[Sca-cooks] Brussels sprouts was Re: Sca-cooks Digest, Vol 29, Issue 12

[Terry Decker]

Sorry about the delay in answering, but I didn't have a connection to the 
Web at KWCS.

While this sounds like brussels sprouts, is it?  Has anyone experimented 
with Menagier's instructions to see what happens?  Since all forms of 
cabbage are variants of Brassica oleracea and grow from seed is this really 
brussels sprouts (B. oleracea v. gemmifera) or is it a sprout of another 
variant that can be prepared as brussels sprouts are?

Brussels sprouts are believed to be a mutation of B. oleracea capitata L. 
sabuda (savoy cabbage) and are true breeding, so I have my doubts about 
Menagier producing brussels sprouts by this method.

Bear


----- Original Message ----- 
Please allow me to push that date back to 1393. The following is from
Le Menagier de Paris, Power's translation, page 255:

"Cabbage hearts at the end of the vintage. And when the heart of the
cabbage, which is in the midst, is plucked off, you pull up the stump
of the cabbage and replant it in fresh earth, and there will come forth
from it big spreading leaves; and the cabbage takes a great deal of
room and these cabbage hearts be called Roman cabbages and they be
eaten in winter; and when the stumps be replanted, there grow out of
them little cabbages which be called sprouts and which be eaten with
raw herbs in vinegar; and if you have plenty, they are good with the
outer leaves removed and then washed in warm water and cooked whole in
a little water; and then when they be cooked add salt and oil and serve
them very thick, without water, and put olive oil over them in Lent…

HTH,

Cindy