Buckwheat in North East Europe

[arvistro]

Introduction or reintroduction of buckwheat to North East Europe happened in different ways and probably time based on names given to this plant by Balts, Slavs and Baltic Finns.
Balts and Slavs call buckwheat Greek (griķi, grechka), as if it was introduced by Greeks or by population who learned it from Greeks (and another important point - named Greeks Greek not Hellens!).
Baltic Finns did not learn buckwheat from their Baltic neighbors, instead they call it Tatar which sounds to me like... Tatar.
If so, they learned buckwheat from either Tatars or population who called buckwheat Tatar (neither Balts nor Slavs who learned it from ultimately Greeks).

This all points to the speculation that buckwheat became popular in the region late into Anno Domini. IE tribes of region would learn it one way (ultimately from Greeks, but say Scythian via Black Sea connection is possible?) and FU tribes another way (ultimately from Tatars).

 

[LeBrok]

Introduction or reintroduction of buckwheat to North East Europe happened in different ways and probably time based on names given to this plant by Balts, Slavs and Baltic Finns.
Balts and Slavs call buckwheat Greek (griķi, grechka), as if it was introduced by Greeks or by population who learned it from Greeks (and another important point - named Greeks Greek not Hellens!).
Baltic Finns did not learn buckwheat from their Baltic neighbors, instead they call it Tatar which sounds to me like... Tatar.
If so, they learned buckwheat from either Tatars or population who called buckwheat Tatar (neither Balts nor Slavs who learned it from ultimately Greeks).

This all points to the speculation that buckwheat became popular in the region late into Anno Domini. IE tribes of region would learn it one way (ultimately from Greeks, but say Scythian via Black Sea connection is possible?) and FU tribes another way (ultimately from Tatars).

Tatars met Greeks in Crimea, so the story might be more complicated. I red one time that origin of buckwheat was in Japan, though not sure how accurate was that statement. If it is true, then I don't understand why Japanese love rice so much and not the buckwheat. For me buckwheat has wonderful flavor and I can eat it as a dish by itself. On other hand rice is completely tasteless for me. White tasteless starchy filler.

 

[arvistro]

Hmm, wiki has it covered for most part:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckwheat#History

This about origins:
Common buckwheat was domesticated and first cultivated in inland Southeast Asia, possibly around 6000 BCE, and from there spread toCentral Asia and Tibet, and then to the Middle East and Europe. Domestication most likely took place in the western Yunnan region of China.^[5] Buckwheat is documented in Europe in Finland by at least 5300 BCE ^[6] as a first sign of agriculture, and in the Balkans by circa4000 BCE in the Middle Neolithic.

This about name:
In Ukrainian, buckwheat is called гречка (hrechka) meaning of Greek, due to its introduction in the seventh century by the Byzantine Greeks, the same is the case in Russian.

Actually that last statement seems correct. Only Poles + East Slavs + Balts call it Greek. South Slavs call it different names. So, it was introduced to the region after Slavs already split.
So, were there Tatars around Crimea in 7th century, and how did they get to Finns/Estonians?

 

[Ukko]

Introduction or reintroduction of buckwheat to North East Europe happened in different ways and probably time based on names given to this plant by Balts, Slavs and Baltic Finns.
Balts and Slavs call buckwheat Greek (griķi, grechka), as if it was introduced by Greeks or by population who learned it from Greeks (and another important point - named Greeks Greek not Hellens!).
Baltic Finns did not learn buckwheat from their Baltic neighbors, instead they call it Tatar which sounds to me like... Tatar.
If so, they learned buckwheat from either Tatars or population who called buckwheat Tatar (neither Balts nor Slavs who learned it from ultimately Greeks).

This all points to the speculation that buckwheat became popular in the region late into Anno Domini. IE tribes of region would learn it one way (ultimately from Greeks, but say Scythian via Black Sea connection is possible?) and FU tribes another way (ultimately from Tatars).

Volga and Dnieper routes?