SC - Apicius

[Gaylin Walli]

Hieronymus Bock in his herbal (1577) stresses -- apart from mentioning
several medical uses -- the culinary value of juniper:

'... To sum up, juniper berries are useful and good for many things;
this is why the cooks called such berries into their kitchens; they fill
chicken and birds with it'. -- ("Seind inn summa zuo vil dingen nutz
vnnd guot/ derhalben so hat der Koch solche beerlein auch zuo sich inn
die kuchen beruoffen/ fuellet darmit Huener vnd Voegel"; Bock 1577,
378b)

Here is a 16th century English recipe for this kind of use:

"To roste woodcockes
Plucke them, and then draw the guts out of them, but
leave the liver still in them, then stuffe them with
Larde chopped small, and Juniper berries, with his bill
put into his breast and his feet as the Snite, and so
roste him on a spit, + set under it a faire large pan,
with white wine in it, and chopped Parsley, Vingar, salt,
and ginger. Then make tostes of white bread, and toaste
them upon a Gridyron, so that they be not burnt: then put
these tostes in a dish, and up-them lay your woodcocks,
and put your sawce being the same broth upon them, and so
serve them foorth."
(The good huswifes handmaide for the kitchen 1594, ed. Peachey)

Other old names for juniper (the plant), mentioned in some old herbals
include:
- -- french "genièvre"
- -- provencal "genibre", "genebre", "cade" (for a big juniper)
- -- spanish "enebro"
- -- italian "ginepro" (e.g. mentioned in the "Horto de i semplici di
Padoua" 1591)
- -- middle Dutch "genever" (also "wakelbere" for the berry)
- -- and others from Arabic, Bohemian, Greek, Hebrew, Syrian ...

Alas, the folk names and the dialectal names are not mentioned. For the
English language, Hoops ("Waldbäume und Kulturpflanzen, p. 271) writes,
that there is no real folk name for juniper. The oe. "cwicbeam", me.
"quikentre" for the plant were used only rarely.

Thomas