tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192250381057989170.post849947665773691621..comments2024-03-29T01:10:12.011-06:00Comments on In the Company of Plants and Rocks: What fruit is this?Hollishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10788942181934895493noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192250381057989170.post-29194334210359015952013-02-24T09:33:02.982-07:002013-02-24T09:33:02.982-07:00Thanks, Joy! and I'll tell my niece, the cera...Thanks, Joy! and I'll tell my niece, the ceramicist (she was only 11 when she did that piece)Hollishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788942181934895493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192250381057989170.post-85443619033165154012013-02-24T08:33:20.791-07:002013-02-24T08:33:20.791-07:00Brilliant post! And the pictures were wonderful, t...Brilliant post! And the pictures were wonderful, too. I love the inclusion of the ceramic lizard.Joy K.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06200194467024962551noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192250381057989170.post-46803816981203919432012-11-12T10:10:32.188-07:002012-11-12T10:10:32.188-07:00I made some updates, inserted in the post. Thanks...I made some updates, inserted in the post. Thanks again for the information. Smith (cited above) also was sure that the Spanish were eating tomatoes early on, but apparently found no written accounts.Hollishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788942181934895493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192250381057989170.post-32368190611682585662012-11-06T17:52:41.947-07:002012-11-06T17:52:41.947-07:00Thanks, Pat, especially for the info! I will add r...Thanks, Pat, especially for the info! I will add references to your comment soon.Hollishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788942181934895493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192250381057989170.post-69205191589732894922012-11-06T16:32:46.570-07:002012-11-06T16:32:46.570-07:00Excellent post.
However, the plant Galen mention...Excellent post. <br /><br />However, the plant Galen mentions is the λυκοπέρσιον, lykopersion, not lykopersikon. The name means ravager or slayer of wolves, like our wolfsbane. The transition to the "wolf-peach" happened sometime later, probably a scribe's error. Liddell-Scott's Greek-English Lexicon describes it as an Egyptian plant with strong-smelling, yellowish juice and identifies it as Hyoscyamus muticus, one of the very poisonous, tropane-bearing Solanaceae. There are plenty of other seriously deadly Solanaceae in Egypt but this is as good a guess as any.<br /><br />I wish we had more information about the early adopters of the tomato as a food in southern Europe. I am sure the Spanish were eating it as soon as it was introduced. An example of the lack of culinary documentation of the period of the Spanish conquest of America is one variety of Chia. Found in Spain and Italy by botanists in 1753 it was named Salvia hispanica, "Spanish Sage" by Linnaeus. It was only later discovered that it was an Aztec food crop that had been brought back by an unknown market gardener and escaped from cultivation.<br /><br />The aubergine (cultivated in Islamic Spain since at least the 9th Century) was known as Love Apples before the tomato was and possibly both were named from a corruption of Moorish Apple, "pomo dei mori" rather than from "pomi d'oro". Certainly moreish. Of course, the mandrake was associated with love since its earliest known history, see, for example, Genesis 30: 14-17.<br /><br />PatPattockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00741004991950391554noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192250381057989170.post-49527056262171274202012-11-05T14:40:28.369-07:002012-11-05T14:40:28.369-07:00yep :) I'd like to do more like this, but tim...yep :) I'd like to do more like this, but time is always a problem. Thanks for reading!Hollishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788942181934895493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5192250381057989170.post-49111684888227390792012-11-05T13:36:03.702-07:002012-11-05T13:36:03.702-07:00An epic post!An epic post!Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!https://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com