The greater part of our kitchen vegetables, that is to say those plants
which, independently of the corn kinds, are cultivated as food in our
gardens, are partly indigenous and partly foreign. Of the former many
at present grow wild, such as asparagus; but by continued cultivation,
through a long series of years, they have produced numerous varieties,
which differ as much from the wild plants as the European females from
those of New Zealand. Many of our indigenous vegetables are collected
for food, but are not reared expressly for that purpose; and these
even, in all probability, might be improved by culture. Some indeed are
here and there reared in an artificial manner, though we reckon them
among our weeds; for example, dandelion, _Leontodon taraxacum_, the
first leaves of which in spring are employed in the northern countries
as salad. In some parts of England this plant is sown throughout the
whole summer; and its leaves being blanched, it is used in winter as
endive. Culture frees many plants from their harsh taste, makes them
tender, larger and more pulpy, and produces them at a season when the
wild ones have become unfit for use.
Our foreign kitchen vegetables have, for the most part, been procured
from the southern countries, but chiefly from Italy; and the number
of them has increased in an uncommon degree in the course of the last
two centuries. Many of them require laborious attention to make them
thrive in our severe climate. On the other hand, some grow so readily,
and increase so much without culture, even in the open fields, that
they have become like indigenous weeds, as is the case with hops, which
at present abound in our hedges. Some plants, however, both indigenous
and foreign, which were formerly raised by art and used at the table,
are no longer cultivated, because we have become acquainted with others
more beneficial. Many of them served our forefathers in the room of
foreign spices, to the use of which trading companies have accustomed
us, much to their advantage and to our hurt. It is true also that many
have been banished merely by fashion; for this tyrant, which rules with
universal sway, commands the taste as well as the smell to consider as
intolerable articles to which our ancestors had a peculiar attachment.
In the oldest times mankind were so fond of sweet things, that the
goodness and agreeable taste of every kind of food was determined
according to the degree of its sweetness; and such is the manner of
judging even at present throughout all the East, in Africa, and in
America. This is the case also among us with the greater part of the
lower classes, who are not able to follow the mode of richer tables.
In the northern countries this taste is almost everywhere prevalent.
Thus the Swedes spoil, by the addition of sugar, costly Rhenish wine,
sour kraut, and other articles, the agreeable tartness of which is
gratifying to other nations. In proportion to their population and
luxury, the Swedes seem to use more sugar than the Germans, and
the Germans more than the English or French; and one might almost
suspect that a taste for sweet things were in the inverse ratio of
civilization[843]. At any rate, one can thus explain why many vegetable
productions, which some centuries ago were reckoned among the most
agreeable dishes, appear to us to be nauseously sweet. Skirret, which
the emperor Tiberius caused to be brought for the use of his table from
the Rhine, is little relished at present; and the case is the same with
parsnips, some kinds of apples, and several other things.
Fashion sometimes recalls into use species long forgotten, and with
the greatest success, when they are introduced under a different name.
Thus, after an interval of many years, some began to cultivate again
monks-rhubarb[844], and to recommend this sourish plant instead of
the more savoury spinage. According to Bock, it was transplanted in
the middle ages by the monks from the woods into gardens, to which it
has been again brought back under the imposing appellation of English
spinage.
Before the commencement of the Christian æra, when the use of sensual
enjoyments was not so well-regulated and modified by religious and
political principles, many vegetables and other dishes were praised
and recommended by writers on agriculture and cookery, as well as
by the most favourite poets and eminent authors, on account of
effects which cannot at present be named, except in the writings of
physicians, without disgusting the reader and incurring the imputation
of indelicacy. When this mode of thinking began to prevail, people
detested to see in their gardens or on their tables plants which,
in consequence of indecent properties, were generally known; and by
being thus disused, the knowledge of them was at length so much lost,
that we know only their old names, and what the ancients have related
respecting them. In this manner, many receipts in Apicius are totally
unintelligible, because we are no longer acquainted with the things
for the preparation of which he gives directions. Of this kind are
the numerous bulbous roots (_bulbi_), which formed the most favourite
dishes of the Greeks and the Romans, and which at present no botanist,
much less commentator, would be able to determine. They belong to the
lost arts, but not to those which were abandoned because better ones
were found to supply their place. The American vanilla, which perhaps
was indebted only to its high price for the permission of being mixed
with chocolate, does not certainly supply the place of the ancient
Megarean bulbs, as our gunpowder does that of the Greek fire.
Among those kitchen vegetables which were formerly cultivated, but at
present are no more esteemed, are the following:--Winter-cresses[845],
an indigenous plant, the young leaves of which, like water-cresses,
may be eaten in winter as salad; also common alexanders[846], which
in the seventeenth century was used instead of celery; bulbous
chærophyllum[847], the roots of which are still brought to market at
Vienna, where people well know what is good, and where they are boiled
and eaten as salad with vinegar and oil. Rampion[848] was formerly used
in the like manner. The earth-nut[849], which grows wild in many parts
of Germany, is still cultivated in Holland and in some districts on the
Rhine. Rocket (_Eruca sativa_), the young leaves of which were readily
eaten by our forefathers as salad, is no longer esteemed, partly on
account of its harsh taste, and partly on account of its nauseous
smell, which resembles that of rancid bacon; it has however been still
retained in Italy, “excitet ut Veneri tardos eruca maritos[850].”
Vetches (_Lathyrus sativus_, and _Cicer_) are now banished from our
gardens, as experience has shown that they are prejudicial to the
health. When pepper was so dear, that to promise a saint yearly a
pound of it was considered as a liberal bequest, economical housewives
seasoned their dishes with the leaves of pepper-wort (_Lepidium
latifolium_), which on this account is called at present in England
_poor man’s pepper_.
Borage (_Borago officinalis_), since the fourteenth, or at least the
fifteenth century, has been sown not only for medicinal purposes,
but for the use of the kitchen. The young leaves, which however soon
become hard, rough, and unfit for the table, were used in soup, and the
beautiful blue flowers were put into salad and wine. This plant was
not known to the ancients; for the conjecture that it was what they
called _buglossum_, is not very probable. As far as I have been able to
learn, Nicholas Myrepsus, who lived in the beginning of the fourteenth
century, is the first who uses the name πουράκιον, which certainly
means _borago_. But who knows whence this writer, who introduces in
his works a great many new inexplicable names, some of them formed
from the Greek, Latin, and Italian, obtained that appellation? Some
of the old botanists have conjectured that it is derived from the
word _corago_, which Apuleius, whose period is uncertain, gives as a
synonym of _buglossum_. Some think that the reading in Apuleius ought
to be _borago_; and others assert that _corago_ is the true name, and
arose from the quality which the plant has of strengthening the heart;
consequently we ought properly to read _corago_, and not _borago_[851].
It is probable that our forefathers, under the idea that their borage
was the _buglossum_ of the ancients, and therefore had the property
of strengthening the heart, threw the flowers into wine, that their
spirits might by these means be more enlivened. Our borage is certainly
a foreign plant, and Cæsalpinus said that it was brought from other
countries to Italy. Linnæus[852] positively states that it first came
from Aleppo; but I have not yet been able to find on what authority
this assertion is founded. At present borage, at least in the German
cookery, is no longer used.
Among the kitchen vegetables of which no certain traces are to be found
in the works of the ancients, is spinage (_Spinacea oleracea_). Its
native country is unknown; but the name is new, and certainly derived
from the nature of its prickly seeds. As far as I know, it first occurs
in the year 1351, among the food used by the monks on fast-days[853];
and at that time it was _Spinargium_ or _Spinachium_. Meursius found
in the middle ages σπινάκιον, in a poem which he has often mentioned,
but not defined with sufficient accuracy[854]. This plant seems to have
been made known from Spain; for many of the old botanists, such for
example as Bock, call it _olus Hispanicum_. Ruellius and others name
it _Atriplex Hispaniensis_; and the latter adds, that the Arabians
or Moors called it _Hispanach_, which signifies Spanish plant; it is
however well known that formerly everything foreign was styled Spanish.
None of the kitchen vegetables of the ancients seem to approach nearer
to spinage than their _Blitum_, which Rondolet considered to be the
same. But all the properties assigned to this vegetable production,
namely, that it was insipid, and that on this account it was necessary
to render it palatable by the addition of vinegar, pepper, and other
things; that it readily multiplied; that it was indigestible and
gently aperient; perfectly correspond, not only with our spinage, but
with many other plants, such, for example, as our beet and orach, and
the good king Henry (_Chenopodium bonus Henricus_), the young leaves
of which are still dressed as spinage. It is also possible that the
_blitum_ of the ancients may have been a kind of _Amaranthus_, some
species of which are certainly eatable. _Blitum_, therefore, will
remain as difficult to be defined as the _malva_, which was used at the
same time.
The _Brassicæ_ of the ancients belonged certainly to the cabbage genus;
yet no one, as far as I know, has examined botanically what is said
of them, and completely proved their identity. It would however be
fruitless labour to attempt to apply our modern names to the cabbage
kinds of the ancients, and search out in the writings of the Greeks and
the Romans those which we use at present; for by continued culture,
through so many ages and in so many countries, new varieties have from
time to time arisen, and old ones must have become lost; so that it
is impossible for us to have all the varieties of the ancients, as
it was for them to be acquainted with the whole of those produced in
our times. I cannot therefore venture to assert that we still possess
that kind of cabbage which the ancients, to prevent intoxication, ate
raw like salad[855]. We can dress in this manner cabbage heads when
they are chopped fine, but we do not know with certainty whether the
ancients were acquainted with our cabbage; though Ruellius, not without
probability, considered as such that species which in the time of Pliny
was known under the name of _lacuturris_[856].
But even if this be admitted as true, we nowhere find any traces of
that excellent preparation of cabbage called by the Germans sour kraut;
though the ancients were acquainted with the art of preparing turnips
in the same manner[857]. I should have been inclined to consider
sour kraut as a German invention, first made in Lower Saxony, which
our neighbours learnt from us in modern times, had not Bellon[858]
related that the Turks are accustomed to pickle cabbage for winter
food. It appears, however, that these people take the whole heads, as
in Germany, but particularly in Upper more than Lower Saxony, some
preserve _kumskohl_, a name which, as well as _compost_ and the French
word _compote_, Frisch derives with great probability from _compositum_
(preserved).
The ancients were acquainted with curled cabbage, and even with some of
those kinds which we call _broccoli_. Under this term is understood all
those species, the numerous young flowery heads of which, particularly
in spring and autumn, can be used like cauliflowers. Such young shoots
are called _cymæ_, but not _turiones_; for the latter term denotes
the first shoots that arise, like those of hops, asparagus, and other
esculent plants. The _broccoli_ used at present was however first
brought from Italy to France, together with the name, about the end of
the sixteenth century[859].
Our cauliflower, about the end of the same century, was first brought
from the Levant to Italy; and in the end of the seventeenth was
transplanted thence to Germany. For a long time the seeds were procured
annually from Cyprus, Candia, and Constantinople, by the Venetians and
Genoese, who sent them to every part of Europe, because at that time
the art of raising seed was not understood[860]. Prosper Alpinus, in
the year 1588, found abundance of this vegetable in Egypt, and from
his account there is reason to conjecture that it was then very little
known in Europe. Conrad Gesner seems not to have been acquainted
with it; at any rate it is not mentioned by him in a list of the
cabbage kind of plants[861]. Even in the time of Bauhin it must have
belonged to those vegetables which were scarce; because he has been so
particular in naming the garden in which he saw it. Von Hohberg, who
wrote about 1682, says that cauliflower, a few years before, had been
brought to Germany for the first time[862].
It would be difficult to define all the species of the cabbage
kind, the leaves and flowers of which were used by the ancients as
food; but it would be a task still more arduous to determine those
which have esculent roots. To render this clear, and to show what
information I have been able to obtain on the subject by my researches,
I must venture to indulge in a little botanical criticism. Our
plant-connoisseurs have unfortunately not yet condescended to examine
the class of kitchen vegetables; though it would certainly be rendering
a far greater service to botany, and promote its utility much more, to
describe and delineate all the species, varieties, and deviations, than
to give new names to a dozen of new genera from Polynesia. According
to the Linnæan system, we have at present the following species of the
cabbage, which have been adopted by all botanists, without further
observation.
First, _Brassica oleracea_, to which belong all those kinds the leaves
and flowers of which are eaten. It is certainly probable that all these
have been gradually produced from one parent stock, which it is now
impossible perhaps to find in its original wild state. A similarity
is remarked between all these kinds; and with a little ingenuity one
might form a genealogical tree of them, as Buffon has done in regard
to the race of dogs; but a genealogical tree without proofs is of as
little value in natural history as in claims for hereditary titles or
estates. At present, in our system, we must admit that such plants as
always grow up from their seeds, without variation, and do not pass
into other forms, are peculiar species; but this will not prove that
these supposed species were not originally produced from one maternal
stem; for the variation of the succeeding plants took place gradually;
and the later ones always deviated more and more from the parent stock.
Who knows how many steps and gradations were necessary before cabbage,
savoys, and cauliflower were produced from our common colewort? Not
fewer, perhaps, than were required to produce white men from Moors, or
the terrier and lap-dog from the bull-dog.
I shall call the mother plant, or original species, A, which by unknown
causes has produced B, and the latter by continued and frequently
changed culture has become C; from this has been produced D, and from
this E, and from this F, &c. Now as we are unacquainted with the art of
changing A into F, and F into A, we believe that F is a species really
different from A. As we here compare two distant links of a chain,
the various parts of which increase very gradually, we find them so
different, that it is impossible for us to consider them as the same.
But sometimes, perhaps, F changes again into E; E into D; D into C;
and C into B or into A. Perhaps also B may be again produced from A,
or F from E. Had a botanist observed this by experience, he probably
would have no hesitation to consider B, C, D, E, and F as varieties of
A. But such observations seldom occur; we have not the power of making
them according to our pleasure, for we do not know all the causes by
which these numerous variations are produced. The few observations
which have been made no one has yet collected, compared, and employed
for establishing any certain conclusions. The division, therefore, of
the cultivated plants into species and varieties would be a fruitless
and uncertain undertaking, respecting which one ought not to dispute
without sufficient proofs.
It is needless to refer to the form, colour, smell, and taste of the
leaves, flowers, and roots. That the indented leaves, such as those
which all the cabbage species have, are most liable to change, is shown
by experience. The colour is no less variable; and Reichard, who had
a great belief in the perpetuity of the species of plants, asserts,
that in the same country and climate he could produce from the seeds of
red cabbage and black radishes, white cabbage and white radishes[863].
The production and change of the hermaphrodite plants is so well known
that it is only necessary to mention them. The smell, for example; but
the musky smell of cabbage establishes no essential difference. Nay, a
plant may entirely lose its odorous principle, _spiritus rector_, and
yet retain its old form, as well as all its other component parts and
properties[864]. In sandy soil the smell of plants is often entirely
lost; and the taste is frequently changed, according to the nature
of the land and the manure. The most powerful medicinal plants are
those which grow wild in their native country, and not those reared
in rich gardens, where many poisonous plants become eatable. Even the
duration does not always determine the difference of the species.
Thus it is certain that winter and summer rape are the same plants,
though the former is a biennial and the latter an annual. Where then
are the proofs in regard to the cabbage kind, and, in general, those
which show that different plants are species of one genus, and others
only varieties? Precision or certainty in systems can be expected
only by novices; but in botany the case is the same as in every other
science, mathematics excepted; the more we learn, the more uncertainty
we discover, and the more circumscribed is the real knowledge which we
acquire. It is necessary that this should be known to those who may
take the trouble to examine the history of kitchen vegetables and other
œconomical plants; and therefore I shall offer no apology for having
entered into this botanical disquisition.
To the _Brassica oleracea_ belong two plants which are used in the same
manner as turnips or roots. The first is the turnip-cabbage, _kohlrabi_
above the earth (_Brassica gongylodes_), the stem of which swells
out, above the earth, into a thick pulpy turnip-like tubercle, which
is dressed and eaten in the same manner as turnips. It is a monstrous
excrescence of the stem, which is hereditary, like the broad stem of
the Italian fennel. This turnip-cabbage was certainly not known to
the ancients; it occurs for the first time among the botanists of the
sixteenth century. Spielmann conjectures that it was brought from the
Levant during the crusades; but it was known at too late a period to
warrant this opinion.
Still newer is that variety called _kohlrabi_, subterranean or
turnip-rooted cabbage, the stem of which produces a similar tubercle
at the surface of the earth or immediately under it. In my opinion, it
was first described by Caspar Bauhin, in the year 1620, under the name
_napo-brassica_, which it still retains, as a new species, to which
he was not able to assign any synonyms. He says that this turnip was
cultivated on the Bohemian frontiers, where it was called _Dorsen_
or _Dorschen_; and the same name is given to it there at present,
as is confirmed by Mehler, in whose work there is a good figure of
it[865]. In Germany it is commonly called _Steckrübe_, and, as is
said, was first made known there about the year 1764 by the Bohemian
glass-dealers.
The second cabbage species in the Linnæan system is the _Brassica
napus_, a plant which grows wild on the sandy sea-coasts of England, as
well as in the island of Gothland, and which in many of the northern
countries is cultivated for the oil obtained from the seeds, under the
name of winter and summer rape. When thinly planted in a nourishing
soil it produces esculent roots, which have a somewhat harsh taste,
and properly in German it ought to be called _Steckrübe_. Such is the
name given to it in the works of all the old writers by whom it was
first mentioned; and it is called so at present in Bohemia, where it is
cultivated, as well as _kohlrabi_ under the earth, which in some parts
of Germany is improperly named _Steckrübe_, and a proper distinction
is made between the two species[866]. This kind, the real _Steckrübe_,
is never very thick, being only of the size of those which grow in
the Mark. The leaves arise immediately from the roots, but in the
_gongylodes_ and _napo-brassica_ they proceed from the stem.
This species of turnip I did not expect to find among the ancients.
I conceived that it might perhaps have been produced in the northern
countries, since rape began to be cultivated for oil. Afterwards this
plant may have become so much domesticated among us, as to be found not
unfrequently in a wild state. Some person may then have easily remarked
the pulpy roots of plants growing in a manured soil, and making a trial
of them found them well-tasted. When first cultivated, it must have
been observed that their harsh taste was moderated, sometimes more and
sometimes less, in a sandy soil, and rendered in some degree aromatic;
by which means they acquired so great a superiority to the common and
almost insipid rape, that they were brought to the first-rate tables
under the name of the Markish, Teltow, Borsfeld, Bobenhäuser and
Wilhelmsburg rapes. In each country they were named after those places
where they acquired the best savour; and this was the case only where
the soil consisted of clay mixed with more or less sand. From such
districts large quantities of them were sent to a great distance; but
perhaps never in more abundance than from Teltow, in the Middle Mark,
which small town sold to the amount of more than two thousand dollars,
chiefly to Berlin and Hamburg; and from Hamburg these agreeable roots
were frequently sent to both the Indies. Around Stendal also, in the
Old Mark, they were raised in considerable quantity, but the seeds are
procured there from Teltow[867]. If we wish to introduce them into our
gardens, we must either mix much sand with the soil, or procure fresh
seeds annually.
The Greeks and the Romans had little occasion for cultivating rape.
They had other vegetables, from the seeds or fruit of which they could
obtain a better oil, and in more abundance. Where the olive would not
thrive, they cultivated, as at present, sesamum; or expressed oil from
the nuts and seeds of the turpentine tree[868], without speaking of the
many essential oils which they used for salves.
But however probable this may appear, I am inclined to suspect, that
under βουνιὰς and _napus_ our _steckrüben_ are to be understood, as
most of the old botanists have admitted; and that the roots of them
were used for food, before the seeds were employed for making oil.
The _napus_ of the ancients had long thin roots, which were so small
that they could be preserved without being cut into slices; on the
other hand, the _rapa_ had large conical roots, which could not be
preserved till they were sliced. The _napus_, because the roots grew
chiefly downwards, were sown thicker than the _rapum_. The _napus_
was cultivated only for the use of man; but the _rapum_ was raised in
great abundance as fodder for cattle. Of the _napus_ there were many
known varieties, of different degrees of goodness, which, as is the
case at present with _steckrüben_, were named from the place where they
chiefly grew. When sown late in the season, they were injured by the
earth-flea; to prevent which, the young plants were strewed over with
soot. Both the _napi_ and _rapa_ were buried in the earth, where they
were kept in a fresh state during the winter. The former, to prevent
them from degenerating, required careful cultivation; and indeed
there are few kitchen vegetables which so easily change their state,
according to the nature of the soil, as the _steckrüben_.
But what opinion can be formed of the assertion, often repeated,
that _brassica napus_, and _rapum_, or _rapa_, readily change into
each other; consequently are only varieties or deviations of the
same species[869]? I am not disposed to declare this assertion to
be altogether false; though I will not vouch for the possibility of
converting our Markish rapes into turnips or cabbage. I conjecture that
in the oldest times, when these three plants were not so far separated
from each other by intermediate species or degrees of degeneration, as
they had a greater resemblance to each other, and were all nearer to
the original species, such transitions were easier than they possibly
could be at present.
The third species of cabbage in the Linnæan system, belonging to this
place, is the _Brassica rapa_, or turnip, the roots of which, more or
less conical, differ in figure, colour and taste[870]. That these roots
are the same as those called by the Romans _rapa_, and by the Greeks
γογγύλη or γογγυλὶς, appears to be subject to no doubt, though at
present we may have a greater number of varieties.
[The turnip was well-known to the Romans, and all that can be gathered
on this subject from the writings of the ancients renders it probable
that it occupied nearly the same place in Roman culture as it does in
British husbandry at the present day. Columella[871] recommended that
the growth of turnips should be abundant, because those which were not
required for human food could be given with much advantage to cattle;
and both he and Pliny concur in their testimony, that this produce
was esteemed next to corn in utility and value. The best grew in the
country of the Sabines, and were worth at Rome a sestertius, or 2_d._
each[872].
It is stated that the Roman method of cultivation must have been
superior to that of the moderns, since Pliny relates that some single
roots weighed as much as forty pounds, a weight far surpassing any
which has been obtained by the most skilful modern agriculturists. It
is very probable that the garden culture of the turnip was introduced
by the Romans into this country, and that, like some of the fruit
trees which they had transplanted here, though neglected, it was never
altogether lost. There is no doubt that this root was in cultivation
in the sixteenth century. Whether revived by native industry, or
introduced at that period by the Flemings, is a question differently
answered by different writers. Towards the latter end of the sixteenth
century it is mentioned by more than one writer. Cogan, in his Haven of
Health, published in 1597, says, that “although many men love to eat
turnips, yet do swine abhor them.” Gerarde, who published in the same
year, and who had rather more rational views on the subject of plants,
leads us to conclude that more than one variety was cultivated in the
environs of London at that time. “The small turnips,” says he, “grown
by a village near London, called Hackney, in a sandie ground, and
brought to the crosse in Cheapside by the women of the village to be
solde, are the best that I ever tasted.” Gerarde is silent concerning
the field culture of turnips; neither is this mentioned by Parkinson,
who wrote in 1629. We do not find any account of the root being grown
in any part of the country until the close of the seventeenth century
(_loc. sup. citat._). Turnips sometimes attain a very large size in
this country; Tull[873] speaks of some weighing as much as nineteen
pounds, and of often meeting with others of sixteen pounds. One was dug
up in Surrey, in July 1828, which weighed twenty-one pounds, and was
one yard in circumference[874]. Our more immediate ancestors appear to
have applied the turnip to more extensive uses as an esculent than is
done at present. It is stated, that in 1629 and 1630, when there was a
dearth in England, very good, white, lasting and wholesome bread was
made of boiled turnips, deprived of their moisture by pressure, and
then kneaded with an equal quantity of wheaten flour. The same was had
recourse to in Essex in 1693[875].]
The question whether the Greeks and the Romans were acquainted with
our carrots[876], seems to be attended with more difficulties than
might be expected. Whoever wishes to answer it fully, and at the same
time explain the information of the ancients, and examine the opinions
of the botanists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (for the
modern botanists give themselves very little trouble in regard to such
researches), must enter into a disquisition of such length as might be
agreeable perhaps to few readers. I shall however here state what I
think I know, and however little it may be, it will perhaps afford some
assistance to those who are desirous to illustrate the works of the
ancient physicians and agriculturists.
Dioscorides, who, next to Theophrastus among the Greeks, possessed the
greatest share of botanical knowledge, was certainly acquainted with
our carrot, and gave it the name of _staphylinos_. For this plant, he
says, like dill, bears _umbellæ_ consisting of white flowers, which
in the middle are of a purple red or almost saffron red colour. Our
carrots, it is well known, have these characteristics, before the
_umbellæ_, towards the time of their ripening, form themselves into a
_nidus_. The plant meant by Dioscorides grew wild, but was reared in
gardens, on account of its esculent root; and our carrots are certainly
descended from plants which grew wild, though Miller, author of the
Gardener’s Dictionary, could not succeed in rendering the small pungent
roots eatable by culture.
We must believe Columella and Pliny, that the _staphylinos_ of the
Greeks was, in their time, called _pastinaca_; though they give no
information from which it can be concluded that their _pastinaca_ was
our carrot. The former speaks of it as a plant useful to bees, which is
the case also with our wild and cultivated carrots. Afterwards he tells
us that it was cultivated like _siser_. Those therefore have erred who
consider _siser_ and _pastinaca_ as the same plant, and believe it to
be our liquorice.
That _staphylinus_, or _patinaca_, or our carrot, was by the Greeks
called also _daucus_, is asserted by Pliny, as well as Galen; and
in the Geoponica, _daucon_ is named among the kitchen vegetables.
But Dioscorides seems to make a difference between _staphylinus_ and
_daucon_, as he treats of them in different sections. He however says
that _daucon_ is like _staphylinus_, and has also a white umbella.
_Daucon_ perhaps may have signified a peculiar variety of carrot.
In the last place, that the _pastinacæ_, or carrots, were named
also _carotæ_, is mentioned by Apicius. This word is derived perhaps
from κάρτον, which in Athenæus denotes the large roots of the
_staphylinus_, and also from κέρας, which occurs in Hesychius and
Apuleius as a synonym of _pastinaca_, _staphylinus_, and _daucion_;
but it is possible that all these words may have been corrupted by
transcribers. The Germans and French however have thence formed the
appellation _carrottes_. But κάρος, a plant which Galen[877] names
along with the roots of the _staphylinus_ and _daucus_, signified,
undoubtedly, our caraway (_Carum Carvi_). Dioscorides says that the
spicy aromatic seeds of the κάρος were used, and that the roots also
were boiled and eaten like carrots. Pliny calls the plant _careum_.
The Greeks and the Romans therefore were acquainted with our carrots;
but in my opinion they were far less used in cookery and as fodder
for cattle than they are at present, otherwise they must have more
frequently occurred in the works of the ancients.
But whether, under the term _pastinaca_, the ancients did not sometimes
understand our parsnip, I will not venture to determine. I can only
assert, with some degree of probability, that the latter is by
Dioscorides called _elaphoboscon_, a name which occurs also in Pliny.
The former says expressly that this plant had _umbellæ_ with yellow
flowers, and large white sweet roots fit to be eaten. Now among our
umbelliferous plants, besides dill, fennel and lovage, the parsnip is
the only one which has yellow flowers; at any rate I know of no other
with yellow flowers and esculent roots. If the parsnip had no other
names among the Greeks and the Romans, it must have been very little
used by them; for it is mentioned only by Dioscorides and Pliny. At
present we know that it forms excellent fodder for black cattle, sheep
and swine.
It needs however excite little wonder that it is so difficult to
discover these plants in the works of the Greeks and the Romans.
They all belong to one natural order, the species of which can with
difficulty be distinguished by the most expert botanist. I mean to
say, that all the umbelliferous plants are so like to each other,
that they may be readily confounded. This difficulty is still further
increased by the old physicians, who used a great many plants of this
kind, and named them after the kitchen vegetables to which they had
a resemblance, so that by these means plants totally different occur
under the same name. To distinguish these, it is necessary first to
examine which of them was a kitchen vegetable, and which was used in
medicine.
Among our kitchen vegetables, as among the spices, there are many
kinds which, at first, were known only on account of their medicinal
properties, but afterwards were esteemed and cultivated on account of
their good taste. Of this kind is the scorzonera[878], which became
first known in the middle of the sixteenth century, in Spain, where it
was considered as an antidote to the poison of a snake called there
_scurzo_. A Moor, who had learnt this property of it in Africa, cured
with the juice of the leaves and the roots a great many peasants bitten
by snakes while mowing; but he would not discover the plant, that he
might retain all the advantage to himself. Some persons, however, who
followed him to the mountains, where he collected it, observed that it
was the _Scurzonera_, or _Scorzonera hispanica_, so called from the
name of the snake. Petrus Cannizer transmitted the plant, together with
a drawing of it, to John Odorich Melchior, physician to the queen of
Bohemia; and the latter sent what he had obtained to Matthioli, who at
that time was not acquainted with it[879]. Soon after the roots were
extolled in a particular tract by Nicholas Monardes, as a powerful
remedy for the poison of snakes[880]. It is probable also that these
roots were first used in Spain as food, and about the beginning of the
sixteenth century were carried thence to France. The anonymous author
of the well-known work Le Jardinier François, who was a gardener, and
dealt in trees and seeds at Paris, boasts of having been the first who
introduced these roots into the French gardens. The first edition of
his book, which greatly contributed to improve gardening in France, was
printed in 1616. At present the roots of the scorzonera are to be found
in most gardens, but no one places faith in their medicinal virtue; and
when they are occasionally prescribed by any physician for a ptisan
perhaps, the other kind, the _Scorzonera humilis_, is preferred,
though in the apothecaries’ shops the Spanish, taken from the gardens,
is used in its stead[881].
Among our species of the _Allium_ genus, shallots, in consequence of
their mild taste, are preferred. There can be no doubt that this name,
as well as the French _échalotte_, is derived from _Ascalonia_; and
the above species in the system is called _Allium ascalonicum_[882].
Theophrastus, Pliny, Columella, Apicius, and others, speak of a species
called _ascalonia_, brought from the city of Ascalon, in Palestine, as
we are told by Pliny, Strabo, and Stephanus. The last-mentioned author
states it as a report, that the first bulbs were observed in that
neighbourhood. These names are found in the oldest catalogues of the
German garden vegetables. There is sufficient reason also to conjecture
that our shallots were the _ascaloniæ_ of the ancients, and that they
came originally from Palestine; especially as Hasselquist found the
same species growing there wild. An important doubt, however, against
this opinion arises from what is said by Theophrastus and Pliny;
namely, that their _ascaloniæ_ could not be propagated by bulbs, but
by seeds[883]; on the other hand, our shallots in Germany, and perhaps
in every other part of Europe, never come to flower, and are obtained
only by the bulbs; so that Linnæus procured the first flowers, through
Hasselquist, from Palestine. But why should not all the other allium
species be propagated by planting the bulbs?
[The kitchen-gardens of England were as scantily supplied with
vegetables, until about the end of the sixteenth century, as the
pleasure-grounds were with shrubs and flowers. “It was not,” says
Hume, “till the end of the reign of Henry VIII. that any salads,
carrots, turnips or other edible roots were produced in England; the
little of these vegetables that was used was imported from Holland and
Flanders. Queen Catherine, when she wanted a salad, was obliged to
despatch a messenger thither on purpose.” Hume is not however quite
correct in this point. Our ancestors, before Henry VIIIth’s time, had
always their winter-cresses and water-cresses, and common Alexanders,
which served them for celery; they had rampion and rocket; borage for
their cool tankard, and amaranthus and goose-foot, or good Henry with
sprout-kales, which they used as greens. Their fruits were neither
numerous nor good, being chiefly confined to gooseberries, currants
and strawberries; the apples and pears were generally indifferent, and
their plums and cherries bad; although the latter are supposed to have
been planted in this country so early as the year 800, at which time
they were brought from Italy.
The most important of kitchen vegetables of the present day is
certainly the potato. There is scarcely a doubt of the potato being
a native of South America, and its existing in a wild state in
elevated places in the tropical regions and in the more temperate
districts of the western coast of that country. It appears probable
that it was first brought into Europe from the mountainous parts of
South America in the neighbourhood of Quito, to Spain, early in the
sixteenth century; they were here called _papas_. From Spain they were
carried to Italy, and there received the same name as the truffle,
_taratoufli_. From Italy they went to Vienna, through the governor of
Mons in Hainault, who sent some to Clusius in 1598. The potato arrived
in England from North America, being brought from Virginia by the
colonists sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584, and who returned
in July 1586, and in all probability brought back the potato with
them. Such is the opinion of Sir Joseph Banks; moreover, in De Bry’s
Collection of Voyages[884], he describes a plant called _openawk_,
which is in all probability identical with the potato. Gerarde, in his
herbal, published in 1597, figures the potato, under the name of the
potato of Virginia, whence he says he received the roots. The potato
was first cultivated in Ireland by the grandfather of Sir Robert
Southwell, from tubers given him by Sir W. Raleigh. Some time after,
they were grown in Lancashire, as some say, being conveyed there
through a shipwreck; thence their culture has gradually diffused itself
throughout the country.
The great dependence for nourishment placed in the potato by so many
of the poor, has been lately exhibited in the great distress caused
by the disease of the crops. In addition to its use as a direct
article of food, the potato is applied to furnish starch, which is not
unfrequently substituted for arrow-root and sugar.
In the year 1619, the common market-price of the potato was 1_s._ per
lb.]