[Sca-cooks] Barberries

[Stefan li Rous]

Grace asked:
> Does anyone know what barberries were in period?  Are they the berries 
> from
> the barberry bush that we see in everyone's front lawn?  Or are they
> something different?
 From the berries-msg file in the Florilegium:
> Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 11:53:08 -0400
> From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
> To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] BARBERRIES
>
> I had some time on my hands this morning, so I ran barberries through
> my library here at home. Here is what I found:
>
> Barberries  (berberis vulgaris) grew in hedgerows and "bushy places".
> Livingston indicates that they grew wild in  Europe, especially in 
> England,
> with a related species found in North America. They ripened in autumn.
> Alan Davidson refers to them as a "poorman's red currant."
> They were valued for use in the Middle Ages because they are a fairly
> acid red berry that would jell without the use of pectin. They were
> candied, pickled, conserved, eaten out of hand, and used in garnishes.
> Geoffrey Grigson noted that they were the fruit of a yellow barked 
> shrub
> and as such were valued for treatment of "yellow diseases", i.e.
> jaundice.
>
> In the Caucasus, they were used in jams, jellies, and dried for use
> as seasonings. Facciola indicates that in Iranian cuisine, the dried
> berries were called zereshk and were used as a sour flavoring.  A 
> search
> on Google reveals that "ZERESHK" berries are currently available
> on the internet from a number of Middle Eastern grocers.
> Indian cuisine dried some species and used them as "sour currants" in
> desserts.
>
> The related North American version with blue,  not red berries,
> is called commonly the Oregon Grape, Hollygrape, Rocky Mountain grape,
> hollyleaved barberry, California barberry, and trailing mahonia.
> It is found in the Northwest and Southwest US and Mexico. Bear Creek
> Nursery in Northport, WA offered both a Japanese barberry and the
> Oregon Grape for sale in their 1999/2000 catalogue.
>
> They are not common in the wild today in England because they
> were systematically eradicated as they were a host to a black
> rust fungus that attacks cereal crops. That's why Hilary Spurling
> chose to use imported cranberries for the barberry recipes in her
> edition of Fettiplace.
>
> Johnnae llyn Lewis
The search engine finds 47 other entries with "barberry" or 
"barberries" as well.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****