[Sca-cooks] food question

[johnna holloway]

One of the problems with lists of these
sorts is that when New World plants of the
Americas were introduced to Europe,
many of these new never seen before imports
ended up with "old world names".
So it is quite possible to end up a situation
where there is a "kidney-bean of antiquity,
not that of modern times....In this case too
an American genius of plants, Phaseolus, has
usurped the name of a plant which would now be
placed in the genera Dolichos or Vigna."
See John Harvey Mediaeval Gardens, 1981.
Pumpkin is another. True pumpkins are American,
but there was a melon or gourd that was called
a pompion prior to the Voyages of Discovery.

Johnna Holloway  Johnnae llyn Lewis