Jack Staub - Alluring Lettuces: And Other Seductive Vegetables for Your Garden

Following their introduction into Europe, amaranths were thought to be of such sacred signicance that, in 1693, Queen Christina of Sweden founded the mystical Order of the Amaranth, which survives to this day as the highest order of the Eastern Star Chapter of North American Masons, Americas largest Masonic womens organization.

Amaranths are ancient tropical plants of diverse and surprising beauty, and are believed to have originated in India, although they have been grown throughout Mexico and South America since at least the third millennium B.C. A relative of common Lambs Quarters as well as the Garden Cockscomb, there are about sixty species of amaranth, grown either for their tassel-like seed heads, which are ground as a grain, or for their edible leaves, which are used as a potherb. Amaranths found their way into Greece very early on as well, the Greeks believing them to be immortal, and both this fascinating plants botanical and common names nd their root in the Greek amarantos, meaning never-fading. We also know that Artemis of Esephus, the many-breasted Greek earth goddess, regarded them as sacred.

The Aztec emperor Montezuma held the amaranth in such high regard that he demanded 200,000 bushels of seed a year of it in tribute from his subjects, and in the Aztec culture, the amaranth was mystically associated with human sacrice. This practice apparently appalled the conquistadores, who were fairly appalling themselves if stones are to be thrown and, consequently, further cultivation of amaranth in the former Aztec nation was forbidden, causing amaranth as a food crop to fall into obscurity on the American continent for hundreds of years. On other continents, however, amaranth continued to be a vegetable of great importance, particularly in the tropics of Africa and Asia, and today is under extensive cultivation in China, India, Africa, and Europe, as well as in North and South America.

In 1786, when he was ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson included the Josephs Coat variety of amaranth in a shipment of interesting seeds to his brother-in-law Francis Eppes, in Virginia. A variety grown for its edible leaves, Josephs Coat is perhaps the most striking of amaranths and will certainly deliver a spectacular jolt of color to any vegetable garden. Its name, of course, derives from the Genesis 37 tale of Josephs coat of many colors, which his brothers stained red with blood in order to make his father believe he was dead. As gaudy as a coleus, with which it is often confused, Josephs Coat boasts almost supernaturally brilliant cadmium yellow and carmine foliage on plants growing to 4 feet, the whole carnival of it topped with scarlet-plumed seed heads. This, in fact, is a plant so brazenly decorative, one is tempted to consider it far too exotically beautiful to be edible.

Being a true tropical trooper, Josephs Coat not only likes things hot but is incredibly heat, drought, and soil tolerant as well when planted in a warm, well-lit spot. Therefore, direct sow Josephs Coat seeds after last frost in a sunny (and visually prominent) place in your garden, thinning to 3 feet apart. The leaves, rich in vitamins A and C, calcium and iron, and tasting much like spinach, can be employed culinarily in much the same way as spinach, although, like many living things, they are best eaten when young. Additionally, because they will fade when cooked, why not try the tiniest leaves in a summer salad mix, where they will add an eye-catching note of color. Leave the rest to startle the eye in the garden.

Amaranth Josephs Coat

In Scotland in the nineteenth century, artichokes were so highly valued that it was thought only prosperous men should have the right to grow them and that it would be impertinent for a lesser man to even attempt such a folly.

The artichoke is actually the edible ower bud of a large, thistlelike plant of the sunower family that is native to the Mediterranean and Near East, its common name coming to us from the Arabic al kharshuf. The Moroccan invaders brought the artichoke to Spain in the ninth or tenth century, whence it became alcahofa, the Italians subsequently turning it to carciofa. The Romans were fond of having artichokes imported from Carthage and Cordova for their banquets, and thought the plants spines looked like the teeth of Cynara, the dog of mythological tales, thus this cultivars Latin sobriquet Cynara scolymus.

In the rst century A.D., the Roman naturalist Pliny noted, though not with great pleasure, that in his time the artichoke was held in higher esteem than any other potherb in Rome, further commenting that even donkeys were smart enough to refuse to eat them. Introduced into England in 1548, an amusing piece of Elizabethan folklore held that the artichoke was created when an ill-tempered beauty angered the gods and was transformed by them into a prickly thistle, a form more suitable to her personality. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the German poet Goethe was, like Pliny, apparently appalled by the continental taste for artichokes, exclaiming incredulously in his