Page 97 - 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. 97
innovations in agr icultur e and population growth in fr iuli ...
ly after 1700 maize gained additional importance in nutrition, its quantities
increasing significantly in peasant probate inventories, in which it became
the most recorded cereal by the mid-eighteenth century (Stainz manor,
1733). It may also be found in the form of mixed maize and wheat flour
(Thal parish), signalling that it was meant for human nutrition and not as
fodder (Brunner 1994, 11-12). Still, this evidence places us outside today’s
Slovenian Styria, but official administrative documents undoubtedly state
that maize was present there, too. In 1732-1733, conflicts arose about peas-
ants’ tithes – levies on maize to their landlords. Some historians mention
that the ruler issued a decree ordering the payment of such a tithe (in fact,
it referred to the twentieth part of the harvest), while others mention its ab-
olition. Anyhow, we may abide by Gestrin’s and Sangruber’s interpretation
that the decree and the related conflicts prove there was “a considerable
amount of maize cultivation in this region during the first half of the eight-
eenth century”, and that by 1733 maize was widespread enough to trigger
such conflict (Gestrin 1969a, 3; Sandgruber 1982, 47). After it was exempt-
ed from the tithe in 1733, maize was cultivated everywhere in Central and
Lower Styria (Mittel- und Untersteiermark), as Brunner writes basing on
Fritz Posch (Brunner 1994, 9). Central and Lower Styria means the south-
ern part of today’s Austrian Styria (that is the area around and south of
Graz reaching the Slovenian border) and today’s Slovenian Styria. Around
1750, dishes such as türkische Koch and Türkensterz, which could be trans-
lated as maize mash and maize polenta,3 were already defined as “popu-
lar food” (ordinary people’s nourishment) in Styria (Sandgruber 1982, 47;
Brunner 1994, 12).
The second half of the eighteenth century:
the final conquest of ordinary people’s dishes
Returning to the west, I could not find an earlier and clearer evidence of
maize in the peasant diet than the contract regarding the yearly alimo-
nies in favour of the widow Marina Sivic in the Classical Karst near Trieste,
dated 1753. This date can be considered mid-eighteenth century and most
probably indicates that in this area maize entered the dishes of the common
people already in the first half of the century. In Marina’s case, among the
five different cereals she received, maize was in second place, representing
one quarter of the total quantity (Table 1).
3 In Slovene that would be koruzna kaša and koruzni žganci.
95
ly after 1700 maize gained additional importance in nutrition, its quantities
increasing significantly in peasant probate inventories, in which it became
the most recorded cereal by the mid-eighteenth century (Stainz manor,
1733). It may also be found in the form of mixed maize and wheat flour
(Thal parish), signalling that it was meant for human nutrition and not as
fodder (Brunner 1994, 11-12). Still, this evidence places us outside today’s
Slovenian Styria, but official administrative documents undoubtedly state
that maize was present there, too. In 1732-1733, conflicts arose about peas-
ants’ tithes – levies on maize to their landlords. Some historians mention
that the ruler issued a decree ordering the payment of such a tithe (in fact,
it referred to the twentieth part of the harvest), while others mention its ab-
olition. Anyhow, we may abide by Gestrin’s and Sangruber’s interpretation
that the decree and the related conflicts prove there was “a considerable
amount of maize cultivation in this region during the first half of the eight-
eenth century”, and that by 1733 maize was widespread enough to trigger
such conflict (Gestrin 1969a, 3; Sandgruber 1982, 47). After it was exempt-
ed from the tithe in 1733, maize was cultivated everywhere in Central and
Lower Styria (Mittel- und Untersteiermark), as Brunner writes basing on
Fritz Posch (Brunner 1994, 9). Central and Lower Styria means the south-
ern part of today’s Austrian Styria (that is the area around and south of
Graz reaching the Slovenian border) and today’s Slovenian Styria. Around
1750, dishes such as türkische Koch and Türkensterz, which could be trans-
lated as maize mash and maize polenta,3 were already defined as “popu-
lar food” (ordinary people’s nourishment) in Styria (Sandgruber 1982, 47;
Brunner 1994, 12).
The second half of the eighteenth century:
the final conquest of ordinary people’s dishes
Returning to the west, I could not find an earlier and clearer evidence of
maize in the peasant diet than the contract regarding the yearly alimo-
nies in favour of the widow Marina Sivic in the Classical Karst near Trieste,
dated 1753. This date can be considered mid-eighteenth century and most
probably indicates that in this area maize entered the dishes of the common
people already in the first half of the century. In Marina’s case, among the
five different cereals she received, maize was in second place, representing
one quarter of the total quantity (Table 1).
3 In Slovene that would be koruzna kaša and koruzni žganci.
95
