Roots of your lunch
From sprouts to carrots and cauliflower… the rich history behind our festive veggies
AT SOME point tomorrow, a lot of people will sit down to a festive feast. Apart from a meat or veggie main, there will be some vegetable sidedishes. Many will tuck into the latter without a second thought – but before indulging, pause for a moment… many of the veg on your plate have a long, fascinating and surprising history.
Everybody has their own favourite vegetable sides that they consider an essential part of a roast dinner, but one that surely everyone must agree has to be served are potatoes. In many households they’ll be presented roasted and in others mashed, with some even preparing both types for the big blow out.
A member of the solanaceae family of plants (making them a relation to tomatoes, peppers and aubergines), potatoes were first cultivated in South America about 7,000 years ago. They were originally brought to Europe by Spanish conquistadors in the 1560s, who stumbled across the edible tubers in an area that is now Colombia. a.
Generations of school children have grown up thinking Sir Walter Raleigh introduced them to Britain in the 1580s and there’s certainly evidence that he planted seed potatoes in 1589 on his Irish estate near Cork. However, some historians think that admiral Sir John Hawkins beat him to the honour by almost 20 years.
They were originally treated with contempt by Britons and it wasn’t until the 18th Century that spuds became a kitchen staple.
ONE vegetable that seems to divide people like Marmite are Brussels sprouts, part of the e brassica family along- side cabbages, kale and d cauliflowers. Nobody knows where e these controversial baubles originate, although some botanists think they arose as a mutation of cabbage.
What is known is that by the late e 1200s, sprouts were cultivated around d Brussels – at some point in the 1700s, s, greengrocers in France gave the e vegetable its familiar name. They y arrived in Britain in the late 19th Cenntury but didn’t really become an inteegral partof Christmas dinner until the early 20th Century.
Carrots have never split public opinion, but there are lots of myths about them that need dissecting. For example, many think orange carrots (early cultivated roots were yellow and purple) were developed in 16th Century Holland to honour the House of Orange, the Dutch royal family. That’s wide of the mark, according to scientists, who think they appeared in Southern Europe much earlier.
Another tall tale is that carrots help us to see in the dark.
This was started by our wartime government, who wanted to keep the invention of radar secret from German high command. In an elaborate ruse, they spread a rumour that RAF fighter pilots were able to shoot down enemy bombers at night due to their consumption of carrots.
In reality, carrots contain Vitamin A, which is required by our eyes to produce a pigment that allows them to work in low light. A deficiency of the vitamin will affect vision and prevents eyes from producing enough moisture to stay lubricated. However, eating loads of carrots certainly won’t im improve nocturnal vision. If you’re a fan of cauliflower cheese, those white florets engulfed in a thick, velvety sauce come from a plant native to the Mediterranean. It was originally known as Cyprus colewort in Britain because the f first plants to arrive were grown on t that island.
By the end of the 16th Century, the n name had evolved to Cole Flowery. Broccoli was common on the Christmas dinner table of my childhood. Personally I can take it or leave it, but it does have a fascinating past. Firstly let’s get its name correct – the plant that most of us call broccoli (with large green heads) is actually calabrese, while true broccoli has branched stems topped with smaller, edible flower heads. This vegetable is native to the Italian peninsula and was first cultivated by the Etruscans 2,000 years ago. Catherine de’ Medici introduced it to France in 1560, over 150 years befor before it arrived in our country.
Of course, I couldn’t end without bringing up parsnips. Like all the vegetables mentioned above, and in fact every common veg, it’s not native to our shores and is thought to have originated around the eastern Mediterranean.
They were popular with Roman emperor Tiberius, who imported roots to Rome from France and Germany, where they developed a better flavour due to the colder weather. The all-conquering Roman army brought parsnips with them to Britain and then emigrants from here introduced the crop to North America in the 17th Century.