[Sca-cooks] Early Period varieties of vegetables

Wed Apr 25 22:49:36 PDT 2012

Personally, I'd be a little cautious about the carrot museum's info. On one page they say that carrots were introduced to England in, I believe, the 14th c, and on another they talk about the York midden find-9th c , I think. It's been a while since I looked at the site, but I recall tinking there were an awful lot of very definite statements with not a lot to support them.

Dan
--- On Thu, 4/26/12, Tre <trekatz at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: Tre <trekatz at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Early Period varieties of vegetables
> To: "David Walddon" <david at vastrepast.com>, "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
> Cc: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
> Date: Thursday, April 26, 2012, 4:32 AM
> 
> 
> Here's the link I was reading most recently. http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/history.html
> 
> Throughout the Medieval writings, carrots are confused with
> parsnips. When 
> Linnaeus created scientific names, he called carrots Daucus
> carota parsnips 
> Pastinaca sativa, so the two are clearly different. Before
> Linnaeus, however, 
> Pastinaca sativa was used for both plants.  
> Fuchs in 1542 described red and yellow garden carrots and
> wild carrots, but 
> names them all Pastinaca (Meyer Trueblood and
> Heller1999).  
> Gerard (1633) uses the English name carrot, but calls it
> Pastinaca in Latin: 
> Pastinaca sativa var. tenuifolia, the yellow carrot and
> Pastinaca sativa 
> atro-rubens, the red carrot. Gerard distinguishes parsnips
> from carrots and 
> calling the parsnip Pastinaca latifolia sativa and P.
> latifolia sylvestris. 
> Gerard notes the name similarity and is dissatisfied with
> it. He gives daucus as 
> a name for carrot in Galen, but notes that many Roman
> writers called it 
> pastinaca or other names.  
> The plants were not confused on purpose, but since we have
> in many cases only 
> the written word, if the Medieval writer referred to
> "pastinaca", it is 
> impossible to know if they were carrots or parsnips. 
> 
> 
> I can't seem to find the section I was reading about small
> white, woody carrots and small white, woody parsnips which
> seemed similar in period, but have been bread to be very
> different. That may have been on another website.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
>  From: David Walddon <david at vastrepast.com>
> To: Tre <trekatz at yahoo.com>;
> Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
> 
> Cc: Terry Decker <t.d.decker at att.net>
> 
> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 5:16 AM
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Early Period varieties of
> vegetables
>  
> 
> I am interested in your parsnip research. 
> There are recipes in De Honesta (the first five books not
> the last that are Martino) that uses parsnips or carrots.
> Very good recipes - one par-boiled rolled in "meal" and deep
> fried the other stewed with lettuce a spices. You could
> check out the journal article in PPC. 
> Eduardo 
> 
> 
> Maestro Eduardo Francesco Maria Lucrezia, O.L., O.P. Barone
> del Corte di AnTir
> 
> David Walddon
> david at vastrepast.com
> www.vastrepast.net
> 
> 
> On Apr 25, 2012, at 9:07 PM, Tre wrote:
> 
> Hmm...thanks. I may rethink the purple carrots then, and
> just use parsnips instead, as part of my research is showing
> that carrots and parsnips were almost interchangeable for a
> while, since they were very similar. I'll do further
> research first, though, as I keep finding conflicting
> information. (Currently I'm looking up information
> specifically on the history of carrots.)
> >
> >Thanks for the guess about the onions, too. I may try
> using shallots. I may actually be able to find something
> close to a wild onion, though. A yellow onion, though, seems
> to be the flavor I'm looking for.
> >
> >If head cabbages were available...what KIND of head
> cabbage? I've found pointy ones, round ones, and ones with
> dark, veiny leaves... and the red ones. It's the same
> problem I have with onions. "Cabbage" is a wide term, and
> the flavors and textures vary greatly.
> >
> >
> >
> >________________________________
> >From: Terry Decker <t.d.decker at att.net>
> >To: Tre <trekatz at yahoo.com>;
> Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
> 
> >Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2012 10:32 PM
> >Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Early Period varieties of
> vegetables
> >
> >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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