[Sca-cooks] Horchata - Barley Water - galingale

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius1 at verizon.net
Wed May 23 16:55:03 PDT 2007


On May 23, 2007, at 7:34 PM, Suey wrote:

> Phil Troy has pointed out to me that sadly I am missing Larousse
> Gastronomique from my bibliography.

Honestly, as with many flawed sources,I think it's not always  
accurate, but it _is_ pretty complete and encyclopedic, and it's  
probably better to be able to refer to it, if one is going to be  
writing about food, in spite of the occasional error, than not to be.

> Many thanks I totally agree but
> while trying to figure out how I can see it in French, English and
> Spanish I would really appreciate it if someone could quote the  
> text in
> whatever language.

What I quoted was the complete entry in the 1985 American edition. I  
don't know if there's a Spanish edition, but there's certainly a  
French edition. I don't own a copy, however.

> Now Phil to prove his point that chufa can be
> galingale in English he cites:
>
> http://www.hlasek.com/cyperus_fuscus_11079.html
> http://www.liberherbarum.com/Pn0963.HTM
> http://www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au/Sorting/Cyperus.html

Unfortunately, Larousse generally does not give taxonomical  
information. However, "esculentis" pretty much means "edible" or  
"delicious", and is applied to an enormous number of unrelated edible  
plants which also have other taxonomical designations, such as Alpina  
galangal/officinalis, or the several different taxonomical names for  
Grains of Paradise, for example.

> The first reference states that the English for Cyperus fuscus is  
> brown
> galingale. The second says Cyperus Longus is galingale. The third
> confirms that Cyperus Longus is galingale or sweet galingale.

And, taken together, what is pretty clearly established is that not  
all references to galingale are to the Asian rhizome. Taken together  
with the assertion made by Larousse, I think it would be an  
oversimplification to say that it is "wrong" to call this plant  
galingale and "right" to call it chufa.

> Excuse me
> but I am not talking about these species. I am talking about Cyperus
> esculentus. Looking through google I do not find that in English it  
> can
> be galingale.
> Suey

Perhaps you might take this up with the publishers of the Larousse  
Gastronomique, then.

Adamantius



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