Tomatos and Potatos
Please forgive my bluntness, but I recently
read the entry page of a certain discussion
group that expressed disgust at the non-period
activities of the SCA, a group that they
felt missed the mark because it was less
than obsessed with total authenticity. Setting
aside such issues as authenticity in the
pursuit of ethical chivalry, which could
as well be performed with light sabers as
with wooden swords, or the joyful non-period
immortalization of our personality by filk,
let's examine just one statement at the opener.
The author of this little intro seemed awfully
perturbed that such "un-period"
items as tomatos and potatos should be in
evidence among our pre-1600 nobility.
Well, now.
We free wheeling types don't object to "compulsive
authenticity", guys. But we REALLY object
to inaccurate denigration of others in the
name of a false authenticity when you don't
even have the facts straight. Here's a few
little notes. Read, heed, and get off the
damn high horse. Courtesy is an important
component of chivalry. A LOT more important
than authenticity of ANY kind. This is NOT
re-enactment. It's RE-CREATION, not as it
WAS, but as it SHOULD HAVE BEEN! If you want
re-enactment, go do ren fair. But still,
get your facts straight. Compulsive authenticity
in your own re-creation, great! Condemnatory
false authenticity for others, non! Alors!
My comments are in red:
The Tomato
From "A History of Sicily" vol II, "Medieval Sicily 800-1713" copyright
1968 by D. Mack Smith, Published by The Viking Press we learn that in the
1500's, "The Spaniards introduced...the tomato from Peru, maize from Mexico
and Tobacco...the potato also arrived in Italy at the end of the sixteenth
century".
I ran across this one while studying the
early history of sugar in Sicily.
Yeah, they had that too, not just honey.
From: The Tomato in America by Andrew F. Smith, 1994, Univ. of South
Carolina Press:
"In 1544 an Italian herbalist, Pietro Andrae
Matthioli, published a reference
to mala aurea, or 'golden apples,' which
he described as 'flattened like
the melrose (sort of apple) and segmented,
green at first and when ripe of
a golden color.' This was the first known
European reference to the tomato.
It suggests that the tomatoes conveyed initially
into Europe were yellow
in color."
Of course the red ones weren't far behind.
From Salse di Pomodoro - Making the Great Tomato Sauces of Italy
, by Julia Della Croce, 1996:
"...in 1544, naturalist Petrus Matthiolus
refers to the tomato as the mala insana,
the 'unhealthy apple'. In his description,
he says that it is eaten like an eggplant,
'fried in oil with salt and pepper.' Later,
Castore Durante offers a similar recipe in
his Herbario nuovo, published in Rome in 1585: 'They are eaten
the same way as eggplants, with pepper, salt
and oil, but give little and bad nourishment."
Prior to 1585, they were eaten in Italy
for at least 41 years! You can grow
a LOT of tomatos in that time!
From: The Tomato in America by Andrew F. Smith, 1994, Univ. of South
Carolina Press:
"In 1553 the Swiss naturalist Konrad Gesner painted a watercolor of a small,
red-fruited plant that he called in Latin poma amoris (love apple)...The
attribution may have originated with Luca Ghini a sixteenth- century Italian
botanist who had founded the first European botanical garden at Pisa. He
called the fruit amatula, a Latin word that denotes possession of
an aphrodisiac quality. Ghini corresponded with Matthioli and almost every
other European herbalist....tomatoes were considered aphrodisiacs...."
Here's the first RED tomato I could find.
Only 47 years of period tomatos!
"In 1553 the Flemish herbalist Rembert Dodoens also concluded that Matthioli's
golden apples were the same as the poma amoris. "
"The myth....(of the golden apples of the Hesperides)...along with it's
association with the tomato, was published in England by Henry Lyte, who
translated the Dodoens and l'Ecluse herbal in 1578..."
"Although tomatoes had been cultivated in Continental Europe since the
1540's, they were not grown in England until the 1590's. John Gerard, a barber-surgeon,
planted them in Holborn in the College of Physicians gardens that he superintended....."
So let's just look at the original of that...
"Gerarde's Herball", (in the 1597 FIRST edition, if yours says 1633
it's the SECOND edition...) lists tomatos as Apples of Love, "commonly available
in Italy and Spain", whence he got the seeds for his own garden, and lists
both red and yellow varieties. Although his opinion of them is low, he includes
a picture making identity certain, and notes it's wide usage in Spain...
"In Spain and those hot Regions they use to eate the Apples prepared and
boiled with pepper, salt and oyle: but they yeeld very little nourishment
to the body, and the same naught and corrupt.
Likewise, they doe eate the Apples with oile, vinegre and pepper mixed
together for sauce to their meat, even as we in these cold countries doe
Mustard."
(Tomato, oil, vinegar, and pepper....add
garlic and it's spaghetti sauce....add
sugar and it's ketchup!...And don't EVEN
get me started on salsa!)
From: The Tomato in America by Andrew F. Smith, 1994, Univ. of South
Carolina Press:
"....Despite the fact that Gerard knew that the tomato was eaten in Spain
and Italy, he accepted Dodens's view that it was poisonous. His negative
views prevailed in Britain and in the British North American colonies for
over two hundred years."
(But the Spanish and Italians had no such
problems!)
The Sweet and Virginia (White) Potato
The illustration representing the Virginian Potato in Gerard's Herball
(1597) is the first figure ever
published of this plant. The plant was originally grown in America. Gerard
received roots of the
plant from Virginia where he was able to successfully grow it in his own
garden. Gerard's
description of the plant follows: "Virginian potato hath many hollow flexible
branches trailing
upon the ground,...from the which knots commeth forth one great leafe made
of divers, leaves,
some smaller and others greater,...the root is thicke, fat, and tuberous,
not much differing either
in shape, colour, or taste, from the common Potato's (Sweet Potato), saving
that the roots hereof are not so great nor long, some of them as round as
a ball, some oval or egge-fashion, some longer, and others
shorter; the which knobby roots are fastened unto the stalks with an infinite
number of threddy
strings."
Gerard and others refer to the Sweet Potato as a common potato and the white
spud as the "Potato of America or Virginia Potato".
The sweet potato he says is "among the Spaniards, Italians, Indians, and
many other nations, ordinarie and common meate"
From "A History of Sicily" vol II, "Medieval Sicily 800-1713" copyright
1968 by D. Mack Smith, Published by The Viking Press we learn that in the
1500's, "The Spaniards introduced...the tomato from Peru, maize from Mexico
and Tobacco...the (Virginia) potato also arrived in Italy at the end of the
sixteenth century"
From: A History of Food by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat 1987, Translated
by Anthea Bell 1992, Blackwell Publishers, Cambridge, MA we have:
"In 1600, Olivier de Serres published his Theatre d'Agriculture et mesnage
des champs. On p. 516 he comments: 'This plant, called cartoufle, bears fruits
of the same name resembling truffles, and so called by some. It came to the
Dauphine from Switzerland not long since.' Such is the baptismal certificate
of the potato...."
.....in France. They got it from..get this...Switzerland.
From: The Potato: how the humble spud rescued the western world ,
by Larry Zuckerman, 1998:
"The sweet potato, a vine in the morning glory family, returned to Spain
right away with Columbus, after his landfall at Haiti. From 1493 on, Spanish
ships bound for Europe from Haiti and other points west carried sweet potatoes
in their holds. A variety found in Darien (Panama) was brought to Hispaniola
in 1508 and within eight years, Spain. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella
may have liked them enough to have had them planted in their court gardens.
Their son-in-law, Henry VIII of England, liked them too, but for a reason
they would have deplored: Supposedly, he thought the plant was an aphrodisiac.
If Henry believed that, he wasn't the only European who did, because the
myth lasted far longer than his stormy marriages. The 'Venerous Roots' from
Spain supplied English banquets decades after the King's death, a fashion
that Shakespeare's pen noted before the sixteenth century was out. In
The Merry Wives Of Windsor, Sir John Falstaff, thinking he is about to
bed two women at once, cries, 'Let the sky rain potatoes'-and the date the
play was written makes clear he's referring to the sweet kind."
"Henry ate his sweet potatoes in heavily spiced and sugared pies"
From: The Potato: how the humble spud rescued the western world ,
by Larry Zuckerman, 1998:
(of the white potato)
"By 1600, after spending three decades in Europe, the potato had entered
Spain, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Holland, France, Switzerland, England, Germany,
and most likely Portugal and Ireland."
"In 1596, the Swiss botanist Gaspard Bauhin ....(named) it Solanum tuberosum."
==================================================================
All in Europe. All pre-1600. So I can
have my potatos, sweet potatos
and tomatos now? All right. This is from
only a quick cursory look through
our files. So gimme a break when a guy sings
his filk, already. He knows
it's not period. But with a good exemplar
from someone who takes the time
to share, his next effort may be the filk
of a PERIOD tune. And his next
after that an original work in a period style.
And then maybe something really
difficult and totally period in language
and all. (not that you can communicate
to an audience when they don't understand
the language!) We ALL start out
as poor in the authenticity department. Most
get better with time, and some
are more concerned with other areas. Attempting
to invalidate people who
are not at your own level of expertise or
who do not exactly share your interest
merely serves to drive them away from EVER
sharing the good side of the experience
you seek. (Especially when your facts are
off!) Don't complain. Explain.
Don't Condemn. Share. Don't despise. Encourage.
Thus endeth
the lesson.
Go and
sin no more.
Bibliography:
A History of Sicily" vol II, "Medieval Sicily 800-1713" copyright 1968
by D. Mack Smith, Published by The Viking Press
The Potato: how the humble spud rescued the western world , by Larry Zuckerman,
1998
The Merry Wives Of Windsor, William Shakespeare
Gerarde's Herball , John Gerarde, 1597
Theatre d'Agriculture et mesnage des champs by Olivier de Serres, 1600
A History of Food by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat 1987, Translated by Anthea
Bell 1992, Blackwell Publishers, Cambridge, MA
The Tomato in America by Andrew F. Smith, 1994, Univ. of South Carolina
Press
Salse di Pomodoro - Making the Great Tomato Sauces of Italy , by Julia
Della Croce, 1996
(c) 2002 by Courtney and Brandy Powers-All Rights Reserved
Permission Granted for non-profit educational use with the provision that
all credits are preserved. (Go ahead and post it on your web page, or print
it for non-profit use, but if you want to print it and sell it for cash,
talk to us. We sell out cheap.)
