[Sca-cooks] Spinach- Miscellany- redaction questions.

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

OK, further search via google indicates that New Zealand spinach is a
whole nother plant, and NOT what would have been used in North Africa
or Southwest Asia.

Found the following, which i've edited, at a gardening site:
http://www.bountifulgardens.org/seeds-books-tools/vegetable-seed/spinach.html

>Malabar Spinach - Basella alba - A very unusual and delicious
>vegetable from the Orient. Thick, dark-green leaves... [have]
>attractive red stem[s].
>
>New Zealand Spinach - Tetragonia expansa -
>Has small arrow shaped leaves, thicker than spinach. Tastes a lot
>like spinach when cooked.
>
>Egyptian Spinach - Corchorus olitorius - Melokheya. Jew's mallow.
>West African sorrel. We don't think of jute as a food crop, but this
>form of jute was eaten by the pharaohs (and just about everyone else
>from Egypt to Sierra Leone to to the Sudan).
>
>Strawberry Spinach - Chenopodium capitatum -
>At least 400 years old, an ancient popular plant throughout Europe.
>Re-discovered at various monasteries. Similar to Lambs Quarters in
>habit, only smaller...

Another website
http://www.gardenews.co.nz/kp64.htm
says "ORACH, PURPLE ORACLE -  Atriplex hortensis - French Spinach
Orach has been used as a pot herb since the early Greeks and Romans.
The succulent leaves are in the same family as Spinach and make a
colourful addition to salads with a mild flavour, or can be boiled
like Silverbeet or Spinach. "

Another website
http://www.thesaurus.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=red%20goosefoot
says Orach is "common Eurasian weed; naturalized in United States"

If all this is true, orach might have been found in the Levant or
Iraq "in period"... It is mentioned in the translation of the
Anonymous Andalusian cookbook.

I suppose the molokhiyya mentioned above is another possibility, but
it's hard to find fresh.

Anahita