Blites, lettuces, orachs, mallows, and beets have the plant juicy, but
the shoot dry. The turnip, mustard, radish, cress, pellitory, cabbage,
and other hot things, have the plant of a dry, but the shoot of a juicy
nature. The shoots of the bushy shrubs, both the marsh and garden,
and that of the bryony, are stomachic and diuretic, but of little
nourishment, yet when digested they are more nutritious than those of
pot-herbs. Such also are the shoots of the ground-bay.
* * * * *
COMMENTARY. See Suidas (in Voce); Galen (de Alim. Facult.); Humelbergius
ad Apul. (de Med. Hist. 84.) Our author’s account of the Asparagi is
abridged from Galen. He remarks that the young shoots of the cabbage,
called cymæ, are particularly tender. Apicius directs them to be prepared
with cumin, salt, old wine, and oil; to which pepper, borage, and the
like may be added.