SC - Re: Orach vs Spinach, kinda long - non-member submission

[Michael F. Gunter]

Excerpts from internet.listserv.sca-cooks: 19-Jun-100 SC - Re: Orach vs
Spinach, .. by ChannonM at aol.com
> ~ Spinach is the lightest kind found among garden vegetables. I would
believe
> it is divided into two kinds, since there is black and white. Black
grows
> almost with a head like onions, cabbage, and lettuce, and there is
almost no
> garden vegetable greater in breadth. Some think the nature of spinach
inert
> and with out force, even if it usually distrubs the bowel even to the
bile.
> Taken in food, it soothes excessive menstruation in women, but chard,
which
> is white, maintains a mean. It is most usefully given to those with
liver and
> kspleen illnesses, with sweet spices which temper its saltiness. It
likewise
> relieves the heat of summer, revives those who are disinterested in
food
> because of squeamishness, and fills nursing women with a lot of milk.
Eaten
> with it~s own juice, it moves the bowels, but eaten alone, with the
juice
> thrown away, it constricts them.~

My translation has this as "blitum" not spinach..(and, of course, when I

want to look at the latin, the book's at home.)  However, I do know that

the Latin used is also blitum or blete here; I'm not sure what word is
used in the orach section.

toodles, margaret