Food city area: What did historic figures eat

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Wordless Wednesday: Paris Bread Riot

Wordless Wednesday: Paris Bread Riot

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18Dec2013

Bread, Sugar, Coffee

<i>Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution</i> by Simon Schama is an enormous book. I read it during the past week because I wanted to know more about the French Revolution than "Let them eat cake." Well, I did know more, but I wanted a lot more. The old cliche about Marie Antoinette does reflect accurately that the masses of people in pre-Revolutionary France struggled to get enough to eat. The first half of <i>Citizens</i> depicts the increasing misery of the people due to harvest failures in the 1780s, among many other trends and events. In this little tiny discussion of a brick-sized book, I'm going to explore just a few ideas on food and the Revolution.<br /><br />Tax farms, not agricultural farms, presented a major problem for Louis XVI. Despite the problems of bad conditions for food production, on the whole France was prosperous; however, the tax farmers who collected taxes under contract were reaping most of the benefits of trade and economic growth. Many of the changes that led up to the Revolution represented efforts to contain financial difficulties, including the convening of delegates in various assemblies of old tradition.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfPcGiSYVNwRpgGEWpgVoJoZP-3Lrpr0aNXQFU97XzEM3GaZoBHg3tU_hf6oDotspYIL1CmPGwmSLeuIr81BM3uzaAl0X2Fa4cOC0I-Tp0zXy7orPGqpRjCy9TuE9Wdx8oiombVXS2hJam/s1600/calonne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfPcGiSYVNwRpgGEWpgVoJoZP-3Lrpr0aNXQFU97XzEM3GaZoBHg3tU_hf6oDotspYIL1CmPGwmSLeuIr81BM3uzaAl0X2Fa4cOC0I-Tp0zXy7orPGqpRjCy9TuE9Wdx8oiombVXS2hJam/s320/calonne.jpg" width="271" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vigee Lebrun's portrait of Calonne</td></tr></tbody></table>Louis' early efforts included the appointment of a series of ministers to straighten out his numerous financial problems. One was Calonne, who had a reputation for prodigality and opulence that didn't help with Louis' own poor public image. Schama describes Calonne's chef Olivier, who presided over a vast staff of "specialists of the table." He writes:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"There were three servants alone to look after the roasted meats, with their own assigned kitchen boy called Tintin. Calonne had a weakness for truffles, partridge and, more surprisingly 'macarony de Naples' eaten with Parmesan or Gruyère, a dish which one would have thought incompatible with lace cuffs." (p. 235 -- I read this tome in a paper book as there's no Kindle edition!)</blockquote>Meanwhile, of course, the king and his vast court ate very well also, while poor and even middle-class people were facing rapidly rising prices. Even when incarcerated in the Bastille, the well-off could bring in high-quality food -- beef, chicken, fresh fruit and vegetables. Common prisoners were still fed decently, though; those imprisoned for participating in "flour war" riots in 1775 were fed "gruels and soups, sometimes lined with a string of bacon or lardy ham." (p. 392)<br /><br />In contrast to Calonne, one subsequent finance minister, Necker, was widely believed to be capable of controlling this inflation; he was "a bringer of cornucopias: the man who would make solvency from bankruptcy, create work where there was unemployment and bring bread where there was famine." Necker had even "put up his personal fortune as collateral for a grain shipment" from abroad.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBF_qGhhByoCPfWBy8dMoDdQMF8cg4VqmvMElN3FlDwhAko6jeuJb6s-hze1f1L9_MLMg6VUUUiCljHAo0gdJ4pERD4VUqtYOicVJ_VnxjpgAI9lZOsCq45-yTmk74aNYU8E_ul7PRyCjY/s1600/necker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBF_qGhhByoCPfWBy8dMoDdQMF8cg4VqmvMElN3FlDwhAko6jeuJb6s-hze1f1L9_MLMg6VUUUiCljHAo0gdJ4pERD4VUqtYOicVJ_VnxjpgAI9lZOsCq45-yTmk74aNYU8E_ul7PRyCjY/s320/necker.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Necker with cornucopia</td></tr></tbody></table><blockquote class="tr_bq">"The notion that famines were caused not by the climate but by conspiracy had a long pedigree in France. But it was never more widely shared nor more angrily expressed than in 1789. If bakers and millers who withheld their stock from the market to drive prices even higher were the immediate villains, behind them lay an even more sinister aristocratic cabal." (p. 372)</blockquote>Louis dismissed Necker in 1789, also dissolving the National Assembly, infuriating those who had believed in him and had confidence in his policies and his integrity.<br /><br />What I found interesting in Schama's detailed social and economic history is that during the Revolution, as before, rich people who didn't flee still ate well, while prices of bread, sugar, coffee, meat and many other commodities important to the middle and lower classes continued to rise rapidly, perhaps even more than before. Poor harvests were made worse by disruptions to the peasants (like abolishing the church and persecuting the clergy). Tropical imports like sugar and coffee became scarce when French colonies also revolted. Imports of supplementary grain for bread and imports of any still-available exotic foods were cut off by lack of function in ports caused by various Revolutionary actions and policies. The poorest people, as always, suffered the most.<br /><br />A major concern during the Revolutionary period (Schama's book covers up to 1794) was hoarding, whether by farmers, dealers, shopkeepers, or ordinary citizens. During the Terror, the Convention adopted the death penalty for hoarders.  They defined "goods of the first necessity" including the basics: "bread, salt and wine," and also "butter, meat, vegetables, soap, sugar, hemp, wool, oil and vinegar. Anyone possessing stocks of this market basket was required to make a formal declaration to the authorities." Both wholesalers and retailers could be ordered to sell goods at any time. Throughout the era, and indeed in pre-Revolutionary times as well, efforts at price control met with a similar lack of success. (p. 757) Long lines for food were a reality of the day, and those with political power were able to take the best for themselves. (p. 862 and elsewhere)<br /><br />As the Revolution proceeded, another responsibility of the new leaders involved supplying the large armies that they were amassing to defend France against foreign troops opposing them. This required major efforts at procurement and even production, as well as "inspirational propaganda." A soldier's daily ration theoretically was "a pound and three quarters of bread, together with a few ounces of meat, beans, or some other dried vegetable and wine or ale. If they were lucky they might get an onion and a slab of cheese, and where there was no brandy, gin or tobacco to start the day, the officers could expect trouble." (p. 765)<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVlZssO88s4HM8e5VdYAaZqtaD4I6Ls2ChEYOE7-AJr2XfNRpoHTda0VM_H6xGzsb3LI-tI-j54spn0IOal5sPr43jQMvChh7MnAZqMfeJlGCQBuApBJEPCz0dB9-Pyg4xgZ5YNmCJBuna/s1600/Fe%CC%82te_de_la_Raison_1793.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVlZssO88s4HM8e5VdYAaZqtaD4I6Ls2ChEYOE7-AJr2XfNRpoHTda0VM_H6xGzsb3LI-tI-j54spn0IOal5sPr43jQMvChh7MnAZqMfeJlGCQBuApBJEPCz0dB9-Pyg4xgZ5YNmCJBuna/s400/Fe%CC%82te_de_la_Raison_1793.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Festival of Reason</td></tr></tbody></table>Food was always a necessity and present throughout various symbolic events. At a festival to rename Notre Dame de Paris the "Temple of Reason" an opera singer played the role of Liberty, seated on a bank of flowers. One writer described the smell of herrings at a similar festival in Saint-Gervais, while at Saint-Eustache "he was horrified to see 'bottles, sausages, <i>andouilles</i>, pâtés and other meats'" around the choir of the former church. (p. 778)<br /><br />What most struck me about this quite fascinating book was one general point: that many changes that took place during the revolution were in fact very lasting, especially the economic restructuring that altered the role of the nobility and obliterated many of the remnants of feudalism, turning "lords" into "landlords" or removing nobility entirely from the economic picture, replaced by new upper class types. This change persisted even when royalty was restored.<br /><br /><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Note: Images are from Wikipedia.</span></i>

Bread, Sugar, Coffee

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama is an enormous book. I read it during the past week because I wanted to know more about the French Revolution than "Let them eat cake." Well, I did know more, but I wanted a lot more. The old cliche about Marie Antoinette does reflect ac…

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16Dec2013

Cuisine without Food: Addendum

Cuisine without Food: Addendum

Book of Tasty and Healthy Food by Anastas Mikoyan, translation pub. 2012Anya Von Bremzen, in her memoir Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking (see my post from yesterday) described the Soviet cookbook for good communist homemakers, first published in 1939. Its attributed author, Anastas Mikoyan, was c…

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29Sep2013

Cuisine without Food

Cuisine without Food

I read the Kindle edition,so I never actually saw this dust jacket.In Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing, Anya Von Bremzen compresses the last 100 years of Russian history into a few representative meals. Tales of eating are punctuated by descriptions of several eras o…

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28Sep2013

Following a Clove

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHFAHfgcBgxB9WGP0SFmcVoPfu9qjS_2eJsnh1cDElJ8-vJT2mY-5kRdKmMhGIu7TYe9oKhJ0ramAou3oQArvqYcMuXyCovEp5DQufkRAZzmYqy9tY1zrPpmIEGVBnizZgR-yEOcd0VJJd/s1600/wikimedia-cloves-color.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHFAHfgcBgxB9WGP0SFmcVoPfu9qjS_2eJsnh1cDElJ8-vJT2mY-5kRdKmMhGIu7TYe9oKhJ0ramAou3oQArvqYcMuXyCovEp5DQufkRAZzmYqy9tY1zrPpmIEGVBnizZgR-yEOcd0VJJd/s400/wikimedia-cloves-color.jpg" width="306" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Syzygium aromaticum</i>, the clove plant</td></tr></tbody></table>Cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon, ginger, cumin, nutmeg -- spices from the east -- once sold for enormous prices; possession and use of spices was a status symbol for medieval men and women who could afford them. From ancient times Europeans imported Asian spice via land and water. Prior to the fifteenth century Europeans had little or no idea of where these spices grew or what kind of plants and climates produced them.<br /><br />"Spices as a link to Paradise, and the vision of Paradise as a real place somewhere in the East ... fascinated the medieval imagination," wrote Wolfgang Schivelbusch in <i>Tastes of Paradise</i>. "The exorbitant price of spices ... further enhanced this fascination." (p. 6)<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK1eYZA77gMA9HbtCPpZS4rGrGZwr5SnNlAvLxgSzk5wnzRZFLytgjR999fXoqzkUn4Fyx8ROEUXImSOV7-jSvRQC3FDTLWbu6U7fphCHFkIkKHpI9g3VaeC8URfKQC2hY_ZnlbMvM7U2I/s1600/Mauritius_-_Detail_uit_Het_uitzeilen_van_een_aantal_Oost-Indie%CC%88vaarders_van_Hendrick_Cornelisz_Vroom_(1600).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK1eYZA77gMA9HbtCPpZS4rGrGZwr5SnNlAvLxgSzk5wnzRZFLytgjR999fXoqzkUn4Fyx8ROEUXImSOV7-jSvRQC3FDTLWbu6U7fphCHFkIkKHpI9g3VaeC8URfKQC2hY_ZnlbMvM7U2I/s320/Mauritius_-_Detail_uit_Het_uitzeilen_van_een_aantal_Oost-Indie%CC%88vaarders_van_Hendrick_Cornelisz_Vroom_(1600).jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hendrik Cornelisz Vroom, Dutch Galleon, 1600-1630</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table>During the fifteenth century, European voyagers took a more practical view of the spice trade. They sought new routes to the far east, hoping through conquest and discovery to control trade in spice and other goods, especially gold and silver. As the Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch competed to monopolize the spice trade, there was a crossover point where spices were no longer the food of paradise, but became a mundane, though highly valuable, luxury commodity.<br /><br />Columbus provided Spain with a vast new territory. Magellan showed a new way to get to the supplies of spice. Portuguese voyagers of that era, having found a route around Africa, explored Southeast Asia, discovering that cloves and pepper grew only in the Moluccas, or Spice Islands. Cinnamon trees grew more widely, including in Ceylon and the Philippines.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMnjgWpDnj_ZTdV2KlSn80DrWtFgcTlR-oAEJTgsQBqTnIcp4YgEFF4-x6vkXtHx5F_UoFwRsATfLO4LGpAOyvJkK_WqBs4GlMCvdAplsE5MhIYdOQRwbIbmDieIPFdmsHh1EJe8ti8lU/s1600/magellanship.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMnjgWpDnj_ZTdV2KlSn80DrWtFgcTlR-oAEJTgsQBqTnIcp4YgEFF4-x6vkXtHx5F_UoFwRsATfLO4LGpAOyvJkK_WqBs4GlMCvdAplsE5MhIYdOQRwbIbmDieIPFdmsHh1EJe8ti8lU/s320/magellanship.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Magellan's Ship</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">By the mid-1500s, Spain had colonized the Caribbean, Mexico, and parts of South America. Vast quantities of silver from mines in Peru were being minted into pieces of eight -- the new money supply was already changing the economies of the Old World. They transported silver from the now-Spanish mines by ship to the isthmus of Panama, across to a Caribbean port, and then to Spain where they could, among other things, buy spices from the long-established spice trade.<br /><br />Spain also wanted better access to the products of the far east, but the Dutch and Portuguese dominated trade routes for Southeast Asia, especially the Moluccas. Further, the Spanish settlements in the New World were full of newly-rich Spaniards who wanted the luxuries of East Asia.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgunE9sXI8DflpyM8qk56IN-LIrCpsXW8PsFHdgC9okQX8II21aRVXdwvzNsjVsozB0YQdLU5vuXmIfdhS6TYV0zDI0YSior44ghtFNPv5airwi8bci7PJD8rQgPRqEbbr6e_y2-IRYLaAA/s1600/Urdaneta-wikimedia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgunE9sXI8DflpyM8qk56IN-LIrCpsXW8PsFHdgC9okQX8II21aRVXdwvzNsjVsozB0YQdLU5vuXmIfdhS6TYV0zDI0YSior44ghtFNPv5airwi8bci7PJD8rQgPRqEbbr6e_y2-IRYLaAA/s1600/Urdaneta-wikimedia.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Andrés de Urdaneta</td></tr></tbody></table>In 1565 a navigator named Urdaneta achieved the goal of finding a reliable sailing route for trade from the far east to the colonies of Mexico. Westward winds had blown Magellan and others across the Pacific towards Asia. As hoped by the Spanish authorities who sent him, Urdaneta established a manageable eastward route. This crossing was long and difficult, as the winds from Asia to the Americas required ships to sail far to the north, arriving at the location of the current California town of Mendocino. Here, at the time, no Europeans had explored.<br /><br />At Urdaneta's suggestion,  a regular shipping route was established between Manila, the Spanish colony in the far east, and Acapulco, which he considered the best port on Mexico's west coast. Large and very seaworthy Spanish galleons were  built to make the annual voyage. <i>The Manila Galleon</i> by William Lytle Schurz, first published 1939, documents the story of these galleons. They began their regular route across the Pacific shortly after Urdaneta's discovery and continued until early in the 19th century. In my story that follows, a small bag of cloves begins in the spice orchards of the Molucca islands, I have used details from Schurz's book, especially concentrating on the situation as it was in the early 1600s.<br /><br />Imagine how, in the early 1600s, a clove tree in the Molucca Islands produced its crop of dried flower buds. Workers gathered these valuable spices -- which at that time grew nowhere but this obscure set of islands. Small sacks or bundles of cloves were packed in chests and put on small trading boats heading in several directions. Peppercorns and nutmeg along with the cloves probably gave an irresistible aroma to the inside of the sea chest, but it had to be shipped onwards; no treats for the workers!<br /><br />Once the cloves were packed and laded, the boats delivered their cargo to Manila, then a trading port in the recently acquired Spanish colony of the Philippines, named for the Spanish King Philip. In the harbor also would have been junks from China and Formosa, as it was then called, bringing silks and Ming porcelains for the Spanish trade. Ming China made much use of the Spanish pieces of eight in their commerce, thanks to this trade. Other trading ships delivered cotton cloth from India and other goods from Ceylon, Siam, and Indo-China, as it was then called. Slaves, especially women, were another element of the cargo of the ship, as well as passengers with commercial or government business in the Spanish Empire.<br /><br />Urdaneta's route had been established for an annual trade in order to consolidate the riches of the East and deliver them across the oceans. Spaniards posted to the new colony of Manila organized goods to be loaded on the scarce and much-desired space in the Galleons. Many individuals had the right to ship one or several chests of goods. The Chinese traders knew how to fill each chest so tightly that more silks could fit than anyone thought possible -- the chests were much heavier than those the Spaniards packed for themselves. And among these goods were the little packet of cloves that had been harvested in the Moluccas.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwIT66FbXpUALOxzul4JRin7K-uBep4G4SMly_EVj3bF7C52OJu5HfQvlSeom8RwTuNVvVX-YT1yTS0Yyp_DcFCWnWeRuxfdQl0Dz1-RdRulB89LkDzRxOoczBJtyxLDcywjnRcIHyRiwG/s1600/Spanish_Galleon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwIT66FbXpUALOxzul4JRin7K-uBep4G4SMly_EVj3bF7C52OJu5HfQvlSeom8RwTuNVvVX-YT1yTS0Yyp_DcFCWnWeRuxfdQl0Dz1-RdRulB89LkDzRxOoczBJtyxLDcywjnRcIHyRiwG/s320/Spanish_Galleon.jpg" width="233" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spanish Galleon</td></tr></tbody></table>The longest part of the voyage for the little packet of cloves was from Manila to Mexico. Though the ship's hold contained the most expensive of foodstuffs, spices, the sailors and passengers often came close to starvation -- scurvy affected them on almost every voyage. The authorities knew how much food was needed, but the merchants often arranged to replace the ship's supplies and backup equipment with more money-making cargo. Some ships were lost thanks to such behavior. English and Dutch pirates were also a threat to ships along the west coast of Mexico and Central America, though their interest was more focused on silver and other treasure than on spice.<br /><br />Like Manila, Acapulco was a major transshipment port where the cargo from the galleons was redistributed and sent onward towards Panama, Mexico City, and eventually across the Caribbean to Spain. When the ship arrived, the first people to board were clandestine boatmen in the dead of night; they took the undeclared cargo that was forbidden or that was avoiding the customs agents. These agents were the next to board, and they checked each chest -- though they didn't look inside, and often the contents were more than declared.<br /><br />After the officials did their work, they sent word to Mexico City: the ship could be unloaded, and trading was open. Merchants and traders quickly made their way to Acapulco for the huge fair that vastly increased the population of the otherwise rather dull and uneventful port. Traders from Peru offered silver, often outbidding the Mexican merchants.  Mixed-race local Acapulco residents did their best to participate in the buying and selling, then carrying their purchases onward to Puebla, Oxhaca, or mainly to Mexico City. Many of the dealers were purchasing goods to be sent onward to Spain. Mules carried the sea chests across Mexico to Vera Cruz and then onward across the Atlantic. Of course the ship had to return to Manila -- for the return voyage it was loaded with silver pieces of eight from the mines of Peru, chocolate from Mexico, and a small number of other commodities for the Eastern trade.<br /><br />The Spaniards who ruled Mexico always wanted to buy their share of the rich cargo. Richer people wore the silks and jewels from China; poorer workers wore the plain cotton from India. Chinese dishes and vases decorated tables and homes of wealthy Spaniards. The little packet of cloves, along with many other spices, could have been purchased by one of the locals for consumption in Mexico. Spaniards in Mexico had quickly adopted the new flavors of the New World: allspice, chile peppers, chocolate, vanilla, and combinations of old and new emerged. The chocolate beverages of Aztec nobles tasted good with cinnamon. Medieval spice blends of pepper, cloves, and nutmeg went well with new world turkey. (For more on these influences, see <i>Gran Cocina Latina </i>by Maricel E. Presilla and "<a href="http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200403/the.mexican.kitchen.s.islamic.connection.htm">The Mexican Kitchen's Islamic Connection</a>" by Rachel Lauden.)<br /><br />Spice blending traditions had come to Spain with the Arab conquest, as they had come to Europe with Crusaders who tasted Arab food in Jerusalem. Now the spices were coming across the Pacific directly to the New World rather than through the Arab world that had always handled them on the way to European tables.<br /><br />The legend of the nuns of Puebla who "invented" Mole Poblano, reflects the old-world traditions and new-world luxury, using both chocolate and old-world spice. Thoughtful food writers, such as Maricel E. Presilla in <i>Gran Cocina Latina</i>, however, give no credibility to the idea that these nuns invented the dish because they had nothing else to cook for a visiting bishop. The town of Puebla was definitely a consumer of luxury foods including spices from the East and the best their local sources could supply. Perhaps the little packet of cloves from the Galleon ended up in a convent where the nuns created a spice blend that reflected the traditions of Islamic Spain and Aztec nobility.<br /><br />A particular group of Spanish inhabitants of Mexico were the New Christians; that is, descendants of Jews who had chosen conversion in 1492 instead of the other alternatives: exile from Spain or death. Persecuted unmercifully by the Inquisition, many of these eventually chose another type of exile in the New World, living as less and less well-informed secret Jews, and still watched carefully by Mexican immigrant inquisitors who looked for signs of reversion to their ancestral religion.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8vlAjA7C_QSQvK2vcuFO8KPkyVuX_daZJmj4WrjyV9Q11OWxV0dyzkpWSdmv6gnimBYjVQdmLf3VKH9e0YQsrTCWpSpks6TAUxvuAENxXy3mU2_BPS0hUC44fXIp1ROUfBdnC6OuxRPat/s1600/drizzle-of-honey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8vlAjA7C_QSQvK2vcuFO8KPkyVuX_daZJmj4WrjyV9Q11OWxV0dyzkpWSdmv6gnimBYjVQdmLf3VKH9e0YQsrTCWpSpks6TAUxvuAENxXy3mU2_BPS0hUC44fXIp1ROUfBdnC6OuxRPat/s320/drizzle-of-honey.jpg" width="257" /></a></div>The cuisine of secret Jews in Mexico and Spain attempted to reflect as much of Jewish tradition as they could remember -- and as much as they could include without immediate arrest. <i>A Drizzle of Honey: the Lives and Recipes of Spain's Secret Jews</i> by David Gitlitz and Linda Davidson transforms Inquisition testimony about the guilty food choices of accused secret Jews into recipes that can be followed in a modern kitchen. I looked into this book for some possible food preparations in which the cloves that traveled from the Moluccas to Manila and across the Pacific might have ended up.<br /><br /><i>Alfajores</i>, a small almond cookie, "are inescapably one of the Andalucian Islamic contributions to Iberian cuisine," writes Gitlitz." Sixteenth century alfajores (which differ from the modern version) were a popular treat among new-Christians in Mexico in the early seventeenth century." A dough of almonds, walnuts, sesame seeds, honey, bread crumbs and eggs was flavored with cinnamon and cloves; teaspon-sized balls of dough, optionally dusted with more cinnamon, were baked into chewy cookies. (p. 275-276)<br /><br /><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Note: illustrations (except book cover) are from Wikimedia Commons</span></i><br /><br /><br /></div>

Following a Clove

Syzygium aromaticum, the clove plantCloves, peppercorns, cinnamon, ginger, cumin, nutmeg -- spices from the east -- once sold for enormous prices; possession and use of spices was a status symbol for medieval men and women who could afford them. From ancient times Europeans imported Asian spice via …

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20Sep2013

Gran Cocina Latina

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyEotsSMFeLrUU6cVvvEx-mxaO-BciP2LSjtclW0Ac1qB4cE7r-qI7Cn_IkeIeTEg8Tsr5TGRYHclG4WzJZd_nt32robQ5cRzZJE3vmMDBMUytPjyHUYvxtwwXjZjD-Sgs0tXL7lzMaCUz/s1600/grilling2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="492" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyEotsSMFeLrUU6cVvvEx-mxaO-BciP2LSjtclW0Ac1qB4cE7r-qI7Cn_IkeIeTEg8Tsr5TGRYHclG4WzJZd_nt32robQ5cRzZJE3vmMDBMUytPjyHUYvxtwwXjZjD-Sgs0tXL7lzMaCUz/s640/grilling2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chicken and corn made according to recipes from <i>Gran Cocina Latina</i></td></tr></tbody></table><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1MVh4KpOIiHrGAn0DHapTVEdyv_Bd2JSIKVcr6Cjy5Sv0iqmoKXrbemAMt2nMgUx8E9gaoAwcIOni-exmgIDC49_3hcZXeHYHTAgjEYZNM-o_PQv6jWABC3PsuYwPlam-E2en0VFSzrK-/s1600/grilling3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1MVh4KpOIiHrGAn0DHapTVEdyv_Bd2JSIKVcr6Cjy5Sv0iqmoKXrbemAMt2nMgUx8E9gaoAwcIOni-exmgIDC49_3hcZXeHYHTAgjEYZNM-o_PQv6jWABC3PsuYwPlam-E2en0VFSzrK-/s320/grilling3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Using indirect heat over aluminum drip pan</td></tr></tbody></table>Mainly because of its historical content, I have been reading Maricel E. Presilla's gigantic and ambitious cookbook titled <i>Gran Cocina Latina</i>. By gigantic, I mean that it weighs close to 4 pounds, and has 900 pages. By ambitious, I mean it covers every culture and country in South and Central America, including pre-Columbian, colonial, and modern food history and hundreds of recipes. There's lots of emphasis on the author's native Cuba, but plenty about all the other countries as well.<br /><br />After a couple of days of reading, I also wanted to taste. So for dinner tonight, I chose "Grilled 'Leaping Frog' Chicken" from Argentina (p. 665), a simple recipe for using a spice rub after flattening a whole chicken -- sometimes called butterflied, but the author depicts the final shape as frog-like. Her description of grilling was a bit sketchy, but we used the indirect heat technique that's worked for us before when doing whole chickens. I also followed her suggestion to steam or boil corn on the cob and then briefly finish it over the fire (p. 237). I served the corn and chicken with some sliced tomatoes with cilantro, an herb that often flavors South American and Mexican dishes.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggQkaCTTFXMMMaOjozoXl8rz6QkeIQ3CnG95WFo_cQuPaZ-CVKA26r-7aJzVzMzbiMnUJdUxgyXDTdyivD1KJadrEed7QixrYWy5YDvtRByeBR8KAFRoAY2baNRyZnZ80lD2_aMvxmIOUV/s1600/gran+cocina+latina.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggQkaCTTFXMMMaOjozoXl8rz6QkeIQ3CnG95WFo_cQuPaZ-CVKA26r-7aJzVzMzbiMnUJdUxgyXDTdyivD1KJadrEed7QixrYWy5YDvtRByeBR8KAFRoAY2baNRyZnZ80lD2_aMvxmIOUV/s320/gran+cocina+latina.jpg" width="275" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm reading a copy from the public library.<br />It has the dust jacket.</td></tr></tbody></table>I'm not finding the organization of the book to be satisfyingly clear. The first chapter is fine: it includes a necessary and highly enlightening discussion of cooking utensils and appliances. There's a wonderful description of women who sit on the floor to prepare food and of how an old-fashioned cook can dice an onion one layer at a time. Presilla is completely convincing that the result of using a box grater or a mortar and pestle can be very different from using an electric appliance for similar prep. (Alas, today I smashed both my mortar and pestle while crushing the garlic for the spice rub -- this hasn't ever happened in the 30 years or so I've owned it. Guess I'll have to buy a new one.)<br /><br />Next, several chapters deal with specific foods, such as "Table Condiments," "Tropical Roots and Starchy Vegetables," "Rice," and a couple of others. After these, several chapters deal with types of food like "Little Latin Dishes." There's an entire chapter on "Empanadas" followed by a series of chapters on other individual dishes or preparations like "Cebiches." After a while the book gets back to specific foodstuffs like salads, breads, fish, poultry, and meat. Finally there's "Dulce Latino."<br /><br />Each chapter provides detailed descriptions of the varieties of each type of food: for example, a illustrated list of dozens of peppers, a description of many types of beans, or of various brands of rice (warning that if you change rice brands, you may need different amounts of water and different cooking times or methods). Very valuable historical, ethnic, agricultural, and social information about the foodstuffs and dishes are interspersed in these chapters. And of course, each chapter includes many traditional recipes, recipes from the author's friends or acquaintances, original recipes from her restaurant, and recipes from other sources. Reading through the book requires intense concentration to follow these many different trains of thought.<br /><br />The information is so interesting and important, however, that I have found the patience to sit with this tome and carefully go through the narrative portions, as well as scanning through the recipes. (I'm about 2/3 done.) There's so much to think about in terms of the many cultures and historic influences. For example, there's a very traditional Cuban dish called "Moors and Christians;" that is, black beans and white rice. Consider this: the black beans in this dish are one of the key New World species -- we all know the trio of corn, beans and squash that natives of North and South America relied on. And the white rice...<br /><br />In "Moors and Christians" the white rice represents the Christians, that is, Europeans, and it did definitely come from the Old World. Columbus brought rice and probably seeds for cultivating it on his second voyage. From at least 1515, Presilla writes, "rice was part of the Spanish settlement in the New World." Soon it grew on all the Spanish Caribbean islands, and the Spaniards viewed it as a very important staple food.<br /><br />Rice wasn't really native to Spain, though: it had been introduced by the Arab conquerors known as "Moors." And as time went on, "rice became one of the most important foods in the diet of the African slaves. Gradually rice was embraced by everyone.... Even the potato-eating Indian farmers of the Andean regions succumbed to the lure of rice."<br /><br />Some of the varieties of rice used in modern South American cuisine in fact later came from other parts of the Spanish Empire; for example, "via the galleon trade with the Philippines or ... from Dutch and Portuguese traders who had long-established contacts with the rice-growing regions of Asia and the Indian Ocean."  Latin-American cooks also valued and still value rice from the American South; for some dishes they prefer "Carolina" rice or even Uncle Ben's. (All quotes from p. 287).<br /><br />"For seven centuries, Moors and Christians fought one another in Spain," the author writes, "but in the guise of black beans and rice they surrendered to each other's charms within the all-embracing New World pot. Like the hybrid culture that flourished in medieval Spain, the rice dish known as <i>moros y cristianos</i> is an exemplar of exchange between civilizations." (p. 310)<br /><br />I find a key to Presilla's viewpoint about food at the beginning of the book. She says of her many travels collecting recipes and food histories: "Again and again, I was forced to remember that food is always deeply political." (p. 2)<br /><br /><i>Note: I heard of this book <a href="http://www.rachellaudan.com/2013/09/latin-american-cuisine-unity-beyond-the-nation.html">on the blog of food historian Rachel Lauden</a>.</i>

Gran Cocina Latina

Chicken and corn made according to recipes from Gran Cocina LatinaUsing indirect heat over aluminum drip panMainly because of its historical content, I have been reading Maricel E. Presilla's gigantic and ambitious cookbook titled Gran Cocina Latina. By gigantic, I mean that it weighs close to 4 pou…

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14Sep2013

Tu B'Shevat

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/8412190402/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="jwc 1 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="jwc 1" height="240" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5275/8412190402_14155a2e37_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fruit and Wine for Tu B'Shevat Celebration</td></tr></tbody></table>Saturday is Tu B’Shevat, a Jewish holiday that honors trees, especially fruit trees. Although it's in the depth of our winter, it falls in the earliest part of spring in Israel. In antiquity, this was the traditional time to plant trees. Modern celebrations for Tu B'Shevat include eating a wide variety of fruits and nuts, especially the “seven species” – wheat, barley, olives, dates, pomegranates, figs, and grapes (for eating and for wine). Each of these items has many special associations and symbolic meanings in rituals, Jewish literature, and Biblical lore.<br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Although the exciting parts of the menu for Tu B’Shevat rituals are the delicious fruits, especially those that grow on the trees, the holiday expands to celebrate barley and wheat as well. I find the history of grains and how they were eaten in Biblical times to be a very interesting subject. Wheat wasn’t just ground into flour for bread or fermented into beer, but was eaten as a kind of whole-grain or wheatberry pilaf; some wheat could even be eaten raw right from the fields before it became too hard. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Freekeh is a middle eastern dish that offers a way to understand what the ancients did. It's made from fresh, green wheat berries. Recently in food articles I've seen some references to it, and I think it has appeared on menus at trendy restaurants. According to <a href="http://www.latimes.com/features/food/dailydish/la-dd-freekeh-what-is-it-20130115,0,7530842.story">an article</a> in this week's <i>L.A. Times</i> freekeh “in Aramaic means ‘the rubbed one,’ a reference to rubbing off the roasted husk to reveal the grain, still green because it has to be harvested when young.”<br /><br />The cookbook <i>Jerusalem </i>by Ottolenghi and Tamimi gives two recipes using either a whole or a cracked form of freekeh: spicy freekeh soup with meatballs (p. 148) and poached chicken with sweet spiced freekeh (p. 182). The authors write: "We use it for making pilafs, in salads, and for serving with lamb or chicken... . Its earthy flavor and slightly coarse texture go particularly well with sweet spices."<br /><br /><a href="http://www.gastronomica.org/roasting-green-wheat-galilee/">An article</a> in <i>Gastronomica</i>“Roasting Green Wheat in Galilee” describes a few Arab farmers in Israel who still harvest and prepare unripe wheat, which they call <i>farike</i>. Their methods are much the same as  in ancient times. Timing is essential – “there is a short interval of a few weeks during which the mature wheat, though still green, is soft and full of starches and protein. This is the only moment at which the wheat can be eaten fresh from the stalk, and the time when <i>farike</i> can be prepared.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The article explains the connection to Biblical tradition: “Roasted grain (<i>kali </i>in Hebrew) is mentioned several times in the Old Testament. It appears in the list of foods that Isaac commands his sons to bring to their brother Joseph in Egypt, and it is the love offering that Boaz extends to Ruth as they rest on the threshing floor. Different English translations of the Bible refer to roasted grain as ‘parched corn’ (corn being a British term for grain) or ‘parched grain,’ yet in Arabic biblical translations the term that is used is <i>farike</i>.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Wheat berries from mature wheat are available at farmers’ markets and various stores; however, the pilaf that I have made from them is probably quite different from the interesting and historically relevant dish described in these articles. Some time, I’ll have to try one of the many recent freekeh recipes.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Grains both ripe and green were important nutritionally and culturally in the past; references to bread in Biblical passages show how central it was to the ancient diet. Tu B'Shevat makes us aware that the tree fruits of Israel 2000 years ago and more were also central and also much loved for their tastes and aromas. Centuries before sugar arrived in the Middle East, date honey – a sweetener extracted from dates -- was an important internationally traded commodity. Cleopatra Queen of Egypt demanded to own the orchards near the Dead Sea that produced the best dates and date honey in the Roman world. Having one's own "vine and fig tree" was a symbol of peace and security. And in modern times, citrus orchards became one of the keys to the economic success of the state of Israel.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/8412190208/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="jwc 2 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="jwc 2" height="240" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5040/8412190208_0e1771f59b_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">More fruit for Tu B' Shevat -- also bright green olives</td></tr></tbody></table>Earlier this week, I attended an event to learn more about Tu B’Shevat, including how to prepare some traditional and modern foods, such as date-oatmeal bars, platters of dried fruits, and decorative arrangements of totally non-biblical fruit such as chocolate-covered strawberries, pineapple, and blueberries. Our hostess for the evening says that her preferred tree fruit to eat for the holiday is carob -- another Biblical species though not in the traditional list of seven. I knew little of this holiday until one of our visits to Israel in the 1990s, when we went to a secular Israeli celebration with similar platters of dried fruits and arrangements of fresh produce. I’m delighted to think of the numerous meanings and possibilities of the celebration of trees.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>

Tu B'Shevat

Fruit and Wine for Tu B'Shevat CelebrationSaturday is Tu B’Shevat, a Jewish holiday that honors trees, especially fruit trees. Although it's in the depth of our winter, it falls in the earliest part of spring in Israel. In antiquity, this was the traditional time to plant trees. Modern celebrations …

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25Jan2013

What did Shakespeare eat?

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEish8tQAhMQCUMI1ZMJ0oCNhGxtJblJNiUfqR2UFT8Lj0O2GtpUZcUQIF7f9hthibQDoJf8EP9Ozs15ZHQfkKlmtsWNdAjLpJczWX03gXg9lM1X_akqNbZ2GV7VHqdIQf9V_jH7x_38iBA7/s1600/shakespeare-cookbook1085.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEish8tQAhMQCUMI1ZMJ0oCNhGxtJblJNiUfqR2UFT8Lj0O2GtpUZcUQIF7f9hthibQDoJf8EP9Ozs15ZHQfkKlmtsWNdAjLpJczWX03gXg9lM1X_akqNbZ2GV7VHqdIQf9V_jH7x_38iBA7/s320/shakespeare-cookbook1085.jpg" width="258" /></a></div><br /><br />What did Shakespeare eat?<br /><br />Definitive answers here: <i>The Shakespeare Cookbook</i> by Andrew Dalby and Maureen Dalby, published by the British Museum Press this year. Andrew Dalby is a culinary historian, so this is a work of scholarship, using contemporary cookbooks and dietary advice books that were in print during Shakespeare's lifetime. I had no idea how many such works existed!<br /><br />Another surprise: many recipes are simple and close to modern cooking. For example, chicken fricassee described on page 54 is almost exactly the way I sometimes use up leftover chicken, though the modern version often includes pimentos (a variety of capsicum peppers, which Dalby says hadn't reached England from the New World yet) and the Shakespeare-era version uses the spice mace, which isn't on my spice shelf.<br /><br />A variety of pies of all sizes combine meat, fruit, suet, and spice into a preparation that predates our mince pies. The small ones are called "chewets" and contain saffron and ground ginger along with cooked meat. If I could find suet, I would be interested to try pies or chewets, as I have always liked that funny packaged mincemeat that is featured at Christmas and Thanksgiving, and I would like to meet its ancestor. (If I could find a swan, there's another recipe in the book I might try too.)<br /><br />Similarly there are recipes for a sort of meatball including meat-egg-dried fruit and flavored with mace. Large ones were called Farts, small ones were called Fysts. I definitely plan to try these, as the modernized recipe doesn't require suet at all. And the name is so amusing! Dalby doesn't offer any word history on this. Although there are many references on the Web to the original recipe, a quick look didn't offer me any insight into why this word meant little meatballs in Elizabethan times.<br /><br />The explanation of what the word "cake" meant to Shakespeare is very interesting. "A cake, to Shakespeare, was a concept that overlapped with the modern English cake but didn't coincide with it." (page 70)<br /><br />So, the authors point out, cakes could sweet or savory in the famous line<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, that there shall be no more cakes and ale?" </blockquote>The word cake could refer to a loaf cake, a tea-cake, or a waffle. It could mean a biscuit. (I think this is the British biscuit, which in America we call a cookie -- the problem of terminology didn't stop in Shakespeare's time.) The book's cake recipe is for Barm Brak, made from white-bread dough, sugar, lard, eggs, raisins, and sweet spices.<br /><br />Every section of the book has a discussion of a food reference in a particular Shakespeare play, with elaborations from the literature of Shakespeare's contemporaries as well as contemporary food sources. Almost every page includes an illustration, also contemporary to Shakespeare. And every section offers a wide range of interesting references and information, as well as at least one recipe quoted directly from the sources and then a modernized version. A fantastic book, for which I'm grateful to my friend Sheila!

What did Shakespeare eat?

What did Shakespeare eat?Definitive answers here: The Shakespeare Cookbook by Andrew Dalby and Maureen Dalby, published by the British Museum Press this year. Andrew Dalby is a culinary historian, so this is a work of scholarship, using contemporary cookbooks and dietary advice books that were in pr…

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24Aug2012

What did Magellan and his sailors eat?

<br /><div class="MsoNormal">"Real bread" was the first food that the 18 survivors of Magellan's circumnavigation of the world ate upon returning home. Their fleet's one remaining ship had finally landed at the mouth of the Gualquivir in Spain. For three years, they had been at sea, having left the Guadalquivir with five ships and 265 men. After spending months out of sight of land, taking sides in a failed mutiny, witnessing the death of their leader Magellan and many other comrades, and exploring new territories in South America and the Pacific, their privations were over and they kissed the earth as they landed.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">"For years they had not fingered the soft, aromatic crumb; for years they had not known the flavours of the wine, the meat and the fruit of their homeland," wrote Stefan Zweig at the end of his account of Magellan's voyage. Zweig's<i> Magellan</i> is an imaginative and dramatically written account of this, the first voyage around the world. He published it in 1938, but like many of his works, it's been reissued recently.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Zweig depicted Magellan as a taciturn hero, who acted boldly but never without forethought, except perhaps in the instance of the one fatal mistake that led to his death. Zweig was as admiring of and interested in Magellan's long and careful preparation for the voyage into the unknown as he is in the voyage itself.  He detailed first the patient preparation of food, ships, and supplies, then the alternation of plenty and famine as the five, then four, eventually only one ship, the Victoria, (shown below in an image from Wikimedia, from a 1590 map) circled the globe.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMnjgWpDnj_ZTdV2KlSn80DrWtFgcTlR-oAEJTgsQBqTnIcp4YgEFF4-x6vkXtHx5F_UoFwRsATfLO4LGpAOyvJkK_WqBs4GlMCvdAplsE5MhIYdOQRwbIbmDieIPFdmsHh1EJe8ti8lU/s1600/magellanship.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMnjgWpDnj_ZTdV2KlSn80DrWtFgcTlR-oAEJTgsQBqTnIcp4YgEFF4-x6vkXtHx5F_UoFwRsATfLO4LGpAOyvJkK_WqBs4GlMCvdAplsE5MhIYdOQRwbIbmDieIPFdmsHh1EJe8ti8lU/s320/magellanship.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Just decades after Columbus's discovery, when ocean voyages were extremely long, basic ship's provisions mainly consisted of biscuit (a long-lasting hard bread that was the mainstay of all ocean trips until modern times). Magellan's ships also carried beans, lentils, oil, salt pork, cheese, dried fish, and other staples. A few cows would provide milk for the start of the voyage; along with a few pigs, there could be fresh meat -- though not for long.  In both the text and in an appendix, Zweig lists the amounts and the cost of all these provisions, illustrating Magellan's careful record-keeping and planning.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Wine was to be served with two meals a day during the voyage: Magellan laid in hundreds of casks and bottles. Obviously he also provided what he hoped would be adequate supplies of drinking water -- though the ships' reservoirs often became foul and the water after long days at sea became nearly undrinkable.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Magellan wanted his men to eat well. To the staple supplies he added intriguing extras: sugar, vinegar, garlic, onions, raisins, figs, almonds, honey, currants, capers, salt, rice, mustard, quince paste, and flour. What were the cooks' recipes to be made from these tasty additions to ordinary ships' provisions? I'm sure no one made any record of such a thing.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Preparing to sail around the world -- which had never been done before -- Magellan knew that his would be the longest voyage ever planned. He expected few opportunities for re-supplying his five ships. In fact, he believed the strait between the Atlantic and the Pacific to be far closer to the equator than the Strait of Magellan, which he discovered. And he found the Pacific Ocean to be much vaster than expected as well.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Consequently, the enormous food supplies were inadequate. As the five ships finished the voyage down the coast of South America, a mutiny and the desertion of one of the ships helped to deplete the supplies. Magellan's underlings, when they traitorously took over one of the ships, opened the stores to the crew to buy their loyalty. By that time, perhaps the most luxurious foods like figs, raisins, currants, and almonds had already been used up -- rations had already been cut significantly.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">After coming through the newly discovered strait, the remaining ships had an agonizingly long reach across the Pacific. The crews experienced first hunger, then scurvy and other forms of malnutrition, and finally (in many cases) death by starvation. The biscuit, unpalatable when fresh, crumbled and turned to dust; however, it was the only nutrition available. The sailors eked it out with sawdust and with the meat of the ship's rats, which became a delicacy. They soaked, boiled, and ate some of the rigging as well.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">In contrast, when the starving remnant reached the Philippines, the welcoming king of Cebu Island offered them feasts of sweet tropical fruit and other delicacies. Bananas, palm wine, coconuts, exotic vegetables, and roasted fish with fresh ginger --good food and fresh water brought them back to life. As they visited various islands, including the Spice Islands that had always been their goal, they learned to enjoy these treats. Though Magellan was already dead, they claimed the islands for the king of Spain as they had meant to do.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">While making their way back to Europe, the voyagers suffered again. By this time, 1520, the route from the Spice Islands through the Indian Ocean and around Africa was well known. Politics, however, made the excruciatingly long trip from the Spice Islands back to Spain even more frustratingly hunger-ridden than the Pacific crossing. Magellan, a Portuguese by origin, had been rejected by his own king, and thus was sailing for Spain. All the ports were Portuguese, and his ships and men were labeled pirates in Portuguese territory -- a price was on every head.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Thus, the survivors had to hurry across the seas without going into port except once, on a ruse. By the time the last 18 sailors once more tasted the bread and wine of their homeland, they had been starving for months since their days of feasting. Moreover, they were starving within a ship loaded with exotic and unimaginably valuable spices that could do no more for their hunger than the ocean did for their thirst, according to Zweig's narrative.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Obviously, most of <i>Magellan</i> is about non-food issues -- though the motive Zweig cited on the very first page, and which persisted throughout the voyage, was to create a proprietary Spanish trade route to the Spice Islands to obtain rare spices for European use. I've concentrated on the issues of eating and starving that were the undercurrent throughout.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><h2>Afterthoughts</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjutWRh77fPu72rsXUhqeJdEnvyvfTdaiQV9ylUJ-8loxgzVosZTrOZyXLLQO7kVWvkhXSUv8QhXJtxnRuZM4ODU4m5CdnIMoFlEEXHQ7NW6JZyFGw8lqSpK3YodAIDCpsNXH_RGTSXTtI/s1600/cormorants9946.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjutWRh77fPu72rsXUhqeJdEnvyvfTdaiQV9ylUJ-8loxgzVosZTrOZyXLLQO7kVWvkhXSUv8QhXJtxnRuZM4ODU4m5CdnIMoFlEEXHQ7NW6JZyFGw8lqSpK3YodAIDCpsNXH_RGTSXTtI/s320/cormorants9946.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I'm writing beside a very calm Pacific Ocean beach, thinking of the naked terror that other parts of these waters must have delivered to Magellan and his crew. Cormorants roost in the trees and tiny sailboats dash around the harbor. So different!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Two very interesting things in <i>Magellan</i> that are not related to food are:</div><div class="MsoListBullet"></div><ul><li>Magellan had a Philippino slave who traveled with the ships and was intended to be an interpreter. When the ship landed in his land of origin, he thus became the very first man ever to circle the globe. (He also was caught up in the nasty aftermath of Magellan's death at the hands of a rival to the Philippine king who welcomed the voyagers, and thus remained in his own country when the ships left.)<br /> </li><li>Upon their first stop at a port on the African coast, when they were almost back to Spain, the surviving sailors discovered the paradox that their carefully maintained ship logs recorded the day of the week as Wednesday, but the local date was Thursday. Being the first men to make a full trip around the world, they discovered that you need an international dateline (to explain it with an anachronism). Zweig says this was incredible to the people of that era: "as exciting to the humanists of the sixteenth century as has been the theory of relativity to those of our own generation."</li></ul><br /><div class="MsoNormal">I enjoyed Zweig's book and its rather retro style of writing historic narrative. My only reservation is that he sometimes overuses Homeric similes.</div>

What did Magellan and his sailors eat?

"Real bread" was the first food that the 18 survivors of Magellan's circumnavigation of the world ate upon returning home. Their fleet's one remaining ship had finally landed at the mouth of the Gualquivir in Spain. For three years, they had been at sea, having left the Guadalquivir with five ships …

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06Jun2012

What the Ancient Romans Ate

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0226290328/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link"><img alt="A Taste of Ancient Rome" border="0" height="300" id="prodImage" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Z9ZF5PRTL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" width="300" /></a><br /><br />I read Giacosa's <span style="font-style: italic;">A Taste of Ancient Rome</span> quite a few years ago, and recently found a really nice used copy of the hardback edition. So I just reread it. I was amazed that I remembered it so well, but it's totally absorbing.<br /><br />The author's main message is that most days most Romans ate very very simple food. The banquets with vast numbers of dishes and the over-the-top recipes for flamingo tongues, camel toes, and little song birds were in some cases exaggerated, in others reflective only of very ostentatious events put on by show-offs. Of course I remember the dormice roasted on a stone and coated in poppy seeds and honey: the Romans loved dormice and they fattened them for the table in funny little jars.  Of  course I remember some of the satiric scenes from literature where the cook would say he forgot to gut a whole roast pig -- and then he'd slit it open to show all kinds of sausages. I have kept these images in mind ever since I first read the book.<br /><br />Plain wheat, spelt, or barley porridge with vegetables; many egg dishes; flavoring with garum, a fermented fish sauce; ordinary cured olives; and mainly vegetarian foods seem to have been the real Roman diet. They drank water or wine (often spiced in a wide variety of ways). They viewed milk to be the drink for children and people who lived in the country. And quite a few Romans wrote about food, giving this author plenty of material, not just the recipes from the famous Apicius.

What the Ancient Romans Ate

I read Giacosa's A Taste of Ancient Rome quite a few years ago, and recently found a really nice used copy of the hardback edition. So I just reread it. I was amazed that I remembered it so well, but it's totally absorbing.The author's main message is that most days most Romans ate very very simple …

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16Jan2011

What did Cleopatra Eat?

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkobRFB3TOzDr-gyqlD1no4t3T5qAwkWikl-SURsK0HCZRGUJFng-bO4D-uUr55U_N5ZcfhGy9DlAFniGbvDn_C3SIumuJJIrkp1jvpCIysPEWwcubmL5EWfA6bJDfTI0-UbKVd22B3_6Y/s1600/cleopatra.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539955998541263650" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkobRFB3TOzDr-gyqlD1no4t3T5qAwkWikl-SURsK0HCZRGUJFng-bO4D-uUr55U_N5ZcfhGy9DlAFniGbvDn_C3SIumuJJIrkp1jvpCIysPEWwcubmL5EWfA6bJDfTI0-UbKVd22B3_6Y/s320/cleopatra.jpg" style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 300px;" /></a>Cleopatra, the most famous queen in history, was proficient in several languages and at least two cultures. She traveled throughout her Egyptian kingdom and went to Rome and other places to advance her dynastic and personal interests.<br /><br />Cleopatra's first identity came from her ancestors, the Ptolemys: kings and queens of Egypt, descended from a Macedonian general in the army of Alexander the Great. They had ruled Egypt for around 300 years when Cleopatra was born, and always maintained a strong connection to Hellenism -- the Greek culture that Alexander had spread with his military successes, even inventing a synthetic god that combined both Greek and Egyptian god-like qualities. So Cleopatra's first two cultures were Egyptian and Hellenistic Greek.<br /><br />Further, when Cleopatra was a  young queen, Julius Caesar was creating a new empire for Rome, conquering new territories throughout the Mediterranean and Europe. After Julius Caesar's assassination, Mark Anthony became the next Roman conqueror. Cleopatra's sexual conquest of both of these heroes is what she's best known for. Of course.<br /><br />I was wondering how this multi-cultural experience combined with the incredible wealth and status of an Egyptian queen to result in interesting dining experiences. In one story about her, Pliny says that she dissolved a valuable  pearl in a glass of wine and then drank it to demonstrate the extravagance of her hospitality. This isn't cuisine. Several of Cleopatra's Ptolemy forebears were known for their love of eating -- to the extent that they were vastly obese.  Much else that one can learn is only generalization. What products were grown? Which were valued highly? What did various customary dining conventions dictate? But I found a few specifics.<br /><br />Dates from the date palms that grew near the Dead Sea were considered to be the best in the Roman world. During the same era of Roman conquest that brought both Caesar and Mark Antony to Egypt, Rome had begun to dominate Palestine, which was ruled by their client King Herod I. One of Cleopatra's political moves was an attempt to rule the nearby coastline of the Middle East -- she asked to be made queen of the entire region.<br /><br />Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian, described how Antony made King Herod give Cleopatra his date groves and farms producing sweet balsam, but that he was responsible for managing them and paying her what was due:<br /><blockquote>When Cleopatra ... accompanied Antony in his expedition to Armenia as far as Euphrates, she ... passed on to Judea, where Herod met her, and farmed of her parts of Arabia, and those revenues that came to her from the region about Jericho. This country bears that balsam, which is the most precious drug that is there, and grows there alone. The place bears also palm trees, both many in number, and those excellent in their kind....<br /><br />But then, as to the tributes which Herod was to pay Cleopatra for that country which Antony had given her, he acted fairly with her, as deeming it not safe for him to afford any cause for Cleopatra to hate him. (Josephus, Chapter 4)<br /></blockquote>Surely we can assume that Cleopatra enjoyed eating the greatly prized dates from these orchards that were her own property.<br /><br />In the matter of wine, the Ptolemys and many immigrant Greeks who had accompanied them  to Egypt had added Greek-style vineyards and many other crops to those already grown in the  fertile Nile valley and other parts of Egypt, which was far less arid  than it is today.  Near Alexandria at Lake Mareotis, a highly productive  agricultural region yielded a particularly nice wine that was a favorite  of Cleopatra, said the Roman poet Horace. Various writers described  this wine. Athenæus mentioned that Mareotic wine was "white, its quality excellent,  and it is sweet and light with a fragrant bouquet; it is by no means  astringent, nor does it affect the head." Virgil said the grapes  themselves were white, and Strabo said the wine aged well. Grain,  olives, and other fruit were also cultivated in this region, and  probably contributed high-quality foods to the royal kitchens.*<br /><br />The author Lucan (born 39 C.E. -- thus writing around a century after the events he described) wrote in <span style="font-style: italic;">Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars</span> about Caesar and Cleopatra. He included a long description of a banquet which she gave to overwhelm his senses. Among a plethora of details about the physical surroundings, the queen's garments, and "her luxuries, as yet unknown To Roman fashions" are a few hints about the food; in particular, Lucan makes clear that authentic superior Roman wine was preferred to the local vintage: "no juice of Mareot grape But noble vintage of Falernian growth Which in few years in Meroe's vats had foamed, (For such the clime) to ripeness." He also mentions<br /><blockquote>"On plates of gold They piled the banquet sought in earth and air And from the deepest seas and Nilus' waves, Through all the world; in craving for display, No hunger urging.  Frequent birds and beasts, Egypt's high gods, they placed upon the board: In crystal goblets water of the Nile They handed."<br /></blockquote>Unfortunately, this really doesn't help much. They ate gods? Really. Well, the Egyptians did worship a lot of animals, including fish, mice, crocodiles, and bulls, and their gods often took animal form or had animal  heads with human bodies. The Romans found this animal-worship odd -- Roman gods were always human in form. Cleopatra herself went around dressed as Isis, and statues in her likeness were worshiped in temples to Isis.<br /><br />Plutarch, also around a century after the fact, mentioned eight wild boars being roasted, among other extravagant preparations for only 12 guests at a banquet that Cleopatra was giving for Antony; Plutarch said his grandfather had heard the story from an eye-witness. The still-later classical author Athenaeus wrote quite a long passage about a banquet that Cleopatra gave for Antony, but he didn't name a single specific food -- just talked about the gold dishes and Ethiopian slave boys she handed out as door prizes.**<br /><br />Cleopatra's suicide is another very famous part of her legend. Her last meal, according to Plutarch, included a basket of figs from the country. And beneath the figs and fig leaves in the basket lay the asp, which she had asked for. Or maybe the asp came in a water jar. This account leaves many open questions, but in any case, that's the end of the story.<br /><br />So on to the generalizations -- what was available to the richest of rich Egyptians at that time? Scholars have found a few texts establishing elaborate meals, based on tombs where food was provided for a high-status afterlife. Perhaps they give a clue to what the Egyptian queen might eat. Here is one such list of food for a dead woman in ancient times: "a triangular loaf of bread of emmer wheat ...; an unidentified liquid containing some sort of fatty substance; cooked fish; pigeon stew; cooked quail, dressed with its head under one wing; two cooked kidneys; the ribs and legs of beef; a dish containing cut beef; stewed figs; fresh nabk berries; small round cakes sweetened with honey; three jars of some form of cheese; wine."<br /><br />In ancient Egypt, along with sacred grain priests ate beef and goose from  sacrificial animals. Those who could afford more than grain porridge or  bread also ate dairy products from sheep and cattle, fruits like  pomegranates and figs, other meats, honey from dates, and wild lotus and  fish from the Nile. They drank more beer than wine, but probably had  both. A list of foods eaten in pre-Hellenistic Egypt adds: filberts,  walnuts, pine kernels,  olives, peaches, Indian medlars, quinces,  pistachios, lentils, and radishes. Roasted papyrus was another delicacy.  Cleopatra could have had the opportunity to enjoy such foods.<br /><br />During the Ptolemy era, new, improved, or expanded crops included sesame, poppy seed, cabbage, lettuce, garlic, chick peas, and cumin, as well as "figs, walnuts, peaches, apricots, plums and olives." The greatest change was in a new type of grain: instead of emmer wheat and barley, the Greeks expanded cultivation of a different type of wheat that they found more desirable for bread. Most of the changes affected cash crops, which enabled Egypt to become a highly profitable breadbasket for Rome; however, the foods that were available give a hint about what Cleopatra could have eaten in Egypt during most of her life. (Lists from Crawford, p. 138-140)<br /><br />During her long stay in Rome at Caesar's estate in Trastevere, Cleopatra would have lived at least as well as a wealthy Roman, and no doubt eaten the types of foods documented in the many sources about Roman dining and banquets -- especially the many books about the recipe collections of Apicius. This is a subject with a huge literature, so I'm not going to repeat it. Like everything about Cleopatra, what she did in Rome is only known through the speculation of scholars.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">*  I acquired these citations from various online articles about Cleopatra and Lake Mareotis. The quotes from Flavius Josephus and Lucan come from the Project Gutenberg editions of their works. Other information comes from <span style="font-style: italic;">Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt</span> by Joyce Tyldesley; "Food: tradition and change in Hellenistic Egypt" by Dorothy J. Crawford; and <span style="font-style: italic;">Food and Society in Classical Antiquity</span> by Peter Garnsey</span>.<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">** Athenaeus of Naucratis. Yonge, C.D., Editor. </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >The deipnosophists, or, Banquet of the learned of Athenæus</span><span style="font-size:85%;">, volume I, p. 239.</span>

What did Cleopatra Eat?

Cleopatra, the most famous queen in history, was proficient in several languages and at least two cultures. She traveled throughout her Egyptian kingdom and went to Rome and other places to advance her dynastic and personal interests.Cleopatra's first identity came from her ancestors, the Ptolemys: …

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16Nov2010

No Toga Party: What did poor people eat in ancient Rome

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4KLcS2mfJjD1O7XRvfHuQdRcUI6sKVcwLIZWELjf4M3-6krys0venXkQclYIuP2GWP47lkLQAr27shyEBtl9Qc5535KniUdHNztaaFEXjsqmfHaT26HobDzSxrKza1pCgy5bPSrMBKrIL/s1600/villa.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537272190279651170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4KLcS2mfJjD1O7XRvfHuQdRcUI6sKVcwLIZWELjf4M3-6krys0venXkQclYIuP2GWP47lkLQAr27shyEBtl9Qc5535KniUdHNztaaFEXjsqmfHaT26HobDzSxrKza1pCgy5bPSrMBKrIL/s400/villa.jpg" style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" /></a>The Roman banquet is as familiar in American popular culture as the toga party -- though the popular conception of a toga party probably is more rooted in John Belushi than in echoes of classical studies from university life of old.<br /><br />Say "Roman Banquet" and what comes to mind? Eggs to apples. Exotic delicacies like roasted hedgehogs and flamingo tongues. Honey-sweetened wine, perhaps deliciously flavored with lead from the glaze of the drinking vessels. Spices brought from all over the Roman Empire and traded from the East. Olive oil. White bread made from the best flour. Produce from the host's country estates, perhaps nearby, perhaps farther off in Sicily or other areas. Slaves to cook, serve, and entertain the guests (all men).<br /><br />Most of the people in ancient Rome were very poor. Everyone knows that they had bread and circuses. Archaeology provides a glimpse of the circus, but what about the bread? What did the really poor Romans eat?<br /><br />Indeed, the Romans, both rich and poor, ate bread. In the later centuries of the Roman Empire, distribution of grain -- wheat and barley -- to the large poverty-stricken population provided an important part of the diet, at least to the lucky poor who were eligible for free food. Wheat was higher-status than barley -- so poor people were more likely to afford barley when they had to buy their own food. They sometimes made their grain rations into bread, and sometimes into porridge.<br /><br />Porridge was lower-status than bread for many reasons, especially because it could be made from the coarser and less desired barley. Because the process of making bread with yeast results in a more nutritious product (the fermentation process makes some nutrients more accessible) those who ate bread were on the whole healthier, as well as richer.<br /><br />"Apart from cereals," we learn, "dry legumes, in particular lentils, chickpeas and broad beans, were the main source of protein as of calories in the Mediterranean basin as a whole.... Dry legumes also supplied the amino acids in which wheat and barley were low, and the missing vitamin A. The flour of legumes was commonly blended with wheat flour to make bread." *<br /><br />Artisans and other non-upper-class Romans thus ate beans. Street vendors sold a "kind of pudding" made of chickpeas -- I wonder if  it was like hummus. Imports from the fertile agricultural regions of  Egypt included lentils and chickpeas, as well as the high-quality wheat for which the  Nile valley was widely known. Sometimes rich or official benefactors gave out free food at festivals, but this was unusual. One Roman politician spent a fortune showering the crowd at the Circus with chickpeas, beans, and lentils. (I'm thinking of Meg Whitman spending $141.5  million -- except I don't know if the Roman won or lost his election.)<br /><br />Garden produce was sometimes affordable to the lower or maybe middle classes, according to literary sources -- cabbage, leeks, beets, onions, garlic. It was a commonplace that poor people drank only water, while those who could afford it, drank wine. High-quality fish and the famous garum fish sauces were food for rich people, but poorer people could sometimes manage to buy or catch some not-so-nice fish from the even-then-polluted Tiber River. Even salt cost money -- spices were only for the rich.<br /><br />By late antiquity (3rd-4th centuries) Emperor Aurelian introduced distribution of free pork -- up to 25 kilos per person -- to as many as 120,000 people per year. Like the grain distributions, though, the recipients were often the representatives of larger families, who had to share their portions. Many poor people weren't eligible for any free food, with the result that malnutrition, especially among children, was common.<br /><br />The people of ancient Rome included the upper class rulers, slaves, freedmen (former slaves), artisans, soldiers, small farmers, and a vast number of urban poor. The banquets and refined cuisine that one most often hears about included participants from only a tiny fraction of the large Roman population.<br /><br />*<span style="font-size:85%;">Information comes from Peter Garnsey, <span style="font-style: italic;">Cities Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity</span>, 1998, p. 242-245; Jeremy Paterson, "Trade and traders in the Roman world" in <span style="font-style: italic;">Trade, Traders and the Ancient City</span>, ed. Parkins and Smith; and Neville Morley, <span style="font-style: italic;">Trade in Classical Antiquity</span>. Photo shows Roman Emperor's villa at Piazza Armerina, Sicily.</span>

No Toga Party: What did poor people eat in ancient Rome

The Roman banquet is as familiar in American popular culture as the toga party -- though the popular conception of a toga party probably is more rooted in John Belushi than in echoes of classical studies from university life of old.Say "Roman Banquet" and what comes to mind? Eggs to apples. Exotic d…

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08Nov2010

Thomas Jefferson's Vegetables

Exotic and ordinary vegetables grown at Monticello in Thomas Jefferson's lifetime included: "asparagus bean, sea kale, tomatoes, rutabaga, lima beans, okra, potato pumpkins, winter melons, tree onion, peanuts, 'sprout kale,' serpentine cucumbers, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussells sprouts, orach [a type of spinach], endive, peanuts, chick peas, cayenne pepper, 'esculent Rhubarb,' black salsify, sesame, eggplant." The grand total was "330 varieties of eighty-nine species of vegetables and herbs, 170 varieties of the finest fruit varieties known at the time."<br /><br />So I learned in a recent article about Jefferson's agricultural activities: "<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-hatch/thomas-jeffersons-legacy-_b_714645.html" id="title_permalink" title="Permalink">Thomas Jefferson's Legacy in Gardening and Food</a>" by Peter Hatch, Director of Gardens and Grounds for the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.<br /><br />Many new food preparations and traditions got a start in the Monticello kitchen and garden, possibly including: "French fries, peanuts, Johnny-cakes, gumbo, mashed potatoes, sweet potato pudding, sesame seed oil, fried eggplant, perhaps such American icons as potato chips, tomato catsup, and pumpkin pie."<br /><br />According to the author, "The Jefferson legacy supporting small farmers, vegetable cuisine, and sustainable agriculture is poignantly topical today."<br /><br />I had only a vague idea of Jefferson's work as a promoter of farming and wine culture. This article fills in some gaps about vegetables.

Thomas Jefferson's Vegetables

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14Sep2010

Dinner in the Galapagos, 1835

Since our return from the Galapagos, I've been thinking about early voyages that obviously didn't make sure their passengers would dine as if they were in a fine restaurant in any city in the world -- as ours did. I read <a href="http://www.galapagos.to/TEXTS/DAVIS.HTM">this account</a> of mariners onshore in the Galapagos, from the book <span style="font-style: italic;">Nimrod of the Sea</span> by William Davis, of a voyage in 1835.<br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(51, 153, 153);">A somewhat hasty dinner of fried terrapin scarcely interrupted the coming and going of the carriers, and an hour before sunset a boat loaded to the water's edge with our spoils was dispatched to the ship. We who remained ahsore prepared beds of dried grass under the tent, while the cook make a savory mess of terrapin-meat, with the sweet, golden fat, the rich, melting liver, potatoes, and onions. As the savory odors swept athwart my nose, I almost lost heart and appetite in the roasting of an iguana nearly three feet long, and as thick around as a man's leg. As I turned and basted the horrible beast, it was with less and less stomach for the feast.<br />...<br /><br />Luxurious dogs that we were, to our roast iguana and terrapin stew we added the conger-eels, and craw-fish as large as our lobsters, and equally good. At the going down of the sun, a ravenous crew, seated on the convenient backs of terrapin, gathered about a feast to be treated by fork and spoon, not by stupid pen.<br /></blockquote>Our trip was different in every way from the voyages of the seamen and explorers of early days. Protection of tortoises, iguanas, and every other creature on the Galapagos means that the only local foods are from the few cattle ranches and from small-scale fishermen. Similar thoughts occurred to me as I was reading <span style="font-style: italic;">Moby Dick --</span> when the whalers in <span style="font-style: italic;"></span> caught their first whale of the  voyage, the cook was roused in the middle of the night to make a  whale-meat dinner for some of the crew, who had strong ideas about just  how the cooking should be done. These meats are no longer allowed as  food for conscientious travelers.<br /><br />One can view these historic travelers who ate so many tortoises and harpooned so many whales as environmentally unaware, but we may be much worse: all our luxury derives from the use of oil. We fly, we travel in diesel or gasoline-powered taxis or ships, and we drink and bathe in desalinated water. Much of the food we ate was probably flown from the mainland. It's painful to think about the environmental result of our own actions -- currently destroying the Gulf of Mexico.

Dinner in the Galapagos, 1835

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10Jun2010

What did Mao Eat?

"Chairman Mao adored red-braised pork," Fuchsia Dunlop learned from the dictator's distant relative -- also named Mao. She found Chairman Mao's native village of Shaoshan to be full of such relatives. They still profit, she observed, from a lively tourist industry of Chinese visitors who revere the one-time leader.<br /><br />Mao's family home was carefully preserved: "no opportunity for communist propaganda is missed." Throughout Shaoshan's province of Hunan and the rest of China, Dunlop found a surprising view of Mao as "the last great leader of China.. ..They smile a little sadly when they reflect on his 'mistake,' the Cultural Revolution, but they forgive him: after all, doesn't everybody make mistakes?"<br /><br />Dunlop's book <span style="font-style: italic;">Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China</span> combines her experiences traveling, learning Chinese, discovering a wide range of Chinese regional cooking, and exploring villages and cities where Westerners rarely travel. In visiting Mao's home in Shaoshan, she focused on the kitchen  with meat-smoking racks over an old wood-burning range and an open fire with a blackened kettle suspended above it. Dunlop talked to a local official about Maoist cookery and collected the red-braised pork recipe with its seasoning of star anise, ginger, and chili. Another tourist might have had a different focus. Hers is always on food.<br /><br />To the end of his life, she found, Mao's eating habits were those of a Hunanese peasant. He told a Soviet envoy "that you couldn't be a revolutionary if you didn't eat chillies." He disliked Chinese haute cuisine, and preferred rustic dishes such as steamed bacon, smoked fish with chilli, bean curd, cabbage, wild vegetables, and "the coarse grains that were normally the last resort of the rural poor."<br /><br />Above all, Mao despised those who ate well and wasted food to show off their wealth or power while others went hungry. Throughout the book, Dunlop documents the destruction of Chinese traditional court and restaurant cooking during the Cultural Revolution. She also frequently mentions the mass starvation caused in 1958 by the Great Leap Forward. Peasants were forced into collectives and their cooking pots were melted down to make steel. A mass wave of self-deception and bad faith resulted in a famine during which at least thirty million people died. She often remarked on the lasting impact of these events on the food preferences and habits of people she met.<br /><br />Dunlop's ability to create a vivid image of history through her own experiences is amazing. Her tour of Mao's home town is only one of many chapters. As she apprenticed in restaurant kitchens, ate at home or in restaurants with many common and not-so-common people, and learned several regional languages, she learned food and culinary customs of China. The combination of food history, political and social history, and personal experience makes her book extremely readable.<br /><br />(Quotes about Mao: p. 175-179)

What did Mao Eat?

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