HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



265 



HISTORY OF OUR CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



No.'XIV.-THE ARTICHOKE {CYNARA). 



^ HIS singular, but 

 p, handsome vege- 

 table, is nearly 

 allied to the car- 

 duns, or thistle, 

 and is a native 

 of some of the 

 warmer parts 

 of the temperate zone; it is 

 also considered to be indige- 

 nous to the countries which 

 bound the Mediterranean, as 

 well as the islands which are 

 situated in that sea. It is 

 almost impossible to trace when 

 this vegetable was first used 

 as food, but Dioscorides men- 

 tions it more than half a cen- 

 tury before the Christian era. 

 Two Greek authors, of an early 

 date, recommended mothers desirous of having male 

 children to partake freely of this vegetable. Both 

 Greeks and Romans appear to have procured this 

 plant from the coast of Africa, about Carthage, and 

 also from Sicily. This vegetable is said by Pliny 

 to have been more esteemed and to have obtained 

 a higher price than any other garden herb. He 

 was ashamed to rank it among the choice plants of 

 the garden, being, in fact, no other than a thistle. 

 He states that the thistles about Carthage and 

 Corduba especially, cost the Romans annually 

 6,000,000 sesterces, about £30,000 sterling; and 

 concludes by censuring the vanity and prodigality 

 of his countrymen in serving up such things at table 

 as the very asses and other beasts refuse, for fear of 

 pricking their lips. We are also informed by the 

 same author that the commoners of Rome were 

 prohibited by an arbitrary law from eating this vege- 

 table. The Romans used to preserve the artichoke 

 in honey and vinegar, and season it with the root 

 of laserwort (Laserpitium glabrum) and cumin 

 (Cumitmm cyminum), by which means they were to 

 No. 132. 



be had every day in the year. The juice of the 

 artichoke, pressed out before it blossomed, was 

 used by the ancients to restore the hair of the head, 

 even when it was quite bald. They also ate the 

 root of this plant (as well as that of the thistle) 

 sodden with water, to enable them to drink to 

 excess, as they excited a desire for liquor. Colu- 

 mella notices the same quality in the artichoke, but 

 intimates that it injures the voice, — 



*' Let the prickly artichoke 

 Be planted, which to Bacchus, when he drinks 

 Is grateful; not to Phoebus, when he sings." 



Pliny tells us that these thistles are grown in two 

 different ways, from plants set in the autumn, and 

 from seed sown before the Nones of March (7th) 

 in which case they are transplanted before the Ides 

 of November (13th), or, where the site is a cold one, 

 about the time when the west wind prevails. They 

 " are sometimes even manured, and, if such is the 

 will of Heaven, grow all the better for it." 



Bechmanu, in his " History of Inventions," made 

 very laborious researches to ascertain the positive 

 antiquity of the artichoke, and these discussions arc- 

 both curious and interesting. We find the first 

 mention of this vegetable, iu more modern times, 

 about the fifteenth century, when it was introduced 

 into Italy from the Levant, and considered as a new 

 species of food. In 1466 one of the Strozzi family 

 brought the first artichokes from Florence to 

 Naples. A commentator of Dioscorides, Hermo- 

 leus Barbarus, who died in 1494, relates that this 

 vegetable was first seen in the Venice garden in 

 1473, at which time it was very scarce. It was 

 introduced into Prance at the beginning of the six- 

 teenth century ; and not many years after, during 

 the reign of Henry VIII., was first transplanted 

 into our gardens. In the Privy Purse expenses of 

 this king we find several entries regarding arti- 

 chokes. Thus, — "Paied to a servant of maister 

 Tresorer in rewarde for bringing Archecokks to the 

 king's grace to Yorke-place, iiijs. iiijd." A treatise, 

 written in the reign of Mary, on the " best settynge 



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