[Sca-cooks] Early Period varieties of vegetables

Terry Decker t.d.decker at att.net
Wed Apr 25 14:32:22 PDT 2012


Purple carrots are an Asiatic varietal and are wrong for Viking/Anglo-Saxon. 
The European carrot of the day was the white carrot, Queen Anne's Lace. 
Colored carrots enter Europe from Spain several hundred years after.

For onion, I would suggest a small yellow, as wild onions are near 
impossible to find, or shallots.  Don't worry too much about varieties.

Kale is fine, but head cabbages were also available.

For digging out the information try starting with:  The Cambridge World 
History of Food, The Oxford Companion to Food, and Pliny's Natural 
Histories.

Bear

>I looked in the florilegium and didn't see anything...but I may have missed 
>it.
>
> I'm trying to find varieties of several vegetables that would be at least 
> close to the viking/anglo-saxon varieties.
>
> I already found a source for purple carrots, so plan to use those.
>
> I'm looking at Cabbage, and thinking of possibly using kale instead of 
> modern cabbage, as some of what I'm seeing says that early cabbage was 
> more leafy and less head.
>
>
> I know several of my recipes call specifically for leeks, and that isn't a 
> problem, but other recipes call for onions, and I was wondering what 
> variety might be closest to what was available.
>
>
> Has anyone done research into this, or have any ideas as to where I could 
> find the information?




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