Subject: Re: Holiday recipes from Ancient Rome

From: [email-masked] (Stephen Bloch)
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 03:01:43 GMT

goertzek <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>Here's some of my favourite "winter" recipes from ancient Rome:
>>
>>Cucurbitas More Alexandrino
>>(Gourds Alexandrine)
>>
>>1 medium winter squash or small pumpkin
>>water
>>...
 
Matthew Hill <[email-masked]> wrote:
>Surely this is a modern adaptation.  Squash and Pumpkin are
>native to the Americas. 

Yes, many people translate the Latin "cucurbite" into modern English as
"squash" or "pumpkin", both of which are (as Matthew points out) New
World fruits.  But "cucurbite" does show up in numerous pre-1492
European cookbooks, including Apicius (from which Goertzek presumably
got the recipe).

Opinions differ on how better to translate "cucurbite".  I quote David
Friedman:
    It seems to be well established that at least three of the four
    cultivated species of Cucurbita (C. pepo. C. moschata and C.
    maxima) existed in the New World long before Columbus; the
    fourth (C. ficifolia) is "ordinarily not thought of as a
    cultivated plant" (Whitaker), but apparently has been cultivated
    in the past.  Whitaker argues, on the evidence of the absence of
    these species in the fifteenth century European herbals and
    their presence in the sixteenth century ones, that they were
    introduced into Europe from the New World.  A variety of C. pepo
    similar to the squash now known as "Small Sugar" is illustrated
    in an herbal of 1542.  What appears to be a field pumpkin is
    illustrated in 1560, with other varieties appearing in later
    herbals during the century.  Whitaker concludes that "none of
    the cultivated species of Cucurbita were known to the botanists
    of the Western world before 1492."  ...
    There is, however, a plant translated as "gourd" in both italian
    and Islamic cookbooks before 1492.  _The Four Seasons of the
    House of Cerruti_ shows a "Cucurbite" that looks exactly like a
    green butternut squash -- a fact of which Whitaker seems unaware
    when asserting the absence of all varieties of Cucurbita from
    pre-sixteenth century sources.  I am uncertain whether Whitaker
    is correct and the medieval gourds and Cucurbite are a different
    plant, perhaps no longer cultivated, or whether he is wrong and
    some modern squashes are Old World as well as New World.
    "The white-flowered gourd, _Lagenaria sicereia_," seems to "have
    been common to both Old and New Worlds" (Whitaker).  I am told
    that the Italian Edible Gourd is a species of Lagenaria....  It
    might be a good guess for a period gourd, although the
    description does not fit the gourd pictured in _The Four Seasons
    of the House of Cerruti_.  Simoons describes a _Lagenaria_ that
    is used in modern Chinese cooking.  We have obtained what we
    think is the right gourd from a Chinese grocery store, and used
    it in one or two period recipes with satisfactory results.

--
                                                 Stephen Bloch
                                           [email-masked]
                                        Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University