Dish With No Salt
Or when backed peppers did not exist and there were no tomatoes in the salad.
Do you recognize these peas? This is the predecessor of the tomato. The magnificent tomatl. TOMAT-eLLLL. That is how Aztecs called it.
Until the 16th Century there were no tomatoes in Europe or in Bulgaria!
Do you remember “granny” Tsena, who went to the Maldives and afterwards to the Caribbean with her husband the billionaire? After her trip to the Caribbean she went to Mexico, to the Aztecs. Her husband, the millionaire, the billionaire, I mean had some business with the sultan and so arrived the first tomato in Europe. The Bulgarian trace in history!!! Ts, ts, ts, believe it or not!
Jokes aside, tomatoes originate from South America. Before Europeans conquered the Americas, there were no tomatoes, aubergines (eggplants) or maize in Europe.
An Ottoman Sultan sighing for baba (granny) Tsena
Do you realize what this means? It means that
neither Bulgarian, neither Ottoman, nor Indian cuisine had tomatoes, peppers.
CHILLY peppers they didn’t even have! Phenomenal. If there are any Indians here, how do you imagine Indian cuisine without hot? NO WAY! Simply inconceivable. My phantasy cannot assimilate such a catastrophe.
Nevertheless I recently learned a satisfactory explanation for what Turks used earlier. Ottomans, more precisely.
Fruits. The tomato has a noble sweetness, similar to the noble shine of silk as compared to the vivid shine of polyester satin. Instead of tomatoes they used watermelons (originate from South Africa), melons (from Asia or Africa) and probably other fruits. Garlic they had, onions they had. Potatoes they didn’t. But they had wheat and other cereals.
But praise as you wish the Turkish cuisine before Columbus (before Europeans brought Tabaco and all other American goods), nothing can replace tomatoes and chilly peppers. Nothing. Let’s not quarrel, please!
