[Sca-cooks] Seeking Food Dictionary

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Solveig:
>Noble Cousin!
>
>Greetings from Solveig! I gather that my reputation has for good or ill
>preceeded me.

Solveig, I've lived in the East all my 21+ years in the SCA; I know 
an Old Carolingian when I see one ;-).

>  I should explain further. There are several problems. One
>is the problem of archaic words. To some extent, I am helped by a
>specialized dictionary of archaic botanical references which is a purely
>Japanese text. I have also made ample use of multivolume botanicaly
>and zoological dictionaries at the Harvard Yen-Ching Library. Basically,
>I can get most terms as far as modern scientific names, Things like:
>"Cephalotaxus harringtonia" or "Podocarpus nagi". That sort of thing.
>What I need to do now is find common English equivalents.

While documentation may be shaky, you may not want to discount the 
potential value of the good-old-fashioned Google search. For example, 
there are hits identifying your two examples given as the Japanese 
Plum Yew and Broadleaf Podocarpus, respectively. It may be that 
there's no more common English equivalent than that last one, but 
that seems (from what I've seen) to be a plant that is indigenous to 
Asia and not common elsewhere.

>Actually, I am feeling very distressed at the moment as I appear to be
>missing several hundred pages of photocopied botanical and zoological
>dictionary entries.

I expect they'll turn up in some silly place once you stop looking for them.

I found the Chinese Herbal I was talking about earlier: it's called 
"Chinese Herbal Medicine: Materia Medica", compiled and translated by 
Dan Bensky and Andrew Gamble, with Ted Kaptchuk. C. 1986 Eastland 
Press, Seattle. ISBN 0-939616-03-3

HTH,

Adamantius