[Sca-cooks] Rumpolt's Earth Apples
Terry Decker
t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net
Mon May 12 22:28:28 PDT 2008
> We've discussed this topic, and this very recipe, on this list within my
> memory. Since "erdapfel" is potato in modern German, some folks assumed
> this was a white potato recipe. However, Thomas Gloning, the food scholar
> formerly on this list, believed it referred to something else in the 16th
> C. His discussions can be found in the Florilegium:
> http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-VEGETABLES/potatoes-msg.html
>
> Other mentions on the net include:
> http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2006/07/feasting-with-hemingway.html
>
> (erdepffle - a gourd? a fungus? something else?)
>
> Given how late the Andean potato arrived in Europe (around mid-16th
> century) and how inconclusive the evidence is for its use (some evidence
> that a few daring men eat them, no evidence of their common and frequent
> use), i certainly am not going to be cooking them for an SCA feast until
> there's more concrete information, and i would not encourage anyone to
> cook them.
>
> Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
My problem with equating Rumpolt's erdepffle to the white potato is the
recipe is from 1581. John Gerard did not receive a sample until 1586 and
Carolus Clusius, who was the head of the Hapsburg Botanical Gardens in
Vienna, did not receive a sample until 1587. Rumpolt and Clusius were
contemporaries in time and place, so if Rumpolt was preparing white
potatoes, I would expect Clusius to already have samples.
Clusius published an extensive herbal on the plants of Spain in 1572 (IIRC)
and potatoes did not appear in the work, suggesting a limited or
non-existent cultivation in the gateway country before 1570 (when Clusius
was doing his field work, as I remember the timeline).
The earliest definitive European recipe for the white potato I have
encountered is from 1591.
A 1542 translation of Platina into German translates, "Pepones a
malopeponibus..." (I.20) as "Pfeben vnd Erdtoepfel."
Bear
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