Pre-mixed field greens - was: Re: SC - salads (long)

[Phil & Susan Troy]

maddie teller-kook wrote:
> 
> I think what Adamantius is saying (and please, correct me if I am wrong).. Some of
> the types of lettuce present in the 'wild field greens' or spring green mixtures
> sold today were not varieties available in period.  Plus, the fact that earlier
> salads constituted  'herbs' and greens more than 'lettuce'.
> 
> Meadhbh

Actually, that's pretty much what I was trying to say, and I was planning on
responding to the question directly, but you did an excellent job of saying
what I would have said, so here I am...

What I meant was that while lettuce was eaten in period, it seems to have been
consumed mostly in the Eastern Mediterranean regions, and does not appear in
any salad recipes I can think of offhand. I think it's going to be near the
eighteenth century before it will appear with any frequency in an English
salad recipe, and while one could argue England is on an island off the coast
of the real world, from a period geographic perspective, one cannot argue that
they did not set trends in many ways, with more than their share of political
involvement in the affairs of other European nations.

So yes, certainly Platina writes about lettuces, but he is an Italian writing
in a time that is pretty much the Renaissance, by Italian standards, and the
lettuce he is writing about is quite possibly much more like the soporific
milkweed descendant eaten by the Romans after meals than like iceberg lettuce.
Although the Romans did eat a form of open-headed Cos or Romaine lettuce, apparently.

BTW, it's possible for a period source to, well, be wrong. I don't buy
Platina's word that endive should be classed as lettuce ;  ) . It's a form of chicory.

Adamantius
Østgardr, East
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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