Page 130 - Mocarelli, Luca, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2020. Maize to the People! Cultivation, Consumption and Trade in the North-Eastern Mediterranean (Sixteenth-Nineteenth Century). Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 130
maize to the people!
(polenta) for dinner three times a week (Wadl 2013, 166). It was a popular
dish and was enjoyed as a daily meal by the many Italians workmen in the
country (Hermann 1860, 349). Although the focus of the nutrition around
1830 was still on the traditional porridge dishes made from oats, millet
and barley, maize enriched the menu as an innovation. The “modern” or
“non-traditional” crops for self-sufficiency – including maize – were cul-
tivated in Upper Carinthia across a larger arable area compared to Lower
Carinthia. However, the hectare yields in the Villach district were signif-
icantly lower than those of the Klagenfurt district. Maize was harvested
in 56 out of 75 tax districts in 1814 (Zeloth 2013, 150). In 1848, the adminis-
trator of the manor of Hunnenbrunn (near St. Veit an der Glan), Thomas
Khackl, took stock of the development of maize cultivation in Carinthia in
an article in the Mittheilungen über Gegenstände der Landwirtschaft und
Industrie Kärntens (Khackl 1848, 12-14). According to his explanations, it
had been grown in the Gail Valley since the mid-eighteenth century and
in Central Carinthia since around 1800. But the maize, in which Khackl
saw an alternative to traditional grain cultivation, was not only consumed
in these areas, but also in others. Its yield was above that of traditional ce-
reals. Especially in areas with a mild climate, it joined the “classic” cereals
as a new crop, such as in the Himmelberg tax district in Central Carinthia.
There it could be found in the inventories of those cadastral communities
that were located in a zone with a mild climate.
In the dominion of Hunnenbrunn, also an area with a mild climate,
Khackl registered an average of 16.6-33.8 hectolitres per 0.01 hectares be-
tween 1816 and 1846. In places with favourable soil, even 43.1 hectolitres per
0.01 hectares (approximately 6.5 tons per hectare) (Khackl 1848, 14). The
peasants also got higher profits from the sale (Wadl 2009, 341).
The triumphal march of maize in Carinthia began at the latest in the
1840s. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the cultivation of a
“young” grain such as maize was no longer a question of innovation or per-
sistence, but only of whether it flourished in this or that landscape or not.
It is therefore not surprising that cultivation tripled in the second half of
the nineteenth century (Table 3). The prejudices against maize were final-
ly eliminated. It had established itself as a crop. Wherever the soil and the
climate allowed it, the peasants planted it. The rest of its story in Carinthia
need not be told here.
128
(polenta) for dinner three times a week (Wadl 2013, 166). It was a popular
dish and was enjoyed as a daily meal by the many Italians workmen in the
country (Hermann 1860, 349). Although the focus of the nutrition around
1830 was still on the traditional porridge dishes made from oats, millet
and barley, maize enriched the menu as an innovation. The “modern” or
“non-traditional” crops for self-sufficiency – including maize – were cul-
tivated in Upper Carinthia across a larger arable area compared to Lower
Carinthia. However, the hectare yields in the Villach district were signif-
icantly lower than those of the Klagenfurt district. Maize was harvested
in 56 out of 75 tax districts in 1814 (Zeloth 2013, 150). In 1848, the adminis-
trator of the manor of Hunnenbrunn (near St. Veit an der Glan), Thomas
Khackl, took stock of the development of maize cultivation in Carinthia in
an article in the Mittheilungen über Gegenstände der Landwirtschaft und
Industrie Kärntens (Khackl 1848, 12-14). According to his explanations, it
had been grown in the Gail Valley since the mid-eighteenth century and
in Central Carinthia since around 1800. But the maize, in which Khackl
saw an alternative to traditional grain cultivation, was not only consumed
in these areas, but also in others. Its yield was above that of traditional ce-
reals. Especially in areas with a mild climate, it joined the “classic” cereals
as a new crop, such as in the Himmelberg tax district in Central Carinthia.
There it could be found in the inventories of those cadastral communities
that were located in a zone with a mild climate.
In the dominion of Hunnenbrunn, also an area with a mild climate,
Khackl registered an average of 16.6-33.8 hectolitres per 0.01 hectares be-
tween 1816 and 1846. In places with favourable soil, even 43.1 hectolitres per
0.01 hectares (approximately 6.5 tons per hectare) (Khackl 1848, 14). The
peasants also got higher profits from the sale (Wadl 2009, 341).
The triumphal march of maize in Carinthia began at the latest in the
1840s. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the cultivation of a
“young” grain such as maize was no longer a question of innovation or per-
sistence, but only of whether it flourished in this or that landscape or not.
It is therefore not surprising that cultivation tripled in the second half of
the nineteenth century (Table 3). The prejudices against maize were final-
ly eliminated. It had established itself as a crop. Wherever the soil and the
climate allowed it, the peasants planted it. The rest of its story in Carinthia
need not be told here.
128
