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HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL FOOD ORIGINS

This page contains fairly comprehensive information regarding the origins of crops and answers many questions about foods and where they came from. It is an effort to dispel the misconception of many foods served at "themed" events merely to appease the appetite without regard for the authenticity of the fare. As a food vendor to a themed event, you should have at least a vague idea of what you are serving your customers and help educate the customers as well as yourself. Most event themed before the 16th century offer foods that were generally not available in the "Old World".

A lord's dinner usually had two to three courses, mainly meats and pastries, bread, wine or ale (usually the drink of the lowest classes), fruits, cheeses, nuts, and the like. But a feast was something so much more. Beef, pork, mutton, venison, poultry, fish, eggs, bread, milk, cheeses, vegetables (in lesser quantities, because they were considered "common"), and a profusion of wine, ale, cider, and mead were in ample supply.

Foods generally available throughout the period were wheat, ale, wine, hipprocras?, oxen, wild bulls, sheep, calves, "porkes", swans, geese, capons, pigs, peacocks, other birds, stags, bucks and roes, venison pies, pikes and breams, porpoises and seals, dishes of jelly, cold baked tarts, custards, and spices, sugared delicacies and wafers. During spring and summer months, food stuffs were in ready supply, and included: "starlings, vultures, gulls, herons, storks, cormorants, swans, cranes, peacocks [often displayed in full feather after cooking], capons, and chickens, dogfish, porpoises, seals, whale, haddock, cod, salmon, sardines, lamprey, dolphins, tunnies, and eels", as well as mullet, sole, shad, flounder, plaice, ray, mackerel, trout, crab, crayfish and oysters.

Other food stuff included fruits, onions, garlic, peas, and beans. Wild cherries, grapes, and plums. Apples, pears usually cooked. Roasted apples were popular. Citrus fruits began to be imported around 1290. Fresh and pickled lemons, and also Sevelle oranges. Other imports for the wealthy included currants, raisins, figs, dates and prunes. Roasts, stews and soups were the favored ways of preparing a meal.

Potatoes and corn was not used until the 16th century, after the discovery of the new world (the America's).

Continue with the list below to find out more about food origins.

COMMON CROPS

TOMATO

Wild type tomato species are thought to be native the region of western South America and specifically in the dry coastal desert of Peru. First historical reference in Europe to the tomato was a yellow fruited type in Italy in 1544, cultivation in Germany in 1553. The Italians may have acquired it from the Turks. The tomato may have first been grown in Spain then taken to Italy where it was called "pomi d'oro" or golden apple, because of its yellow color. The French called it "poma amaris" or apple of love. The American Indians used the name "tomatl."

The tomato was not very popular until the 18th century mainly because of rumors that had labeled it as a poisonous fruit. It is suggested that certain famines during this century forced people to try this plant, because by the middle of the century the tomato was much more popular.

The tomato was introduced into the United States in 1710. By 1779 it was used in catsup in New Orleans. Thomas Jefferson grew tomatoes in Virginia. But as late as 1900 the tomato was still considered poisonous. George Washington Carver was known for standing in front of crowds and eating tomatoes, trying to introduce tomatoes into the diet. The tomato originated in South America due to the wild species found from Ecuador to Chile. This means the tomato traveled from South America to Europe before arriving in the United States. L. esculentum is probably derived from Lycopersicon pimpinellifolium which is indigenous to Peru and Ecuador. L. esculentum var. cerasiforme (cherry tomato) is considered a wild plant in the tropics and subtropics. There is also evidence that tomatoes originated in Mexico. These tomatoes show a great diversity in size and shape and include all color types known which are pink, red, and yellow. The cherry tomato is widely used in Mexico and has many Indiana names. The Nah uatl language of Mexico used the name "tomatl" which has followed the plant through Europe and South America. Mexico would be a logical origin since Cortez conquered Mexico in 1519, tomatoes could have easily found their way to Italy by 1544.

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CORN

Scientific studies (including studies from archaeology & geology) show that corn was used as food at least 7,000 years ago in Mexico. These tests include excavations and radioactive decay testing. There were never any forms of wild corn found, and the actual origin of corn is still being debated today.

Today, corn is highly specialized, and isn't ready for natural reproduction. Even though the ear can produce many seeds, the plant can't do anything with them, without help from us. Thanks to mutation, natural selection, and the American Indians, wild corn slowly became corn as we know it today: maize. Maize is a cultigen. In lamen's terms, it was made that way by humans.

Before 1492, corn was unknown to the New World. But the Indians of Nor and South America cultivated it into all its present forms. The seeds from the Americas were taken to Europe and Africa by explorers of the 16th century. There were planted and became very popular. Ever since the 1930's, corn production has improved in quantity, and quality. Today's corn is much larger than that of the Indians, by all means

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SUGAR CANE

Sugar changed the face --and taste-- of medieval Sicilian cuisine, and its delicious effects can still be enjoyed today. Saccharum officinarum (loosely translated "noble cane") probably originated in Polynesia, to be introduced in India and China in antiquity, though some genetic research suggests a mainland Asian origin. The Persians were producing sugar from cane by 500 BC, if not earlier. With the Arab invasion of medieval Persia in 642, early sugar cane refining techniques were acquired by eastern Mediterranean peoples. By 900, the cane was being grown in Arab Sicily, one of the few European regions where this tropical plant has ever been grown. Sugar cane needs a humid, tropical climate, with plenty of precipitation (or irrigation). The Arabs were experts at designing efficient irrigation systems, and in the tenth century Sicily had more rivers and natural lakes (and more rain) than it does today. Broadly classified as a perennial grass, sugar cane grows to a height of over three meters (ten feet). Notwithstanding good irrigation methods, sugar cane usually was grown in Sicily's flat coastal areas, which in the Middle Ages were often marshy, particularly near Catania, Marsala and Trapani.

Traditional cane "refining" was essentially a crushing, extraction and crystallization process, adding water to a paste which dried to become "sugar." The medieval product was coarse and slightly brownish in hue, though for pastry making it was usually crushed into a fine powder or melted. Before the introduction of cane sugar, honey was used as a sweetener in most Sicilian recipes.

The English word sugar comes to us, via the Italian zucchero and then the Old French sukere, from the Arabic sukkar. The Normans of medieval Sicily probably coined the French word directly from the Arabic. (During the same period, crusading knights returning to England from the Middle East brought news of the cane with them.) The Arab influence radically changed Sicilian cuisine, with the widespread cultivation of various fruits which previously were unknown (or virtually unknown) in southern Europe. In Sicily, the evolution of pastries was also influenced by pre-existing flavors. Ricotta cheese made from sheep's milk was sweetened with powdered sugar to form the cream still used as a filling today, particularly in sfingi, cassata and cannoli (the tubular confection shown here). It is the strong flavour of the sheep's milk that gives this ricotta cream its distinctive taste; outside Sicily the ricotta made with cow's milk is rather bland by comparison.

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POTATO

Potatoes were introduced into Europe in the sixteenth century after the conquest of Peru by the Spanish. Cultivation spread quickly throughout Europe, but the first large-scale production was in Ireland. The Irish quickly became dependent on potatoes as a staple of their diet. This dependence resulted in mass starvation and emigration when late blight, Phytophthera infestans, destroyed the Irish potato crop for two years in a row in the 1840's. In colonial times, potatoes were introduced to North America by Irish immigrants, which is why they are sometimes called 'Irish' potatoes. More properly they should simply be called 'potatoes' or 'white potatoes' to distinguish them from sweet potatoes.

The situations presented here are the most manifest; through the period of discovery, conquest and colonization, Latin America experienced an evident case of agricultural cross-breeding, although each region responded in different ways to the arrival of plants from the Old World. One only has to reflect on the elimination of indigenous populations; epidemics and famine are well documented for the three main vice-royalties: New Granada. Peru and New Spain. European agronomic culture did not develop in major sectors of the indigenous population, except in small areas where there was no culture with an agricultural tradition or in those where the population accepted the changes with ease.

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NEW WORLD CROPS

The effects of the diffusion of American crops such as the potato, maize, sunflower and tomato in Europe, and of the extensive use of agricultural products derived from other American plants such as cotton, cocoa and cochineal berry are fairly well documented. What are not so well known are the repercussions of the introduction into America of crops and products from other parts of the world?
Plants marginalized as a result of Old World crops

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CROPS BY TYPE

Cultivated plants originating in the New World, and their probable distribution at the time of the discovery

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