[Sca-cooks] Other sources for non-sweet Elizabethan dishes

[Decker, Terry D.]

The Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) is a North American tuber.
It would probably have arrived no earlier than 1585, contemporary with the
establishment of England's first colony in North America.

As I recall, it is mentioned in Thomas Hariot's "A Brief & True Report of
the New Found Land in Virginia," 1588.

Bear


> Another source is Cindy Renfrow's Culinary gleanings from
> John Gerard's Herball or General Historie of Plantes from the 1633
> edition. It was originally published in 1597. It may be found at:
> http://members.aol.com/renfrowcm/gerardp1.html
> There is a wide variety of possibilities included here such as:
> "Jerusalem Artichoke - pages 752-754.
> "Flos Solis Pyramidalis. Jerusalem Artichoke.
> These rootes are dressed in diuers waies; some boile them in
> water, and
> after stew them with sacke and
> butter, adding a little Ginger: others bake them in pies, putting
> Marrow, Dates, Ginger, Raisons of the
> Sun, Sacke, &c. Others some other way, as they are led by
> their skill in
> Cookerie. But in my iudgement,
> which way soeuer they be drest and eaten they stirre and
> cause a filthie
> loathsome stinking winde within
> the bodie, thereby causing the belly to bee pained and tormented, and
> are a meat more fit for swine, than
> men..."
>
> Johnnae llyn Lewis  Johnna Holloway