Pre 1900 'what ifs?' of food.

libbrit

Banned
A few thought excercises revolving around food, which in turn requires a lot of thought about historical trade, which in turn requires thinking about foreign policy.

1. Make Britain a coffee drinking nation

2. Describe Mediterranean food if the Americas do not produce the tomato.

3. Make England a coffee drinking nation, but Scotland a tea drinking one.

4. Describe British food in 2015 in an ATL where Britain receives between 100-200k settlers from India sometime prior to 1850.

And when answering these, feel free to suggest your own
 
1. for a while England was a coffee drinking nation with coffee houses. They tended to appear in a lot of nations during the enlightment almost everywhere. Sort of like Starbucks :D

2. Well before the tomato most pasta dishes were flavored with butter and salt, sometimes cheese. Quite flavorful in my opinion.
 

iddt3

Donor
Ironically Coffee was actually popular in the UK before Tea, but coffee production was largely inflexible / from places with low infrastructure, so the price skyrocketed with increased demand. Tea, on the other hand, being manufacturered in China and India, could increase production with increased demand. So tea stayed reasonably priced.
 

Driftless

Donor
Ironically Coffee was actually popular in the UK before Tea, but coffee production was largely inflexible / from places with low infrastructure, so the price skyrocketed with increased demand. Tea, on the other hand, being manufacturered in China and India, could increase production with increased demand. So tea stayed reasonably priced.

Originally, wasn't tea easier to grow in plantion conditions than coffee, making large scale operations easier and more profitable? Part horticulture, part economic.
 
2. Describe Mediterranean food if the Americas do not produce the tomato.

4. Describe British food in 2015 in an ATL where Britain receives between 100-200k settlers from India sometime prior to 1850.

And when answering these, feel free to suggest your own

Great idea for an AHC discussion!

2. Probably closer to Greek/Turkish food to be honest, with a greater emphasis on spices and oil-based marinades rather than tomato sauces. Maybe more use of cheese as a base for making sauces too (eg Greek Macaroni).

4. Actually probably not too different. Despite not having those number of migrants, the Victorians loved curry. It would probably be closer to what Indian people would recognise as curry with more migrants to cook it, but the appetite was already there. The knock-on question I had with this is if attitudes to rice change in this period because of the greater migrant population (IOTL it took until almost the 20th century for Westerners to stop thinking of rice largely as a thing you fed to animals unless it was in dessert). If rice is more accepted and available, does this help prevent some of the worst starvation in Ireland in the 1850s?
 
Here's one:

The Potato Blights in Ireland starved millions and caused even more millions to flee the Emerald Isle for more fertile, new lands in the New World- and, in no small part due to the ineffective if not catastrophic policies of the British rulers, were one of the last if not THE last straw re keeping the Catholic majority lands part of the British domain.

What if, instead of still having TONS of foods EXPORTED from the starving lands and doing NOTHING to consider a substitution for virtually the ONLY food source for the bulk of rural Irish, there had been an effort to have had TURNIPS be grown in Ireland? I mean, they grow in virtually the same climates and soils AND are MORE nutritious than potatoes so if the Irish had been able to convert to turnips ASAP the First Blight, would there have been such massive starvations, emigrations and unrest?
 

libbrit

Banned
One potential scenario which could make the UK a coffee drinking nation, could involve more territorial acquisition in South America and less in India
 
One potential scenario which could make the UK a coffee drinking nation, could involve more territorial acquisition in South America and less in India


Considering that coffee originated in East Africa AND South America already had the bulk of its territory claimed by Spain and Portugal [with only tiny areas for British, French or Dutch], I think it may have helped inspire them to try to conquer Somalia earlier so they'd have a ready supply. Of course, India had LOTS more culinary and other treasures besides tea. . .
 
Here's one:

The Potato Blights in Ireland starved millions and caused even more millions to flee the Emerald Isle for more fertile, new lands in the New World- and, in no small part due to the ineffective if not catastrophic policies of the British rulers, were one of the last if not THE last straw re keeping the Catholic majority lands part of the British domain.

What if, instead of still having TONS of foods EXPORTED from the starving lands and doing NOTHING to consider a substitution for virtually the ONLY food source for the bulk of rural Irish, there had been an effort to have had TURNIPS be grown in Ireland? I mean, they grow in virtually the same climates and soils AND are MORE nutritious than potatoes so if the Irish had been able to convert to turnips ASAP the First Blight, would there have been such massive starvations, emigrations and unrest?

Part of the issue is that no crop provided more calories per acre than the potato. Given the tiny lots offered to the sharecroppers/tenant farmers, turnips couldn't be grown in adequate quantities to replace the potato. The people, now accustomed to the diet, were slow to switch over anyway to carrots, turnips, etc, etc, that might have closed some of the caloric gap.

In the end, the British government allowed millions of people to starve while Ireland exported vast quantities of wheat and meat abroad.
 
Part of the issue is that no crop provided more calories per acre than the potato. Given the tiny lots offered to the sharecroppers/tenant farmers, turnips couldn't be grown in adequate quantities to replace the potato. The people, now accustomed to the diet, were slow to switch over anyway to carrots, turnips, etc, etc, that might have closed some of the caloric gap.

In the end, the British government allowed millions of people to starve while Ireland exported vast quantities of wheat and meat abroad.

You've also got the problem that potatoes provide a fairly wide range of nutrients. Potatoes and whole milk are enough to live on.

I'm not at all sure that the same is true for e.g. turnips or cabbage, say.
 
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