[Sca-cooks] Plantains and John Gerarde

[Terry Decker]

>>> 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 diswcrepency.

Bear