Food History

I’m sorry there was no post yesterday. I wasn’t good for much, because I got hit by a whacking great migraine. I made a nuisance of myself at a meeting then went home and was useless.

Uselessness always gets me thinking, though, so not all is lost. And if the migraine behaves I might do you a second post (with some recipes) to make up.

The first thing I thought about is that I have a ton of Christmas posts for all of you brave souls who put up with Chanukah. I was going to post them on the 12 days of Christmas, but that really doesn’t give you much chance to play with them for your Christmas dinner. Maybe I should start later today then, and you can create timely historical fare throughout your festive season. That sounds like a good idea. Your second post today will be Christmas food from an historical cookbook.

This isn’t what the migraine made me think about, though. The migraine made me think of Medieval medicine. A whole branch of treatment in the Middle Ages was taking appropriate food for your body, to balance the humours and diminish the symptoms. I always explain it in class as “Feed someone cucumbers (which are cold and wet) if they have a raging fever and their body is dry”. This is oversimplification, of course, but you can see the remnants of the system in many herbals.

Naturally, cucumber isn’t a part of Nicholas Culpepper’s English Physitian (1652), since cucmber is a vegtable and Culpepper was mainly writing abut herbs. Culpepper’s medical system (and Nostradamus’, for that matter) leaned very heavily on the systems of the Middle Ages, so I intend to use him as an example.

Lettuce is in Culpepper and it’s also a cold and wet vegetable. I particularly like the quality it has in repressing lustful dreams. I wonder how lettuce works applied to the remnants of a migraine? If migraines are hot and dry, I could maybe eat salads for lunch whenever I have one! OK, so that was a simplification again, but such a tempting one.

“The Juyce of Lettice mixed or boyled with Oyl of Roses, and applied to the Forehead and Temples procureth Sleep, and easeth the Headach proceeding of an hot caus; being eaten boyled, it helpeth to loosen the Belly. It helpeth digestion, quencheth thirst, encreaseth Milk in Nurses, easeth griping pains of the Stomach or Bowels, that come of Choller. It abateth Bodily lust, represseth Venerous Dreams, being outwardly applied to the Cods with a little Camphire: Applied in the same manner to the Region of the Heart, Liver or Reins, or by bathing the said place with the Juyce or distilled Water, wherein some white Sanders and red Roses are put also, it not only represseth the heat and Inflamation therein, but comforts and strengthens those parts, and also tempereth the heat of Urine. Galen adviseth old men to use it with Spices, and where Spices are wanting to ad Mints, Rocket and such like hot Herbs, or els Citron, Lemmon, or Orange Seeds, to abate the cold of one, and heat of the other. The Seed and distilled Water of the Lettice work the like effects in al things: but the use of Lettice is chiefly forbidden to those that are short winded, or have any imperfection in their Lungs, or spit Blood.
The Moon owns them, and that’s the reason they cool and moisten what heat and driness Mars causeth, because Mars hath his fall in Cancer, and they cool the Heart, becaus the Sun rules it, between whom and the Moon is a Reception in the Generation of Man, as you may see in my Guide for Women.”