SC - BrusselsSprouts

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Heather Payton wrote:
> 
> Hi to the list,
> I was wondering if you could give me some help on Brussel Sprouts.  I am
> catering a period feast and wanted to give them a go as there will be mostly
> adults and they usually like them.  My question to the wise amongst us is
> are the sprouts in question really the "minces" as claimed in Pleyn Delit?,
> and if you think they are do they appear in any other sources apart from
> this.  I know that they were grown in Belgium in the middle ages but were
> they plentiful anywhere else?

The only actual period reference to Brussels sprouts I can think of
offhand is the same one Hieatt, Butler and Jones use: Le Menagier de
Paris, roughly 1390 C.E. In Eileen Powers' partial translation, it states,

"Cabbage hearts at the end of the vintage. And when the heart of the
cabbage, which is in the midst, is plucked off, you pull up the stump of
the cabbage and replant it in fresh earth, and there will come forth
from it big spreading leaves; and the cabbage takes a great deal of room
and these cabbage hearts be called Roman cabbages and they be eaten in
winter; and when the stumps be replanted, there grow out of them little
cabbages which be called sprouts and which be eaten with raw herbs in
vinegar; and if you have plenty, they are good with the outer leaves
removed and then washed in warm water and cooked whole in a little
water; and then when they be cooked add salt and oil and serve them very
thick, without water, and put olive oil over them in Lent."

I believe Powers translates "minces" as "sprouts" not because the word
is a direct translation, but because the process seems to be pretty much
that by which we get Brussels sprouts today, and so we'll know what Le
Menagier is talking about.

I just checked Platina for any reference to such sprouts, but found
none, and I'm pretty sure there are no references to them in any of the
14th -15th century English sources. I'd say, as a general statement,
that Brussels sprouts were known in parts of Europe, but not grown in
all, possibly due to a shorter growing season in the more Northern parts
of Europe.

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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