KITCHEN VEGETABLES.

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rafter laying dormant for many years, it was again cultivatedunder a different appellation, and lias been recommendedto supplant the very savory spinage. Bock, we understand,alleges, that the former was transplanted by the monks, in themiddle ages, from the woods into gardens, to which, inGermany , it hath been brought back, under the imposingappellation of English spinage.

Before the commencement of the Christian era, whenthe enjoyments of sense were under less restraint, norshackled by religious and political principles, many vegeta-bles, as well as other dishes, were used for various purposesand highly recommended by writers on cookery and horti-culture, as well as by their poets and most elegant authors,which none but physicians may even now speak of withoutincurring the charge of indelicacy, their properties beinganciently well known, but from their being disused, theirnames, which appear in former writers, are alone remem-bered.

To this principle of Christian refinement, we have toattribute' our ignorance respecting numerous receipts inApicius, now no longer to be comprehended even by ableinterpreters, because their utility is forgotten. Of thiskind, are our numerous bulbous roots \(bitlbi,) which formedthe most favourite dishes of ancient Athens and Rome,which few can now be found who can discriminate to whatclass of the vegetable kingdom they belonged. However,it does not appear that those rare productions were aban-doned because better ones appeared, but the occasion is tobe ascribed to the principle before named. The Americanvanilla, perhaps owes its present use with chocolate to itshigh price, but it certainly does not supply the place ofthe ancient Megarean bulbs.

Spargite, quttque virus acuunt, armantque puellis,

Jam Megaris veniant genitalia semina bulbi ;

Et qua sicca legit Gctulis obruta glebis,

Et qua frugifero seritur vicina 1‘riapo,

Excitet ut leneri tardos eruca maritos.

Columella, x. 105.

Among kitchen vegetables, formerly cultivated, at pre-sent not esteemed, may be reckoned the following: wintercresses, before spoken of, called in the west of England,swine cresses ; named by Kerner, erysimum, barbarea, usuallyeaten whilst young as salad ; also common Alexanders, theSmyrnium olosatrum of Kerner, which in the seventeenthcentury was used as we now use celery ; bulbous chaero-phyllum, the charophyllum bidbosum of Kerner, the roots