[Sca-cooks] Spanish salads?

[otsisto]

Not iceberg lettuce. Endive and the like. 

-----Original Message-----
Okay.  I looked at a health manual, which merely told me that lettuce is 
eaten both raw and cooked.  A carving manual told me how to cut it.  The 
"Obra de Agricultura" by Gabriel Alonso Herrera (1551) was more 
helpful.  The long chapter on lettuce is mostly what you would expect 
from an agricultural handbook -- planting times, best kind of 
fertilizer, etc.  However, the following two sections may be of help:

"They cause sleep,  raw or cooked.  They are good -- cooked a little and 
the water squeezed out -- for salads for delicate people, and the sick, 
and the old, with oil and a little vinegar and lacking sugar, and to 
temper its coldness, mix it with a little ground cinnamon."

"Lettuces with vinegar are appetizing and refreshing.... And for salads, 
especially in winter, it is good to mix them with hot* herbs, like 
parsley, and mint, sprouts of oregano, marjoram, savory, and other 
similar herbs."

* This would mean hot in the humoral sense.

It is also worth noting that he describes various kinds of lettuce, and 
mentions escarole and chickory.

He says that cucumbers should be eaten with honey and anise.

Raw carrot sticks are period for Spain; also parsnips, radishes, and 
(tender) turnips.

HTH

-- 
Brighid ni Chiarain
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
Robin Carroll-Mann *** rcmann4 at earthlink.net