'ouvrage; 130]

indicates, that there _are_ two banana recipes:

- - -- 'Two dishes of meat with bananas'

- - -- "2 plats de viande aux bananes" (p. 138).