[Sca-cooks] Beets and backfiles was Beets

[david friedman]

>The 1658 edition of The French gardiner 
>instructing how to cultivate all sorts of 
>fruit-trees and herbs for the garden specifies---
>THE French Gardiner. > Section > SECT. IV.
>  ...  SECT. IV.: Of Roots. / THe Red 
>Beet,[Roots. Parsenp.] or Roman Par|snep, as the 
>greatest, sha ...
>THE French Gardiner. > Section > SECT. V.
>  ... CT. V.: Of all sorts of Pot-hearbs. / WE 
>will begin with the white Beet or Leeks as being 
>the greatest of all the Pot-hearbs,  ...
>... ore spent then of any of the 
>rest.[Beet-leeks] / The white Beet or Beet-Card 
>(for so some will call it in imitation of the 
>Picards, ...
>...  Spring, which will furnish you with Leeks 
>very early. / There is a Red Beet[red Beets.] if 
>you desire to have of them, for Curio ...
>SECT. V.
>... with Leeks very early. / There is a Red 
>Beet[red Beets.] if you desire to have of them, 
>for Curiosity rather  ...
>... a second dry|ing, lest it become musty; for 
>being of a spongy substance, as the Red Beets 
>are, it will continue a long time moyst. /
>  ... e a long time moyst. / There is another 
>sort of Beets, which is called Oracke,[Orache.] 
>very agree| ...
>
>
>Evelyn helped translate this from the French by the way.
>
>The 1653 Pharmacop¦ia Londinensis, or, The London dispensatory says
>A CATALOGUE OF THE SIMPLES CONDUCING TO THE DISPENSATORY. > ROOTS.
>* ... nd red; as for black Beets I have no|thing 
>to say, I doubt they are as rare as black Swans. 
>The red Beet root boyled and preserved in 
>Vinegar, makes a fine cool, pleasing, clensing, 
>digesting sawce.
>The 1649 A physicall directory says the same.

...

>It appears that both are mentioned at least in the 1600's.

So far as the sources you give, the earliest cite 
that is clearly about eating the root is in 1649. 
There are references to red beet earlier than 
that--but it's clear from Gerard that it was used 
as a green too. Gerard, writing at the earliest 
in 1597 and perhaps in 1633, is trying to 
persuade cooks to try using the beet root.

So I don't see how one can argue that

...

>If a housewife in the 1590's encountered this recipe, my guess is that
>she might use either depending upon local customs and produce available.

So far as the evidence available to us is 
concerned, a housewife in the very late 1590's 
might perhaps have read Gerard and think of 
eating beet roots as an interesting idea. But she 
would take it for granted that a recipe which 
simply specified "beets" referred to the 
greens--because, in all the examples we have from 
that early, that's what it appears to mean.

And this particular recipe is from several years before Gerard published.

It isn't as if the root and the greens are close 
substitutes, so that one would naturally think of 
using one instead of the other.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/