"Mark Zanger" > wrote in message
. ..
> So, going back to the original question, how the cumin get here, I propose
> the case of one place in Latin America I've tasted a fair amount of cumin,
> which is Peru. It's always in the marinade for anticuchos de corazon --
> the grilled skewers of beef heart sold in the street. And it also appears
> in the recipe for pork adobo, similar to the Phillippine adobo and the
> Spanish escabeche, except that in Peru cubes of pork are rubbed with
> spices and achiote, then cooked in the pickle (vinegar would be part of
> the marinade elsewhere). So both of these point to Iberia (via the
> technique of pickling in vinegar, and the application to Eurasian meats)
> without ruling out the Maghrebian influence. Peru has a small
> Afro-Peruvian community, mostly on the coast, but no particular Morroccan
> or Arab presence until the 20th century. It is certainly possible that
> these dishes have responded to a recent influence, but more likely that
> their spicing goes back to the Spanish colonial period.
>
>
> --
> -Mark H. Zanger
> author, The American History Cookbook, The American Ethnic Cookbook for
> Students
> www.ethnicook.com
> www.historycook.com
Rachel Laudan has perhaps the best answer to this question in this link:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issu...connection.htm

Some random thoughts here. Perhaps this is the root of Chili (sic) thus
predating the Canary Island Land Grant theory of San Anton and supporting
the Navaho claim to inventing Chili before San Anton had it in the 1730s.
ABQ NM certainly dates from mid to late 1500s. Chili is a spiced dish of
meat( albeit a religious experience to some and thus this is considered
blasphemy) and yet there are many meat dishes with Chile and spices from
Mexico. The definition of Curry and Mole is relatively the same and there
are as many variants as there are people making and eating them. I can see
the many dishes sharing spices from the old and the new in New Spain.

The Culantro/Cilantro is not a issue worth time spent, the native Culantro
is very similar in taste and smell and Coriander( cilantro) seed probably
came over with the Cumin(o) as many interchanged it frequently with
Coriander. If not from the Spanish Moor link certainly the Philippinos
(Chinese?) from the Manila Galleons . But the Philippinos do not use a lot
of Chile and Cumin. The Muslim side of the Philippines will certainly not
have a Pork Adobo and their adobo is a vinegar marinade not a thick tomato
pasty one as the Mexican side seems to have so I discount the Manila link.
Cluantro is native and thus used but the Coriander seed was planted and
what was not used for seed spice, was used as a Culantro substitute.

>