[Sca-cooks] More on Beets and Beet Roots

[david friedman]

Johnnae llyn Lewis provides lots of interesting information on beets 
and herbals. A couple of points.

>Dodoens, Rembert, 1517-1585. [English edition of the Cruydenboeck.] A
>Nievv herball, or historie of plantes
>
>1578. STC (2nd ed.), 6984 Later editions are: 1586, 1595, 1600.
>
>Dodoens was Flemish and never lived nor visited England, but his
>Cruydenboeck of 1554 was translated by Henry Lyte from the French
>edition and became one of the standard texts of the Elizabethan age.
>Dodoens continued work on the Cruydenboeck, according to Frank J.
>Anderson, and added and changed it in rather piecemeal fashion until it
>"eventually metamorphosed into the Pemptades" of 1583. (Although printed
>in English, the 1578 edition of Dodoens was actually printed in Antwerp.
>A number of the illustrations found in Dodoens, according to both
>Anderson and Eleanor Rohde, are adapted from or printed from the same
>woodblocks used to print the 1545 edition of Fuchs, so one finds similar
>illustrations when comparing editions of Fuchs and Dodoens.)
>
>On pp.549-551 the text of the 1578 English edition reads:
>
>Of Beetes. Ch. V
>
>The Kindes. There be two sortes of Beetes, the white and red. Ind of the
>red sorte are two kindes, the one having leaves and roote lyke to the
>white Beete, the other hath a great thicke roote, and is a stranger
>amongst us.

Is there any way to tell whether "Us" is by Dodoens and means the 
Flemings or by Lyte and means the English? Do we get the translator's 
voice in other parts of the translation?

>[the pictures then show and are labeled:
>
>Beta candida. White Beete Beta nigra. Redde Beete.
>
>On page 550: Beta nigra Romana. The Strange red Beete.]
>
>Dodoens/Lyte goes onto describe both the white and red beetes and then
>writes:
>
>The strange red Beete is like to the common red Beete, in leaves,
>stalkes, seede, proportion, & color, saving that his roote is much
>thicker, and shorter, very well like to a Rape or Turnep, but very redde
>within, and sweeter in tast then any of the other two sortes.

Any idea what "red beet" and "strange red beet" correspond to? It 
sounds from this as though Dodoens, at least, considers the root 
edible.

...

>The section ends with: "The Common red Beete boyled with Lentils, and
>taken before meate, stoppeth the belly.
>
>The roote of the Romaine or strange red Beete, is boyled and eaten with
>oyle and vinegar before other meates, and sometimes with pepper, as they
>use to eate the common Parsenep."
>
>So is this final instruction not a recipe?

Sounds like it to me. But presumably it describes practice in 
Flanders in 1578. Since the red beet is apparently coming into 
England late in the century, I don't think it tells us whether an 
English cook would interpret "beet" as "beetroot" that early.

>One must note that the 14th century Latin manuscript Tacuinum Sanitatus
>in Medicina includes beetroot. The edition of this published as The Four
>Seasons of the House of Cerruti. [translation by Judith Spencer. NY:
>Facts On File, 1984] On page 102 the text reads:
>
>BEETROOT Blete .

I gather that "Blete" is being translated by some translators as 
"beet" and by some as "beetroot," so this doesn't tell us whether the 
root is what is being eaten.

>There are white, black, and red varieties. The red ones are much
>appreciated when thinly sliced in salad, being first boiled in water or
>cooked under hot embers, thinly sliced, and dressed with oil, vinegar,
>and salt. The sweet white ones are the best.

I think this could be a reference to either the leaves or the root, 
although specifying the red ones, which other sources suggest have a 
more edible root, at least suggests the latter.

...

>It's interesting to note that the illustration from the Taschenbucher
>edition titled Das Hausbuch der Cerruti. [Nach der Handschrift in der
>Ossterreichischen Nationalbiobliothek, 1979.] seems to show clearly that
>both the leaves and roots of "blete" are being gathered and placed in
>the garden basket. This is a far better reproduction of the illustration
>than that depicted in the Spencer Four Seasons of the House of Cerruti.
>The Rizzoli edition from the variant manuscript appears to show only the
>leaves.

Is the difference the reproduction or the original picture being 
reproduced? Looking at the picture in the Four Seasons, not only does 
it seem to show only the leaves being picked, but one of the two 
figures is harvesting with a knife, which strongly suggests 
harvesting the leaves.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/