Broccoli - was: SC - Sir Loin...

[Philip & Susan Troy]

LYN M PARKINSON wrote:
> 
> So, Master A., did they eat broccoli leaves--which taste like
> broccoli--or eat no broccoli--or...???

Probably what they ate, if at all, was a wild variant along the lines of
broccoli-rabe. Neither Platina nor any Tacuinum Sanitatis I've seen, nor
Apicius, mention broccoli.

(There are references to cauliculae in Apicius, which Flower and
Rosenbaum translate as cabbage, but why wouldn't Apicius use brassica? I
suspect cauliculae, which really translates as "little cabbage stalks",
refers to what we call Brussels sprouts.)

More likely broccoli wasn't widely eaten until the 16th or 17th century,
with the big florette-y broccoli probably coming into being in
California in the late 19th century. (This is usually where I begin
screaming about Alfred R. "Cubby" Broccoli, foaming at the mouth, and
fall on the ground, hammering my heels...)

Adamantius
Crown Province of Østgardr, East Kingdom

Argent, an owl displayed guardant sable, between three pheons inverted
gules, all within a bordure sable. 
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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