On Mon, 11 Dec 2000 11:16:01 +0100, Alison Ashwell
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Ken Stuart wrote:
>  About 20 years ago, I
>> toured throughout Europe, and very rarely encountered any lettuce, celery,
>> broccoli or any other vegetable matter other than tubers and legumes....
>
>Where in Europe and what season?
>
>In Scotland in Spring and winter you would have seen potatoes, turnips ,
>cauiflower, cabbages , leeks and carrots [occasionally brussels sprouts
>around Xmas] . Apples and what we used to call "bullet" pears - pears
>that were hard and rubbery and not much sweeter than the turnips were
>the fruits though all sorts of berries were collected in huge quantities
>in late autumn and preserved as jam, jelly or cordials
>Veg was a seasonal thing - lettuce wasn't eaten in great quantites,
>though it did appear in the summer along with radishes, cyboes [spring
>onions] , water cress, peas -eaten raw mostly , baby carrots, leeks and
>onions.
>I think I was about 15 when I first saw broccoli and celery.

Yes, my phrase "vegetable matter" was somewhat ambiguous, but I was trying to
distinguish it from grains, legumes, tubers and fruits - so I was excluding the
carrots, turnips, potatoes, apples and pears that you have mentioned.

But this is peripheral to my main question, which I will re-post (seeing as it
is now Monday morning):

It occurred to me that there is some question about whether Hunter-Gatherers (in
Paleo times) ate lettuce, celery or other foods that we now call "salad" and
"vegetables".

I'm not sure it would even occur to H-Gs to even try to eat leaves or stems of
plants - especially since the first such attempts would indicate that these did
not sustain life.


--
Cheers,

Ken
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