[Sca-cooks] Arugula/Rocket/Eruca?

[TerryDecker]

I suspect that most of these authors could differentiate rocket and mustard. 
Rocket tends to have white flowers, mustard has yellow (although I have 
encountered some photographs of yellow flowers that purport to be rocket). 
Differentiating plants within the genera Eruca and Sinapis is a little 
trickier.  I am quite willing to accept that eruca alba and sinape in the 
Capitulare de villis are rocket and mustard respectively.  I would suggest 
that the alba in eruca alba is probably in reference to the white flowers.

Leonhardt Fuchs Herbal (1541) has the taxonomic names Eruca sative, Eruca 
sylvestris, Sinapis alterm genus sylvestre, Sinapihortense, and Sinapi 
primum genus sylvestre.  I believe these are E. sativa, E. vesicaria, 
Sinapis alba, Brassica nigra, and some Brassicaceae I have yet to identify 
respectively.  Now for the common names in order, Zamer Weisser Senff 
(Domesticated White Mustard), Wilder Weisser Senff (Wild White Mustard), 
Grosser Wilder Senff (Greater Wild Mustard), Zamer Senff (Domesticated 
Mustard), and Kleiner Wilder Senff (Lesser Wild Mustard).  There is 
obviously lots of room for confusion, so I'm open to persuasion.

It should be pointed out that Richard Bradley's Dictionarium Botanicum was 
published in 1728 almost a quarter of a century before Linneaus introduced 
his standard taxonomy.  Bradley lumps all of the rockets and mustards under 
genus Eruca.  Had you read a little further down, you would have 
encountered, "Eruca sativa alba.  White or Roman Garden Rocket with white 
Seed.  The Roman Rocket is a smaller Plant than our Garden Kind, having 
broad Leaves cut in on the Edges, but not deep, each Part being round at the 
End, nothing so hot or sharp in Taste as the wild.  The Stalk has some 
Leaves thereon, lesser and less jagged and beareth white Flowers at the 
Tops, made of four somewhat long and round pointed leaves..."

As for the references in Villanova, I have no basis to address the issue.

Bear

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

Well, yes, but then various translations of De Villis also translate
fasiolum as kidney bean and blidas as spinach, so I'm not sure the standard
translations are all that useful a  guide.

https://www.le.ac.uk/hi/polyptyques/capitulare/latin2english.html


Nor  am I sure that the differentiations within De Villis are all that
fine. The  writers may well have considered sinapis a different plant from 
what
was later  called white mustard.


To complicate matters, there is also the term "rocket-leaved  mustard":

"In B. xix. c. 54. Fée identifies these three varieties of  mustard as
follows; the slender-stemmed mustard of Pliny he identifies with the 
Sinapis
alba of Linnaeus, mustard with white seeds. The mustard mentioned as  having
the leaves of rape he considers to be the same as the Sinapis  nigra of
Linnaeus, mustard with black seed,  and that with the leaf of  the rocket 
the
identifies with the Sinapis erucoïdes of Linæus , the Eruca  silvestris of
Gessner or rocket-leaved mustard."

_http://books.google.com/books?id=IUoMAAAAIAAJ&dq=inauthor%3Apliny%20eruca&p
g=PA290#v=onepage&q&f=false_
(http://books.google.com/books?id=IUoMAAAAIAAJ&dq=inauthor:pliny%20eruca&pg=PA290#v=onepage&q&f=false)

So this Eruca could also be Eruca silvestris.

Richard Bradley treats the white mustard seed variety merely as a variety
of rocket:

"Eruca, Off. is called in English Rocket; there are several  Sorts of it,
but that Sort which brings the white Mustard-Seed, is most commonly  sown in
Gardens with other Sallad Herbs, which should be eaten only in the
Seed-Leaves; this is more gentle than the Black Mustard, and is a quicker 
Grower;
it may be sown upon the natural Ground, from the Beginning of February, 
till
November, and in this Winter it is commonly sown under a Frame and Glasses,
with other young Sallad-Herbs"
_http://books.google.com/books?id=NuicQt6ozoYC&dq=%22Eruca%20silvestris%22&p
g=PT287#v=onepage&q&f=false_
(http://books.google.com/books?id=NuicQt6ozoYC&dq="Eruca%20silvestris"&pg=PT287#v=onepage&q&f=false)


Is there any dependable documentation on when each of these terms took  on
their current meanings? I'd really be surprised if one could be categorical
either way.

In Villanova's text, the idea of mustard certainly would make  more sense.


Jim Chevallier
www.chezjim.com