[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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