24 JOHN GOODYER , 



' Where this plant groweth naturaHie I knovve not. In Anno 1617 

 I receaved two small rootes thereof from Master Franquevill of 

 London, no bigger then hens eggs, the one I planted, the other 

 I gave to a frend, mine brought me a peck of rootes, wherewith 

 I stored Hampsheire.' — MS. 11, f. 117 ; Ger. emac. 754. 



The friend is almost certainly William Coys, for whom 

 he afterwards wrote out a very long list of plants 

 (17 pages), with notes and references to the works of 

 Lobel and Gerard, and to their occurrence in the gardens 

 of Coys, Parkinson, and Franqueville. In this list after 

 the entry relating to the Artichoke ' Heliotropium indicum 

 vel virginianum ', he added the note, ' you had lately 

 planted it when I was at your house 25 Martii 161 7 '. 



Goodyer's quaint description of The Vertues of the 

 Artichoke have often been quoted : but it is a story that 

 does not lose in the repetition. 



' Theis rootes are dressed divers waies ; some boile them in 

 water, and after stewe them with sack and butter, addinge a little 

 Ginger : others bake them in pies, puttinge Marrow, Dates, Ginger, 

 Reasons of the Sunne, Sack, &c. Others some other way, as they 

 are led by their skill in Cookerie. But in my iudgement, which 

 way soever they be drest and eaten they stirre and cause a filthie 

 loathsome stinking winde within the bodie, thereby causing the 

 belly to bee pained and tormented, and are a meat more fit for 

 swine, than men : yet some say they have usually eaten them, and 

 have found no such windie qualitie in them.' — MS. 11, f. 117 ; Gcr. 

 emac. 754. 



But before making any attempt to account for the tastes 

 of past generations, it is necessary to know precisely both 

 how they prepared their food and how they arranged their 

 dietary. The transition from the age of beer to that of tea 

 and coffee must have profoundly modified the national 

 palate. And this is well illustrated by a very striking 

 instance of an acquired taste, quoted by Goodyer's con- 

 temporary Parkinson. Chocolate, he described as a drink 

 ' well pleasing and accepted with the greatest among the 

 Indians, who account nothingr of more esteeme ; but to the 

 Christians it seemeth a wash fitter for hogs, yet by use even 

 accepted by them also in the want of better '. 



