[Sca-cooks] broccoli and cauliflower

[Daniel Myers]

Quoted from Rosine - 5/27/02, 7:24 AM -0400:
>I wrote:
>>I'm confused. All those 16th century Flemish
>> kitchen/veggie girl paintings with cauliflower's
>> recognizably in the painting - these are plants that look
>> like our modern ones, but are of a different genus or something?
>
>Daniel answered:
>> Can you point me to some of the paintings?  I'd love to have
>> things proven (to me) one way or the other.
>
>Well, I only bookmarked three paintings, since I was looking at the garb a
>dear friend was making for me (so I could NOT be forced into Elizabethan!),
>and not all three show cauliflower specifically. But since they do show
>food, here they are:
>
>http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/art/a/aertsen/cook.jpg
>
>http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/art/a/aertsen/marketst.jpg
>Note cauliflower next to her hand - and are those waffles beside her?

<hangs head in embarrassment>

I just came across this very same picture - it's on the cover of a book my
wife has, which was written by someone in my barony.  Right there under my
nose the entire time.

That definitely is a cauliflower.  And yes, those are indeed waffles
(there's another picture in the same book of a bakery where they appear to
be making pancakes and waffles).  There also appears to be a good sized
cantaloupe, red and yellow carrots (which look of reasonably modern shape
and size), red and white hard-headed cabbages, and something that may be a
dark green squash or pumpkin.

In the book my wife has, the picture is dated around 1550 or 1560.  So here
we have a "no later than" date for northern Europe to have cauliflower, red
and white cabbage, red and yellow carrots, and cantaloupe.  Can the date
for any of these be pushed back any further?

Still no broccoli, but with the variability of Brassicas and the existence
of fully developed cauliflower, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was
there (or came soon thereafter).

I've always thought still-life paintings were silly and boring.  Now it
would seem the imp of the perverse has struck again and I'll wind up
eagerly looking at medieval paintings of fruit and vegetables - much to the
annoyance and disbelief of my children, I'm sure.


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 Edouard Halidai (Daniel Myers)
 I BELIEVE! http://www.bookofrefreshments.com
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