[Sca-cooks] what is silverbeet?
Terry Decker
t.d.decker at att.net
Wed May 25 16:05:56 PDT 2011
> >OED lists it as "n. Austral. and N.Z. the seakale beet, Beta
>>vulgaris; = chard"
>
> Let me point out that seakale beet is NOT kale, which is a leafy cabbage.
>
> Ranvaig
There is a visual simularity between the leaves of the sea beet (Beta
vulgaris var. maritima) and the leaves of sea kale (Crambe maritima). Sea
beet believed to be the wild ancestor of the beets including chard, while
sea kale is believed to be the ancestor of the genus Brassica, the cabbages.
As Ranvaig points out, the plants are not the same, but the similarity of
the leaves probably had them all termed generally as cabbage, col or kal in
Middle English.
Bear
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