[Sca-cooks] Plantains and John Gerarde

[otsisto]

-----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