"Some hae meat and cannot eat,
And some would eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit."
And some would eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit."
While we may know the source of the meat in our stew, what
about the other ingredients? Where did they originate? The storyteller in me is
always interested in the story behind traditions, superstitions and the
everyday things we take for granted, so I decided to find out just where my
stew came from.
Surprisingly, none of the things I use in my recipe are native to North America. Potatoes, for
example, were originally from South America, discovered first by Pizarro and later brought to England by Sir Walter
Raleigh in the early 1600’s. For some time many people refused to eat potatoes,
believing they caused leprosy, among other things. Ireland quickly adopted the
potato and it became the mainstay of the Irish diet. This had terrible
consequences when a blight struck the Irish potato crop in the mid 1800’s,
causing widespread starvation and death—and a huge migration to the United
States and other countries.
Carrots came to us from Afghanistan. The Greeks believed it
made people more ardent, so used it as a love potion. The carrot made its way
to Europe in the Middle Ages, and it was in Holland that the variously colored
carrots were hybridized to become the orange carrot we know today. Carrots were
grown in England by the 16th century, as this early gardening manual tells: "Sowe Carrets in your Gardens, and
humbly praise God for them, as for a singular and great blessing" --Richard Gardiner (1599 gardening book)
The shores of the
Mediterranean Sea are the homeplace of celery, known to the Romans as sedano. The
celery seed often used in pickles and other recipes comes from the small native
plant called smallage that is still grown just for the strongly flavored seeds,
while the stalks we generally think of as celery were first recorded as being
grown in France in the 1600’s.
CELERY
Celery, raw,
Develops the jaw,
But celery, stewed,
Is more easily chewed.
--Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
Celery, raw,
Develops the jaw,
But celery, stewed,
Is more easily chewed.
--Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
Stew isn’t stew without
onions. Onions came from the regions of Israel and India and have been grown in
gardens since before the time of Christ. In the fifth century BC, slaves
building a pyramid for Herodotus held a sit-down strike until they got their
onions. Folklore has it that Columbus planted onions during his visit to the
Caribbean islands, and the first settlers in the US also brought onion seed
with them and Grant refused to move his troops during the Civil War unless he
got onions to feed them.
Stew must have its
seasonings. Salt has been used as a preservative since early civilizations, bay
originated in the Mediterranean and has been used both medicinally and as a
culinary flavoring since before recorded history. Black peppercorns are native to India, while
the red, green, hot, mild and other peppers grown for their flesh instead of
their seed derive from the southern Americas.
So there we have it:
our humble beef or venison stew is truly a cosmopolitan dish, coming to our
stewpot from all the corners of the world.
For more history of
the foods we eat, check out these websites:
Linking today to Joy at A Vintage Green, to The Rustic Pig, The Self-Sufficient Home Acre, and Silver Pennies.
Copyright 2012 Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.
