Arri London wrote:

>
> Dennis Montey wrote:
>
>> I certainly did not intend to infer that tomatoes were 'new' to
>> Italy. My question referred to the introduction of tomatoes after
>> they had an established cuisine. We often associate tomatoes or
>> tomato sauces with the popular dishes of Italy. The same is
>> true of India. Indian cuisine brings to mind thick, spicy tomato
>> based currie sauces with a great deal of heat.
>
> While that may be true in the US, it isn't true in India or
> Pakistan. Tomatoes are used, but aren't the least bit integral.
>
>> In the USA, we are accustomed to regular introductions of exotic
>> and not so exotic food items. We experiment with different
>> ethnicities and fusions, though none have so dramaticall changed
>> our eating habits
>
> Tomatoes didn't dramatically change the eating habits of either
> India or Italy. They don't appear in the majority of dishes in
> either place.

I beg to differ with regard to both criteria and results. My family
background is Italian, both north and south, and I've been to the
ancestral places. Tomatoes don't appear in the majority of dishes, of
course. Nothing appears in the majority of dishes and majority isn't
the issue. Tomatoes are essential to the cuisines of the south and
frequent additions to the cooking of the north, diminishing with
proximity to the alps. But to say that tomatoes didn't change the
habits in Italy is hard to fathom.

>> Keeping in mind , of course, that our national diet is the result
>> of a grand melting pot.. However, it would seem that the
>> introduction of the tomato and pepper have made them staple
>> ingredients in these two cultures.
>
> Tomatoes aren't staple ingredients in either culture. Every time
> I've been to Italy, I ate extremely well and with a huge amount of
> variety without needing to have tomatoes except in salad.

Needing? One person's experience details national dietary habits? It
sounds like you don't like tomatoes and would therefore be avoiding
them. Tomatoes are ubiquitous in Italy. Between the myriad variants of
tomato sauces and the settings where tomatoes served fresh, are
pickled, dried and/or salted, they're virtually omnipresent.

> Pepper was used in Italy and India long before the colonisation of
> North and South America.

I think it's a labeling reference. Peppers are what North Americans
call chiles.

>> Is this also the case in Thai, Mongolian and other Asian cuisines
>> who are soooo fond of the heat contributed by peppers?
>
>
> Chiles don't play any role in Mongolian cooking, as far as I can
> find out. While used in some Asian cuisines, there are just as many
> dishes without chiles in them. Heat previously would have been
> supplied by pepper, and still is.

"Just as many without" isn't the question. How common is a question.
Who uses them and how are questions. Peppers are easy to grow and
yield a good amount of food per unit of ground. They're common in
virtually all important cuisines. Chiles aren't only used for their
heat as many varieties don't contain significant amounts of capsaicin
and are very widely used.

> It isn't all that long ago that so many Americans hadn't heard of
> habaneros or cascabels or chipotles. So, in fact, chiles have been
> a relatively recent introduction into 'white bread' American
> cooking. The people in the Southwest of course have been eating
> many varieties of chiles for centuries.

Bell peppers are still chiles and are among the top few vegetables
used across the entire US. Hot chiles as widespread food item are a
different matter, but there have always been individuals, and cultural
and national enclaves that used them.

Pastorio


>> Cookie Cutter wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Dennis Montey wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Have tomatoes always been available in India/Pakistan region
>>>> or are they johnny-come-latelies which have been
>>>> incorporated as has occurred in Italian cuisine? When and
>>>> how were they introduced?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Why do you think tomatoes are new to Italy? Cortes arrived in
>>> Mexico around 1519 where he found tomatoes and they are
>>> described in Italian herbals just a few years later. If you
>>> mean that tomatoes were not in Italy in the year 1000 A.D or
>>> weren't around in 500 B.C., then you are quite right. Cortes
>>> and Columbus also brought peppers to the new world and they
>>> made it ASAP to India/Pakistan, probably in the same crate with
>>> a tomato plant.
>>>
>>> Cookie