“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso

One of my favorite food information sites is available again - The Food Timeline (scroll down a bit to view the timeline). Today's diary would have been much longer if time had not been spent jumping from link to link.

A couple vegetables I use fairly frequently have a long history in kitchens.

Celery
"Celery and Celery Root...A member of the parsley family, and native to the Mediterranean region and the Middle East, wild celery...was one of the first vegetables to appear in recorded history. From the writings of Confucius, we know that celery (probably wild) was in use in China before 500 B.C. The ancient Egyptians gathered the plant for its seeds--used as seasoning--as well as for its stalks and leaves, whereas in ancient Greece celery had a medicinal as well as a culinary reputation. Two types of celery have subsequently been developed. One is the so-called true celery (Apium graveolens var. Dulce), with green or blanched stems that are eaten raw, sliced into salads, and cooked as a vegetable, and the seeds of which are still used as seasoning. The most common variety is the medium-green Pascal celery, which was first cultivated in Italy and, by the seventeenth century, in France...The other type of celery (Apium graveolens var. Rapaceum), cultivated for its starch-storing root rather than for stalks, is commonly called celery root or celeriac."
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Orenlas [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000, Volmue Two (p. 1748-9)

"Celery, garden plant related to parsley, now usually grown for it s stem. Ancient varieties of celery were of the strongly aromatic, bitter tube now called smallage or leaf celery rather than the more familiar modern kind with juicy, blanched stem. Celery was, however, used as now as an hors d'oeuvre (Apicius 4.5.1) and its seed was used as a culinary flavouring. Its use in aromatic wreaths is far more prominent in the texts; a wreath of celery was the victor's prize at the Nemean Games."
---Food in the Ancient World From A to Z, Andrew Dalby [Routledge:London] 2003 (p. 77)

Broccoli
Broccoli has a long, interesting and of times confusing history. This vegetable is a member of the Brassica family and is related to cabbage and cauliflower, which were often used in ancient recipes. Food historians generally date brassicia back to about 6000BC. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded references to broccoli in English appear in Evelyn's Aceteria, 1699.

Broccoli. A member of the mustard family, and doubtless a descendant of the wild cabbate...broccoli...began as a wild-growing native of the Mediterranean region. Like all cabbages, broccoli was originally eaten for its stems, with the flowering heads a later development. Although broccoli is believed to be the forerunner of cauliflower-a vegetable known in Europe by the sixteenth century-it trailed behind cauliflower by about a century in culinary usage, save perhaps in Italy. The Italians claim broccoli as their own: The name comes from the Italian brocco, meaning sprout' or shoot' which , in turn came from the Latin brachium, meaning 'arm' or 'branch'-a succinct description of this plant with its many thick and fleshy stalks. Broccoli was introduced into England (where the term 'broccoli' refers to cauliflower) around 1720 and was probably brought to North America soon thereafter..."
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] Vol. Two (p. 1738)

My old range bit the dust (died). New one installed this week. Reminded me how reliant I am on sounds and smells for making adjustments to cooking times and heat.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5RblQ3OCfM]

Army would call this Situational Awareness. The next step intensify the language and pay for a training program.

According to a new report by Brett Tingley in The War Zone, the US Army is attempting the impossible.

It has published a new training circular that contains a section on how soldiers can train their senses to new levels of awareness, enabling them to almost unconsciously perceive small details about their surroundings in a near-superhuman manner.

What is on your mind today?