GREEN VEGETABLES. 45 



century B.C.) that " the head of Scolymus is most pleasant, being 

 boyled or eaten raw, but chiefly when it is in flower, as also the inner 

 substance of the heads is eaten." 



Tournefort (1730) says: "The Artichoak is well known at the 

 table. What we call the bottom is the thalamus on which the embryos 

 of the seeds are placed. The leaves are the scales of the empalement. 

 The Choak is the florets, with a chaffy substance intermixt. The 

 French and Germans boil the heads as we do, but the Italians generally 

 eat them raw with salt, oil, and pepper." 



This author seems to refer to the " scales " as being eaten as well 

 as the " bottom," but does not say when the former were first used, 

 though the word " choak," or, as we would quote it, "choke," is 

 appropriate for the pappus, or " chaffy substance," but the name 

 "Artichoke " is really a corruption of the Italian Articiocco, itself a 

 corruption of the Arabic Al harshaf. 



The " receptacle " has a delicate flavour, but contains little nutritive 

 matter. 



CELERY AND CELERIAC. 



Celery in ancient times was regarded as a kind of parsley, under the 

 name Paludapium, i.e. " Marsh Parsley," being a more or less aquatic 

 plant. The Latin name selinon, adopted from the Greek, is mentioned 

 by Lucius Appuleius (163 A.D.). This gave rise to the Piedmontese 

 Italian seleri, and thence to the English words. 



In the Middle Ages it was called Merche and Smallage, but Apium 

 by the apothecaries and herbalists, being much used in medicine. In 

 the Eastern parts bordering the Mediterranean the foliage is used for 

 flavouring, as in Malta, Italy, and the Levant, but never blanched. 

 Lfc was only used medicinally in the sixteenth century; for Gerard says : 

 ' This is not woonted to be eaten, neither is it counted good for sauce." 



Parkinson (1640) observes: " It is not to be endured to be eaten 

 alone, but, being boyled and otherwise dressed, it favoureth better." 

 But he seems only to signify its use as a drug, and not as food. It 

 appears to have been first blanched about 1670; for Sharrock in his 

 book on vegetables devotes a section to the " Blanching or Whiting of 

 Sallad Herbs," such as the succories, &c. ; he does not specify the 

 celery; but Salmon in his "English Physician " (1693) writing on 

 the virtues of Apium palustre, says: " It is either of the marsh, called 

 by the common name Smallage, or of the garden (made white and 

 crisp by laying earth upon it), called Sallary, as being used for a 

 salet-herb." In Wheeler's " Botanists' and Gardeners' Dictionary " 

 (1758) it is said: "A variety of it, called the Smallage, is seldom 

 cultivated in gardens. But there are two sorts found in the gardens, 

 distinguished by the names of the Italian Celleri and the Celleriac." 



Miller, in his " Gardeners' Dictionary " (1771), says: " The fourth 

 sort is commonly known by the title of Smallage. This is what the 

 physicians intend when they prescribe Apium. This plant grows natu- 

 rally by the sides of brooks and ditches in many parts of England, 

 so is rarely cultivated in gardens." He then describes the fifth sort 



