88 THE BOOK OF VEGETABLES 



placed in a pie-dish, covered with a grating of cheese, 

 and baked in the oven, a very pleasant dish is obtained. 

 In Cornwall and many other parts of England a 

 popular dish is that known as 



Leeky Broth. 



Take a medium-sized cabbage and two medium-sized 

 leeks and cut them into shreds. Place them in a stew- 

 pan together with two quarts of stock or haricot water, 

 a dessertspoonful of salt, and a saltspoonful of pepper. 

 Boil for two hours and serve unstrained. A few lentils 

 or haricots materially add to the nutritive value of thif 

 broth. 



Potatoes 



In that granary of interesting information, Canon 

 Ellacombe's " Plant Lore of Shakspere," two passages 

 are quoted from the plays as containing " almost the. 

 earliest notice of potatoes after their introduction into 

 England." As, however, Gerard knew potatoes only as 

 rareties, it is probable that Shakspere's references were 

 to the Sweet or Spanish Potatoes, which had for some 

 ■ time previously been cultivated in Spain and Portugal, 

 and imported thence into England. These latter are the 

 tubers of a member of Convolvulus family, whereas 

 the ordinary potato belongs to the Solanaceae, to which 

 also belong such powerfully poisonous plants as the 

 Deadly Nightshade and the Henbane. In the frontis- 

 piece to his "Herbal," published in 1597, Gerard 

 is figured with a potato in his hand. It occurs wild 

 in Chili, and its cultivation had spread to the neighbour- 

 ing parts of America long before the discovery of that 

 continent by Europeans. It was introduced into Europe 

 almost coincidentally by certain Spanish adventurers, 

 and by Sir Walter Raleigh, who took some roots to 



