"Bob (this one)" wrote:
>
> 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.

You missed the word 'dramatically'. Every food introduction that is
adopted changes eating habits by definition, but tomatoes are not
'essential' to Southern Italian cooking in Italy.

> >> 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.

Not at all, but if an ingredient is essential in a cuisine by your
defintion, it should be hard to avoid in some way shape or form. I love
tomatoes but can eat a vast amount of different dishes in Italy without
encountering them.
And of course my 'one person's experience' is equally as valid as yours.
American Italian cooking is quite different.

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.

I never said they weren't common, just that they aren't essential.
That's hardly the same thing.

> > 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

And you know how many people who call bell peppers chiles?
But we are talking about how common an item is; hot peppers were and
still aren't all that common across the US and still have a very long
way to go to 'dramatically' change the eating habits of Americans.




>
> >> 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