Comment by benbreen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by benbreen | Hacker News Reader

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I agree, I love thinking about the journeys that these objects made, like the Roman coins that ended up in a 12th century Japanese castle. [1]

There were a handful of individuals who made similar trips though - aside from the famous ones like Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta, there's also a few envoys sent on behalf of the Franco-Mongol alliance.[2]

Or the Spaniards who went to the court of Timur: “Timour Beg turned to the knights who had seated around him… and said, ‘Behold! here are the ambassadors sent by my son the king of Spain, who is the greatest king of the Franks, and lives at the end of the world.’” [3]

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/28/495821834...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Mongol_alliance

[3] https://resobscura.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-spaniard-in-samark...

One of my favourite historical surprises:

> Clavijo recorded his entrance to the capital in great detail, noting the stores of “silks, satins, musk, rubies, diamonds, pearls, and rhubarb” carried from China

Today, to me, rhubarb seems so mundane, and so British. And yet just a few hundred years ago, it was an exotic wonder from the east. Rather than from Yorkshire:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhubarb_Triangle

I wasn't aware of it being British either. It was just something that grew in the backyard of the house I grew up in, in upstate New York.

The UK supplies much of world's Rhubarb, most of it from the so called Rhubarb Triangle in Yorkshire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhubarb_Triangle where it is "forced", it apparently grows so quick you can hear it!

I didn't know it needed "supplying" because it just grew year after year by our back porch, with no special encouragement.

Wikipedia says it was known simply as "pie plant" in the US in the 19th century.

Although strawberry-rhubarb pie is a common combination, I recall pies of my childhood being rhubarb alone.

I don't think it is particularly British. It's just so commonplace here that i assumed it was - in much the same way as i imagine the Irish feel about potatoes, and the Italians about pasta!

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