[Sca-cooks] Plantain, herbals,

[otsisto]

-----Original Message-----

True, although most references to "plantain" as opposed to something more
specific like "buckshorn plantain" mean P. major, which has broad flat
leaves.>>>>

*I remember seeing somewhere that there is a buckshorn banana in Indonesian
but I can't seem to find it. Also my statement was to give an example of my
knowing the difference between plantago and musa, nothing more.

> This is from a Panama site.
>
> "Common Name:      Plantain/Platano
> Family:          Musacea
> Scientific Name:      Musa paradisiaca
> Medicinal Use:      Juice extracted from the plant stalk may be used as a
laxative and diuretic. May be used as a respiratory decongestion and in the
treatment of kidney infections."
>
----
> Please note that about mid page of the medicinal handbook it says;
> "Also make a powder of 10 ounces each of burnt hartshorn and egg shells,
and
> drink 2 drahms of the powder each treatment with the juice of plantain or
> ....."
>
> Though this is probably plantago, the "juice" part throws a wee bit to the
> musa.

That one's either talking about Musa or being written by somewhan with an
inferior grasp of Spanish, since "Plátano" means either Musa spp.(including
the Cavendish banana, btw) or a certain sort of deciduous tree (of which I
don't know the genus or English name) but does not refer to Plantago
species, for which the most common Spanish name is "llantén.">>>>>>

*I was comparing two sources of information.

> <snip cite re: bananas in Europe>
>
> So to the poster that said plantain wasn't in SCA period, please explain
how it isn't?

The question isn't whether plantains are from our period - every plant that
isn't a modern hybrid existed in period, and most that aren't from the New
World and some that are were known to SCA-relevant cultures (Europeans and
those that had contact with Europeans - hey,random tangent, why aren't there
any SCAdians with 16th century Aztec personas?). The question was whether
plantain-as-in-Musa is period for Europe or the Near East, to which the
answer could still be "no." The article you quoted makes it clear that
bananas, which are in the same genus as plantains, are period for Europe,
but the two are rather
different and most certainly not mutually interchangeable in cooking.
(Snip_>>>>

*I had assumed that when I said SCA period that it was specifying European,
and Mediterranean with the possible inclusion of middle and far East.
To my understanding plantain musa originated in Malaysia and India and moved
along with the banana and yam westward.
I found one research that says that hybridizing of the banana and plantain
has been going on since before the middle ages and that they had found that
the two original Musas from which all musa hybrids come from are Musa
balbisiana and Musa acuminata.
In their research they had found that quite a few horticulturalist and
herbals misnamed, wrong identification or lumped together the banana and
plantian.