Cereals, fruit and vegetables in the 16th century
Additional information and bibliography
One of the earliest visitors, the Italian Girolamo Dandini, writing in 1596, mentioned the profusion of vegetables and fruit: All kinds of vegetables grow there, and abundance of barley, dates, bananas, carobs, oranges, lemons, citrons … sugar, saffron, coriander, susiman [sesame?], lentisc-seed, honey…as to vegetables, the cauliflowers are excellent eating, cabbages, Egyptian beans, colocasia… Cobham (1908) 183.
Another visitor to the island during the period 1598-9, Ioannes Cotovicus, a Doctor of Civil and Canon Law in the University of Utrecht, also mentioned the variety and abundance of fruit: Melons, pumpkins and gourds grow in great abundance, and the bananas of exquisite flavour. Cobham (1908) 189.
Cobham, Claude Delaval, Excerpta Cypria: Materials for a History of Cyprus, Cambridge 1908, 183, 189.
Euphrosyne Rizopoulou-Egoumenidou, Food at Cultural Crossroads: Dietary Habits in Cyprus under Ottoman Rule (1570-1878) as perceived by Foreign Travellers.
Euphrosyne Egoumenidou, Eleni Christou
Foods
Appídin - pear
Gennadios writes about Cypriot pears at the beginning of the 20th century: "Cyprus, which in the times of Pliny was praised for its large pears, nowadays produces very few and mostly poor quality…
Production Methods
αλώνισμαν,το ΕΝ
Τα ζώα έσερναν τη δουκάνη κυκλικά, για ώρες, πάνω από τα δεμάτια. Ο γεωργός, τον οποίο ονόμαζαν αλωνευτή, έβαζε μια καρέκλα και καθόταν πάνω στη δουκάνη.