Spinach (was Re: SC - do you have any ideas ?)

[melc2newton at juno.com]

On Mon, 17 Aug 1998 10:18:33 EDT LrdRas at aol.com writes:
>In a message dated 8/6/98 6:44:11 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
>Pagehutch at aol.com
>writes:
>
><< for the spinach you might would like to try a warm spinach salad 
>with
> marinated scallops in the salad. >>
>
>There are several PERIOD recipes of scallops in Apicius and some are 
>redacted
>and located in Stefan's files. There are also period recipes that 
>contain
>spinach. The Floregelium has some of those listed also, IIRC.
>
<snip>
>
>Ras
I found _Martha Washington's Book of Cookery_ with commentary by Karen
Hess in my local library (having struggled with the Springfield-Greene
County library system to historical sources before, I nearly fainted dead
away on the floor when I came upon it in the stacks looking for something
else....anyways....), and  one of the first recipes included  is  A Hash
of Muton or Veale:
	Cut ye meat very thin, & set it on ye fire. Put to it a few
capers & liquor, 2 or 3 	ounions, a little spinnage, min[t], or
what other hearbs you please; put in a 	little vinegar, water,
gravie, & some butter. soe let it stew 2 houres before 	you serve
it up.

Hess's comments on this recipe are that between the lack of flour to
thicken it and that the combination of spinach and mint, plus the capers
and vinegar seem to suggest that this might be a late Elizabethan recipe.
Any opinions about this suggestion? 

She goes on to explain where spinach comes from . . . 
		Spinnage - spinach, Spinacia oleracea. Corominas states
that 	espinaca comes from Spanish Arabic 'ispinah (- over a) and
Persian 	ispanah (-over both a's ) which seems more reasonable
than the usual 	proposal of latin spina, thorn, as the source. The
case for Arabic origin is 	strengthened by Cotgrave's 1611
citation of Herbe d'Espaigne for spinage, 	which would be the
expected path. OED prudently claims an obscure origin, 	but seems
to have missed the word's appearance in _The Forme of Cury, 	about
1390, as Spynoch in a perfectly straightforward recipe. The oversight
	has confounded certain food historians, who place its
introduction into 	English cookery in the sixteenth century. There
are also several recipes for 	espinoches in _Le Viandier_ about
1375, and _Le Menagier_ ; .... It is true 	that we hear less of it
in the fifteenth century, but by the time of Henry VIII it 	was in
broad use again....

This quote leaves me asking some questions:
Why did spinach recipes lose their popularity during the 15C. ?
Talk about a spoontease! what is the perfectly straight forward recipe in
_The Forme of Cury, much less those in _Le Viandier_ and Le Menagier_? 
and who/what is _Le Viandier_? The others I have heard about on the list,
but this is the first time I've bumped into him.

Beatrix

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