[Sca-cooks] RE: Plums

Sat Aug 20 02:27:01 PDT 2005

On Aug 20, 2005, at 12:35 AM, Radei Drchevich wrote:

> Sorry to be late with this question.
>
> You reference Cato, but do not make the distintion of which, the  
> Elder or
> the Younger? just curious. thanx
>
> joy
>
> radei

The Cato referred to is presumably the Cato who wrote the book on  
farming, or Marcus Portius Cato the Elder, a.k.a. Cato the Censor,  
reputed to be rather stoic and Spartan in his various dealings, such  
as the treatment of slaves, etc., and generally a famous Not  
Especially Nice Person. However, he's the author of De Agricultura,  
which is mostly why he's of interest to us.

Cato the Younger is the Cato who forced an allegedly embarrassed  
Julius Caesar to read aloud to the Senate a note he'd just been  
passed in which the correspondent asserted that Caesar had made  
Heaven and Earth move for her the previous night, and she could not  
wait to see him again. The note, of course, turned out to be from  
Cato's wife. Cato the Younger is the grandson, or great grandson, or  
maybe grand-nephew, or some such, of Cato the Elder. He is also, in  
turn, the uncle, IIRC, of the Brutus who would assassinate Julius  
Caesar. Most historians seem to agree that Cato the Younger is one of  
the great Angry Doofuses (in the tradition of later Angry Doofuses  
like Joe McCarthy) in human history, remembered more for social  
ineptitude than for integrity.

There are still other Marcus Portius Catos sprinkled around the later  
Roman Empire, but the above two are the really significant ones.

Adamantius

>
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: "Stefan li Rous"
>   To: "SCA-Cooks maillist SCA-Cooks"
>   Subject: [Sca-cooks] RE: Plums
>   Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 01:33:46 -0500
>
>
>   Lyse commented:
>
>> Kool! So it was the reg. plumes/prunes that were used and not the
>>
>   red.
>
>> My question is, did the Norse have access to the prunes/plums?
>> As was stated, "....but otherwise it fits what I know about
>> Hiberno-Viking
>> cooking. I've read that they loved plums."
>> I was wanting docs. because Norse is one of my areas of interest
>>
>   and
>
>> would
>> love to increase the variety to the "smorgasbord". :)
>>
>
>   Well, here is what Baron Akim Yaroslavich has to say about plums in
>   his article on period fruits in the Florilegium:
>   Period-Fruit-art (60K) 1/13/02 "Fruit of Period Times" by Baron
>   Akim Yaroslavich.
>
>   Unfortunately, it doesn't give you much direct info on plums and
>   the Norse, but perhaps it will give you some references to check
>   from.
>
>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>   PLUMS
>   Plums (Prunus domestica) also originated around Armenia in Asia
>   Minor and are only botanically distinguished from cherries by
>   their size. Plums were first cultivated in western China (89).
>   Wild plums, the Bullace (90) (Prunus instititia), Cherry Plums
>   (91) (Prunus cerasifera) and the Sloe (92) (Prunus spinosa) now
>   grow wild throughout Europe and have hybridized extensively.
>   Cultivated plums arose as a cross between the sloe and the cherry
>   plum in the Caucasus region (93). Damsons are a variety of bullace
>   plum well known in Roman times, and imported from Damascus in
>   Syria, hence its name (94). At the time of Cato, Romans were
>   familiar with prunes but not the plum tree itself (95). Besides
>   the Damson, Pliney described 12 varieties of plums growing in
>   Italy in the 1st century A.D. (96). Plums have been cultivated in
>   Europe since the 8th century and are recorded in England from the
>   13th century. Chaucer described a garden with "ploumes and
>   bulaces" in 1369 (97); "Damaske or damassons" (damson) plums are
>   mentioned in the 1526 Grete Herball of Peter Treveris (98).
>   The Sainte Catherine, a white plum, was an old French variety grown
>   for drying and sold as the famous Pruneaux de Tours (99).
>   The Morocco plum was a sweet black plum listed by Parkinson in 1629
>   (100) as an old plum of unknown origin.
>   Blue Pérrigon or the Précoce de Tours was both a blue-black prune
>   and dessert plum grown in Italy and France near the Basse Alps. It
>   was first imported to England in 1582. (101)
>   The Mirabelle de Nancy was a bullace plum grown in France in the
>   15th century. (102)
>   Another French bullace was the Reine Claude (103), dating in France
>   from the reign of Francis I (1494-1547). It came from Italy,
>   where it was called Verdocchia (104); it came to Italy from
>   Armenia via Greece. This plum is better known by its English name
>   of Greengage.
>   <<<<<<<
>
>   You'll have to go look at the article to get all the footnotes.
>
>   These two files might also be worth checking:
>   plums-msg (24K) 2/ 6/04 Period plums and plum recipes.
>   fd-Norse-msg (61K) 7/ 3/05 Norse and Viking food.
>
>   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
>   ****
>
>
>
>   _______________________________________________
>   Sca-cooks mailing list
>   Sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
>   http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/listinfo/sca-cooks
>
> -- 
> ___________________________________________________________
> Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
> http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-cooks mailing list
> Sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
> http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/listinfo/sca-cooks
>

"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04