SC - whats an inn? was wanted: a marinade for spit r

[upsxdls@okway.okstate.edu]

<snip>
>
>In semi-short, here's the deal: in Book VIII, recipe 62, Platina tells
>us how to make "rape in armor" (Milham translates the Latin "rapum" as
>"rape"). It is a dish of cooked rape sliced, layered with cheese, and
>baked. You know: the ubiquitous armored turnips. Now here's my
>question...how did we in the SCA come to the comfortable conclusion that
>rapes are turnips? <snip>
>On the other hand, we do have fair reason to assume turnips were pulled
>from the ground, suggesting the entire thing, root, stem, and greens,
>was eaten. Turnips, on the other hand, are referred to elsewhere in both
>Platina and elsewhere as, I believe, napi or napones.
<snip>
>
>Adamantius
>--

Hello!  I have Gerard's Herbal here at my elbow.  Here is what it says on
the subject (pp. 231-6).

"The Turnep is called in Latine, Rapum... the name commonly vsed in shops
and euerywhere is Rapa... The bulbous or knobbed root, which is properly
called Rapum or Turnep, and hath giuen the name to the plant, is many times
eaten raw, especially of the poore people in Wales, but most commonly
boiled...

He speaks of several varieties of turnips, whose roots are eaten, & then
goes on to say "The young and tender shootes or springs of Turneps at their
first comming forth of the ground, boiled and eaten as a sallade, prouoke
vrine."

Gerard gives the French name of Turnip as 'Naueau rond', and the Spanish as
'Nabo', in English 'Turnep' and 'Rape'.

The nape or Navew (Nauew), OTOH, is a type of *wild* turnip, or garden
turnip gone wild.  "Nauew gentle is like vnto Turneps in stalkes, floures,
and seed, as also in the shape of the leaues, but those of the Nauew are
much smoother; it also differeth in the root:  the Turnep is round like a
globe, the Nauew root is somewhat stretched forth in length... the
plentifull increase of the [navew] seeds bringeth no small gaine to the
husbandmen of that countrey, because that being pressed they yeeld an oile
which is vsed not onely in lampes, but also in the making of sope; for of
this oile and a lie made of certaine ashes, is boiled a sope which is vsed
in the Lowe-countries euery where to scoure and wash linnen clothes..."


HTH,

Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
renfrow at skylands.net
Author & Publisher of "Take a Thousand Eggs or More, A Collection of 15th
Century Recipes" and "A Sip Through Time, A Collection of Old Brewing
Recipes"
http://www.alcasoft.com/renfrow/


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