[Sca-cooks] watermelons

[JIMCHEVAL at aol.com]

Dalby himself appears to be using the Rackham edition (not available  
on-line):
https://books.google.com/books?id=KdR4jRJCxEsC&lpg=PA357&dq=inauthor%3Adalby
%20pliny&pg=PA263#v=onepage&q&f=false

Here  is a Latin edition. The last chapter here for Book XIX is also 62.  
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k23627s/f466.image.r=.langEN

Whether  or not Dalby was including a sentence number (LacusCurtius says 
nothing about  doing so) he would still have to have a book and a chapter: 
"19, 67-68".  



All this has gotten remarkably complicated. The original point was that one 
 should be able to find references to watermelon in Dalby's citations by 
looking  at his sources. But just looking at his sources is clearly less than  
straightforward and one mainly comes up with speculative interpretations of 
 various terms. The principal text in Pliny which MAY refer to a melon (and 
I  forwarded it myself early on) may also refer to a pumpkin; the idea that 
a later  one might mean watermelon is mainly based on its being 
"refreshing"; the  standard reading of Anthimus' references to "cucumber" and "melon" 
is that those  terms mean what they would today; etc.

The pseudo-Apicius reference  (which would be fourth or fifth century) is 
more definitive:

"[Book 3]  VII
[85] MELON-GOURD AND MELONS (PEPONES ET MELONES)
PEPPER, PENNYROYAL,  HONEY OR CONDENSED MUST, BROTH AND VINEGAR; ONCE IN A 
WHILE ONE ADDS  SILPHIUM."
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29728/29728-h/29728-h.htm#bkiii_chvii
 
[Note: Vehling pretty consistently mistranslates "liquamen" - usually garum 
 - as "broth"]

"Pipones et melones
Piper puleium mel vel passum liquamen acetum  interdum et silfi accedit".
 
_https://books.google.com/books?id=ikA8AAAAcAAJ&dq=inauthor%3Aapicius&pg=PT9
#v=onepage&q&f=false_ 
(https://books.google.com/books?id=ikA8AAAAcAAJ&dq=inauthor:apicius&pg=PT9#v=onepage&q&f=false) 

(Fish  sauce with melons? Brrrr....)
 
 
Which leaves the Hippocrates reference, if anyone wants to entertain  
themselves tracking that down: R 55, Epidemics  5,71, 7, 115, al?
 
Note too that demonstrating that something existed in Classical times does  
not guarantee that it was known in the Middle Ages. Anthimus for instance 
says  that cucumbers (or, per Dalby, melons) did not exist where he was, even 
though  he clearly knew of them. So the surest evidence for watermelons in 
the Middle  Ages comes later.

Jim Chevallier
www.chezjim.com

FRENCH BREAD HISTORY: Late  medieval  bread
http://leslefts.blogspot.com/2015/06/french-bread-history-late-medieval-brea
d.html










In  a message dated 7/28/2015 6:21:55 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, 
t.d.decker at att.net  writes:
"The Pliny reference is especially mystifying, since it cites  chapters 
(69–70) that go beyond any count I see for book 19 - the last  chapter is 
62:"

But 62 is not the last sentence.  Dalby is a  Classicist.  He appears to be 
working from a Latin text of Pliny in  which each Book, Chapter, and 
Sentence 
is numbered.  Thus his reference  more accurate than providing Book and 
Chapter.  You may also find  references containing all three numbers.  The 
LacusCurtius  transcription of Pliny  
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Pliny_the_Elder/home.html 
 
provides an example of the numbering system.