[Sca-cooks] Plantains and John Gerarde

[Terry Decker]

> -----Original Message-----
>
>>>> the John Gerard "The Herbal", p. 1514 to 1517, Chap. 136, "Of Adams
> Apple tree or the West Indian Plantaine."
>>>> So it is old world in the late 1500s.
>
>>> Don't you mean, "so it is "New World" in the 1500's?"  BTW, the
> "Plantaine" referred to is a banana.
>>
>> There is no page 1514 to 1517 in the Gerarde Herball of 1597.
>>
>> The index in that edition points to pages 337 to 347 for all sorts of
>> plantains but not the kind of plantain we are speaking of.
>>
>> The quote above seems to refer to the 1636 edition. See:
>>
>> http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/33580  (page 1514 ...)
>>
>>
>>
>> E.
>
> Thank you, Emilo.
>
> I thought that bananas first appeared in Thomas Johnson's revision of
> Gerard's Herball.  Johnson was a botanist and a merchant.  It was he who
> received the banana stalk from Bermuda and later sold the fruit in his 
> store
> window and the entry on the "West Indian Plantaine" is probably all his.
>
> I've got both a 1633 and a 1636 publication date for that edition, so
> perhaps Johnna can help settle that discrepency.
>
> Bear>>>>
>
> I have "The Complete 1633 Edition as Revised and Enlarged by Thomas 
> Johnson"
> which goes up to page 1631 (not including index or the enumeration errors
> {two 29s and two 30s but not the same printing on them}) It is the Dover's
> reprint.
> In Chapter 136, Gerard (or Johnson) speaks of 2 different Musas.
> The pickled form of musa came from Aleppo which is in Syria seems to be 
> the
> one that is refered to as Musa Fructus. But under the "names" section he
> seems to be lumping banana and plantain as one or at least it looks it to 
> me
> as I have come to understand that Pliny was refering to the plantain and 
> not
> the banana. Also the reference to the "Adam's apple tree" which is in
> reference to the belief that it was the forbidden fruit in some areas 
> during
> the middle ages, was refering to the plantain.
> As to the West Indies, oops, got it confused with East Indies.
>
> De

Pliny commented about the fruit being picked and eaten directly from the 
tree  That would make it a banana rather than a plantain, which needs to be 
cooked.

As Johnson received a stalk of bananas from the West Indies in 1633, I very 
much doubt that he confused East and West Indies.

Bear