SC - Period Beet Recipe & period quote about beets

Thu Oct 21 06:56:13 PDT 1999

     Date:  Thu, 21 Oct 1999 09:24:08 EDT
     From:  LrdRas at aol.com

In a message dated 10/21/99 2:08:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
cclark at vicon.net writes:

<<<SNIP>>>I, for one, would never have destroyed a cut and come again plant so long as it was producing leaves and stalks for eating. To do so would not be in the best interests of the household with regard to mass of available food. Perhaps 
such use did occur regularly late in period. But even then such destruction 
would most likely have occurred in the late fall or early winter after top 
production had dwindled to insignificance.

IMO, the introduction of 'nutritional' concepts into the discussion is at the 
very most a highly unlikely reason for anyone in the middle ages to have 
eaten these roots. Actually the introduction of 'nutrition' as a concept in 
any discussion of medieval cookery would be questionable. Reasons for 
introducing specific foods or parts of plants as medicinal would be more 
appropriate for the medieval cook. 
I think that the tendency to interject modern scientific reasoning into 
period is, in most cases, an invalid argument. <<<SNIP>>>
I have not seen anything that makes me change my mind about the use of beet 
greens as being the rule rather than the exception in the middle ages. <<<SNIP>>>
Ras

I would like to clarify one piece of the nutritional scene from my perspective:  there was, indeed, a pervailing nutritional 'wind' of the medieval era. . . the humours.  Several texts available suggest that foods were used and prepared so as to balance the humoural qualities and their effect on the person eating them.  Maybe not as pervasive as the 'four food groups' or 'food pyramid' of today, but it is the best we have.

That said, if someone could present information on the humoural qualities of the red beet roots, that would certainly imply that it was into the mainstream of non-chattle eating.  The 'health' reference books I have (and Adamantius already referenced)  that reference beets and their qualities are pointing to the use of the greens.  Pictures of harvest and desriptions of preparation all seem to suggest the same item as being prepared.

While vitamin and mieral content was out of scope in the MA, the impact on the body, as defined by the humours, was certainly known by some.

pacem et bonum,

niccolo difrancesco

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