BAM!

(Copied from our pal, Buran's post on AA)

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Perhaps the white bread (recipe from Maggie Black's "Medieval Cookbook")is closest to actual, but the Potato and Wild Mushroom Napoleons (the cooks own recipe)? Somehow I don't think that quite works as potatoes are the problem with this recipe.

Maid of Honour Cakes Recipe adapted from "The Good Fare and Cheer of Old England", by Joan Parry Dutton, published by Reynal. This book was published in 1960. This is an excerpt I found about it in a book search engine.

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Containing all manner of British home cooking and drink. Chapters include : The British Breakfast; Time for Tea; Old-time Buns and Cakes; and ever so much more. A delight to read as well as to cook from.

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Nothing medieval is mentioned, doesn't mean that they don't have anything, but as Bob says sometimes it is thought that Old England is Medieval when they actually mean the 17th-18th c.

Cheers

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I'm still trying to figure out how they became the staple of the Irish diet in less than 300 years...

Brenna

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As I am unware of the potatoes presence in Europe, and Spain in particular, can you please provide the documentation that offers this information? More specifically which explorer brought them back?

Curiosity...

[ 08-30-2001: Message edited by: Fire Stryker ]

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For some good links on potato go to http://www.sunspiced.com/phistory.html http://www.indepthinfo.com/potato/history.shtml

Some notes from the site:

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No one knows exactly when potatoes were first planted in European soil but, in 1573, records of a Spanish hospital in Seville show that sacks of potatoes were ordered for provisions.

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At about the same time, some historians have written that Sir Francis Drake brought back some potatoes from a trip to the West Indies. If so, these were probably part of the stores of a Spanish ship he had fought with. The potatoes were given to Sir Walter Raleigh, and were cultivated at both his estates in Ireland and, later on, Virginia.

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Hope that helps.
Brenna

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I found this link regarding potatos, though as Brenna mentioned above, no exact date for their arrival in the old world is given. Simply that they arrived with the Conquistadors. There was no mention that the Spanish actually "ate" them. Just an early mention as some kind of truffle and that they were brought back.

http://collections.ic.gc.ca/potato/history/migration.asp

Despite the fact that they are mentioned relatively early in the 16th c. They are not considered a medieval food which was my point to begin with.

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You should have seen the costume he was wearing, very silly.

Anyone have good cookbooks recipes?

Say, watermelons aren't period, are they?

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Brenna

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http://www.chennaionline.com/specials/summer/features/articles/history.asp

I must put a cautionary note on this, no one seems to document their resources on any of these web sites, it is believed that water melons originated in Africa. Supposedly, they spread to China by the 10th/11th c. A.D.

With the coming of the Moors to Europe, so too came the "melon".

Apparently it wasn't mentioned in Britain until the 17th c and then it finally made its way to the US.

But like I said, the websites I was looking at, none of them offered real documentation and constantly parroted each other by saying that it "appeared in Egyptian hieroglyphs as far back as 5000 B.C."

I couldn't check with "watermelon.org" their site doesn't seem to be working.

[ 08-30-2001: Message edited by: Fire Stryker ]

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http://www.carleton.ca/~bgordon/Rice/papers/gu97.htm

Now that we have gotten off topic, I would put forward that if this discussion continues: Watermelons or Potatos, please take it to the Miscellaneous/Off Topic Forum.

Thanks

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