Fw: Re: Fw: Re: HERB - Fw: Re: SC - Celery

[Christine A Seelye-King]

Hey, I'm just the middle-man here!  Cross posting seems to have it's
hazards, but I'm sending the relplies that came from the cook's list to
comments made here on the herb list about stuff I forwarded from the
cook's list.  (Me? Causing trouble?  Whatever do you mean? ;)
Christianna

--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
To: sca-cooks at Ansteorra.ORG, RAISYA at aol.com
Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 09:02:13 -0400
Subject: Re: Fw: Re: HERB - Fw: Re: SC - Celery


Christine A Seelye-King wrote, or forwarded, or something ;  )  :
> 
> --------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: RAISYA at aol.com
> To: herbalist at Ansteorra.ORG
> Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 15:09:24 EDT
> Subject: Re: HERB - Fw: Re: SC - Celery
> 
> Christianna,
> 
> You posted something from the cooks' list by an Allison from
Aethelmarc:
> 
> >>I suspect that celery _may_ have been seen _mostly_ as a medicinal
herb,
> >>rather than as a vegetable,

I believe I originally wrote the above, with the passages underlined
just now. 
 
> I don't agree.  As early as the 9th century, Strabo writes:
> 
>         "Celery is now held cheap in our gardens and many think
> Taste is its only merit.  But it has its virtues
> And offers quick help in many remedies." ("XX.  Celery",  HORTULUS)

All right, fair enough. This demonstrates that celery _may_ have been
widely eaten as a food, for its taste alone, rather than for its
medicinal value, in the particular time and place in which Strabo wrote,
assuming he was correct. I don't doubt he was correct, but it's not
always a safe assumption. Platina, for example, has a page or so on the
natural history of bears, how they're pretty much spontaneously
generated, not born, that they subsist through early youth by sucking
their paws, etc. Hey, it's true. Sez so right here in Platina, and he
was the Vatican librarian, so he must be right. Further, my words, taken
out of context, but still pretty clear, so far as I can tell, did not
suggest they were without exception, but were intended to address
Europe, overall, in the more-than-a-millenium we refer to as our period.
> 
> He finds it necessary to point out that it has medicinal uses in
addition
> to
> the taste, which I think is strong evidence it was eaten for its
flavor.

I agree, for ninth-century wherever-it-was. Whether that applies to
fourteenth-century England is  unknown. Ditto for sixth-century Germany,
sixteenth-century Germany, sixteenth-century France, etc. At least based
on the evidence that's been provided. What's happening here is that my
acknowledged and qualified generalization (generally not a good idea,
which is why I was so careful to phrase it as I did) is being replaced
by another, stating, effectively, the opposite, which is probably about
as accurate.

Yes, there is evidence suggesting it was eaten, somewhere in Europe, in
period, and even that it was eaten for its culinary, rather than its
medicinal, virtues. If, however, it was really widely eaten throughout
Europe throughout period, it is likely there would be more surviving
recipes for it than there appear to be. Even if one argues that celery
isn't something one would write down a recipe for, or if one wanted to
suggest it was only eaten by a small portion of the social strata, and
not by wealthy/aristocratic/royal types, it doesn't explain why so many
recipes for other vegetables in similar circumstances have survived,
while celery recipes, to a fair extent, haven't. I'm sure there are
some, but they don't seem to be as numerous as ones for, say, cabbage.  
 

> It
> was also included in the vegetable garden of the St. Gall plan, not the
> medicinal garden.

Again, that's pretty good evidence of it being seen as a vegetable in a
given place and time, and not really what I was talking about.

It's kinda ironic, BTW, that an early proponent of celery, famous for
its effects, I believe, on the eyesight, should be Strabo, whose name
basically means "cross-eyed", as with Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, uncle (I
think) of Pompey the Great. ;  )

G. Tacitus Adamantius
-- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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