The history of vegetables
Incredibly, the food on your plate has a story to tell. One man has dedicated his life to the study of vegetables and what they can tell us about the past
Ever met a food historian? I certainly hadn’t before I shook hands with William Woys Weaver. Driving to meet him, I couldn’t help wondering what a food historian would look like. I kept thinking of a rather intellectual looking fellow complete with tweed jacket, white beard and glasses; someone who spends their day and night studying the history of the things we delightfully scoff without further thought must be a little scholarly.
The reality was, not surprisingly, a little different. “Hey!” said Weaver with a distinct American twang, dressed casually in a bright orange shirt and jeans. Weaver is an organic gardener, world famous food historian, author and academic who has devoted almost 30 years of research to the origins of food and the traditional kitchen garden. He now lives in Pennsylvania, where he tends a 19th-century-style garden, featuring over 4,000 heirloom vegetables, flowers and herbs. He’s supplied seeds to some of the best-known historical gardens, including Monticello and the New York Botanical Gardens, and using only open-pollinated vegetables from his own collections, he’s even created a number of new varieties, including his special drought-resistant tomato and the Roughwood Golden Plum.
For all those curious to know more about what’s on their dinner plates, just pick up one of Weaver’s books and you’ll be amazed. What was the very first tomato ever grown? What’s the difference between a yam and a sweet potato? One of his most famous works, 100 Vegetables and Where they Came From, records the fascinating history of vegetables from around the world. Although more and more people are becoming vegetarian today, most don’t have a clue where vegetarians originate from or how many years they’ve been around. Weaver mixes history with culinary secrets and practical information, as he tells the stories of 100 vegetables.
Flicking through the pages of this intriguing book, I found out that mixed salads of lettuce and corn were often eaten to cool the heat of heartburn or to help increase the milk in nursing mothers in the 14th century. I read on to discover that peppers were infused with rum in Jamaica and used as a gargle to cure sore throats decades ago. In another one of his popular works, Heirloom Vegetable Gardening, Weaver gives gardening advice and old fashioned recipes with vegetables that have suddenly come back into ‘fashion’ as chefs and home cooks protest that flavour is missing from most of today’s mass-produced hybrids. Heirloom, better known as ‘heritage’ seeds in the UK, have a long and colourful history handed down over several generations and Weaver is determined to ensure that people become better acquainted with them.
So how exactly did his career as a food historian begin and how did he come up with the idea to dedicate his life to such a unique profession? “I’m glad you’re sitting down,” he said with a chuckle, “truth be told, I actually trained as an architect.” Weaver explained that in his first job he began restoring old, 18th century bake ovens. He soon found himself looking into how bread was made in the past and this spurred general research into food history. He said that the idea of a food historian was quite unheard of in the 1970s and he was one of the first historians of the type in the world to emerge. He then slowly began to meet people with similar interests and his career took off as curiosity on the subject was sparked internationally.
Weaver first visited Cyprus in 1996 due to an interest in the medieval food of the island and its connections with the rest of Europe. The more Weaver delved into the subject, the more he realised that Cyprus was a key conduit to the West for foods, wines and other aspects of the medieval lifestyle, even falconry. He went on to say that he now intends to write a book on the medieval food of the island. “There’s no book on the food of Cyprus for the world to read and I think it’s a great shame,” he added.
His recent monograph, The Royal Garden of Pefkou, forms part of his current research on the historic food of the island. The study of the medieval garden gives a glimpse into life in Cyprus during the Lusignan period, hoping readers will see the medieval world in a new light. Nothing remains of Pefkou today, even the site has been destroyed. The actual property was located to the southwest of Nicosia in the area of the city once contained within the original Byzantine walls.
Weaver claimed that the book is “full of juicy details,” and as I read through it I’m fascinated to find out about things about the food and diet of Cypriots over 500 years ago. Most intriguing was the way the fruits eaten by the aristocracy differed from the fruits eaten by the urban poor. While the poor ate melons, watermelons or wild fruits, the aristocracy only ate orchard food such as oranges, apples and carobs. During the golden age of the Lusignan Kingdom (1192-1374) the lavish eating habits of the upper classes in Cyprus provided a model for the rest of Europe as Cypriot cuisine was famed as ‘vyaunds de Chypre’.
But The Royal Garden of Pefkou is not the only work William has published about the food of our island. In the American Gastronomica magazine he recently chose to write about the origins of trachanas as he sees this food as a core dish of Cypriot identity. “It’s an ancient dish that’s at least 3,000 years old and what’s amazing is that it’s as common to eat it now as it was back then. The controversy about trachanas has been that it isn’t Greek in origin, and that it may have been brought to the island by the Turks. But I put an end to this controversy and declare trachanas is officially Greek.” Weaver has even published work on skordalia (garlic puree). Finding that skordalia kept coming up in medieval recipes, he chose to look into the subject further and soon discovered that it was an ‘upper class dish’ renowned for its high medical value. “They ate it not just because it was so tasty, but because it worked like homeopathic medicine and prevented people from getting sick. The way they made it and crushed it back then with a pestle was the healthiest way possible. The way many people prepare it in a blender and mix it with mashed potatoes today completely destroys its medical properties.”
Things have certainly changed in Cyprus with all the international chains and local fast food shops that have sprung up in recent years. But what does Weaver think of our food today. “Globalisation definitely changes everything,” he said. “You walk down town and there’s more international food than anything Cypriot. But a wander down to the local market on a Saturday proves that some people are still cooking with fresh local produce. That’s really reassuring.
“What really bothers me in the States is that they think that Cypriot food is the same as Greek food. When I first mentioned to a magazine back home that I wanted to write about the food of Cyprus they said they weren’t bothered with more publications on Greek cuisine. But that’s where I wanted to prove them wrong, Cypriot cuisine is completely different to anything else I’ve ever come across.
“I really wanted to show that it’s not Greek, but has a long tradition and connection with Syria and Lebanon,” he explained. “Traditional Cypriot cuisine is full of secrets from the past. You go up the mountains and you see some women making a dish that has been preserved throughout time and that really puts a smile on my face.”
During his visits to Cyprus, Weaver has visited houses in remote villages throughout the island. Finding old ladies in their kitchens, he talks to them about how they cook, the ingredients they use, and all their memories. “When I was in Agros two year
s back, I found a lady well into her nineties who knew how to make acorn bread. Making bread in this way is an extremely old tradition and she showed me how to do it. Things are changing fast and Cypriots need to start collecting and recording evidence from the older generation before it disappears,” he warned.
“Cyprus is also a botanical paradise. There’s so much biodiversity with so many different plants. What’s more, it seems totally untouched by other researchers,” he added. Weaver revealed that the oldest vegetable in continuous growth he has ever come across is actually the Cyprus bottle gourd, known here as a ‘kolodji’. The great headed leak is also one of the oldest vegetables in his collection, one that he picked in the Paphos mountains and took back to his garden, where it has grown over three metres tall in the rich Pennsylvania soil.
“I have a great number of heritage plants from Cyprus in my garden from louvana to very rare parsley,” Weaver said. He then pointed to his book, 100 Vegetables and Where They Came From, and flicked to page where he’s written about the Louvana Chickling Vetch from Cyprus. I soon find out that Chickling Vetch is not only an ancient food but also one of the most important ‘horta’, or wild greens, in the Mediterranean diet. Six thousand year old seeds have been excavated at a sight near Jarmo, Turkey, which may give some idea of how long people have been eating the legume in the Eastern Mediterranean. Just when it was brought to Cyprus is difficult to document, but it was definitely gathered from the wild and selectively cultivated since the days of Homer.
So what’s so special about heirloom vegetables with such a rich and long history?
Heirloom vegetables have been handed down from one generation to the next and Weaver explained that when he piles the fresh veggies from his garden onto his kitchen table, he’s reminded of the extraordinary culinary heritage we’ve received from the past. “Heritage plants were developed before sprays and chemicals took over. They are grown organically so it means you’re not getting a whole load of garbage in your food.” He paused for a moment before adding, “also, aside from health issues, there’s something called flavour, something food seems to seriously lack these days. In supermarkets today there’s a standardised approach to food. But the more standardised it is, the less tasty it becomes. They’ve traded great flavour for perfect shapes.”
Listening to Weaver talk I imagined my grandparents sitting round the table as they complain that food just ‘doesn’t taste like it used to.’ “Everybody thinks that tomatoes are red and they are meant to look bright and round. But they’re wrong, that’s just what they’ve been made to look like. Tomatoes are just like apples, they come in all sorts of colours and shapes,” Weaver said, pointing towards a bright yellow fruit with stripes. “That’s a tomato!” he exclaimed. “Oh yes, there’s small green tomatoes, striped tomatoes, spotted tomatoes, big yellow ones and white ones that look like ivory and taste like sweet fruit.” And, one of the oldest carrots grown in Cyprus in ancient times was in fact bright red, and used medically as a diuretic.
As Weaver enthused about heritage vegetables, he explained that each one has a history, with a story to tell. “Seeds are entire civilizations waiting to happen! One vegetable can tell you a story about an entire culture,” he exclaimed.
“Food is who we are. It’s a backward glance at who we were in the past, what we ate in the past, and why we did so,” he said. Never will a plate of food be quite the same again.
The origins of trachanas
When was trachana first made? Where does the name come from? Why has there been controversy over the origins of this dish? Weaver answers all these questions in his detailed article The Origins of Trachanas: Evidence from Cyprus and Ancient Texts.
“It is impossible to separate trachanas from Cypriot identity. Trachanas is a national dish. Every tourist cookbook, every fundraising cookbook, every Cypriot cookbook claiming to be authentic contains a recipe for trachanas… the porridge is prepared annually in large quantities and belongs to a family of traditional cereal foods well known in several parts of the eastern Mediterranean, even up to the Balkans. Yet because of variations in the spelling of the name and localised choices of ingredients, conflicting scholarly opinion has persisted over the origin and diffusion of both the term ‘trachanas’ and the porridge itself. I propose to bring some order to the published historical evidence after first focusing on Cypriot fieldwork which offers useful insights into the actual preparation of the dish,” it states.
According to legend, in AD 327 the people of Delos were moved to Cyprus by the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine. Tylliria, the remote area of Cyprus where these people settled, has retained its peculiar insular culture down to the present day, even to its distinctive ‘chalitjia’ cheese. The Tyllirians settled in what was then a thickly forested part of the island and turned to the production of charcoal as a livelihood. Many families, even until quite recently, owned no more than one goat, so the process of making cheese or trachanas had to be drawn out over the course of several milkings…
“When asked whether the word ‘trachanas’ itself has a meaning in Cypriot Greek, nearly every one of the informants thought it meant something rough or course, since they could point to local places called ‘trakhonas’. The existence of this cognate in Cypriot Greek dispels the myth that the root word derives from Turkish ‘tarhana,’” the paper says.
‘Trakhonas’ is a common Cypriot place name given to rough, stony terrain located on flat highlands or mesas. More important, the Turks did not seize Cyprus until 1570, yet this term is well attested in much older medieval Cypriot records.
Every Cypriot family has its own recipe for trachanas and no one makes it better than the oldest granny in the neighbourhood.
