SC - Fish recipes

[LrdRas@aol.com]

> Bear wrote:
> 
> >Rhubarb (Rhuem rhubarbarum, et al.) was known in Antiquity.  The word
> >rhubarbe was first used in English about 1390.
> 
> But was it used as food? Every source I´ve consulted says the roots were
> valued for their medical uses, and the stalks maybe used for making
> rhubarb
> syrup, again for medical uses, but the stalks weren´t used as food until
> much later - not until about 1800 in England, even later in some other
> countries.
> 
> Nanna
> 
Gerard suggested that the leaves be eaten like spinach.  However this is not
recommended as the leaves contain concentrated oxalic and can be lethal.  It
also bodes ill for finding any rhubarb recipes beyond those for purgative.
Of course this wasn't in the notes I was using with my reference library far
away.

According to Waverly Root, rhubarb may have been known in China as early as
2700 B.C.E. as a medicine, which would give a few thousand years to turn it
into food.  But he gives no references for Asiatic use as a foodstuff.

Root also suggests that rhubarb may have been eaten in the Middle East,
based on a 13th quote by Ibn el-Beithar that rhubarb was "very common in
Syria and Persia . . . like chard, it has fairly thick stalks."
Circuitously, Root points out that the plant Ibn el-Beithar commented upon
is Rhuem ribes, the currant rhubarb (because it tastes like currants).

So, no Medieval rhubarb pie for Europe.  

Bear 

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