Comments on: What would the innkeeper do?

By: elizabeth

elizabeth — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:47:50 +0000

Ummmmm….me, too. But I think (given the weather and what I’m doing tomorrow) I’ll opt for homemade chicken-tomato-barley soup with green chilis in it.

By: Jeff Jaje

Jeff Jaje — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:18:09 +0000

I don’t know about the innkeeper’s root vegetable problem, but I’m certain Paks would enjoy Lamb in a cream of mushroom soup. Or a mushroom/wine reduction as a sauce on some braised lamb.

I’m getting hungry now.

By: Matt P

Matt P — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:14:16 +0000

I’d suggest beets. Not really a taste or texture substitute for potatoes, but good in a stew or alone. And there is at least one golden cultivar that doesn’t turn everything red (and is a bit less sweet in my opinion).

Or Keith’s suggestion of chestnuts, above.

I have a diabetic friend that substitutes cauliflower or celeriac for potatoes. Dunno if either of those would be available… or how they’d work in your stew, for that matter.

By: elizabeth

elizabeth — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:26:24 +0000

Yes–those are the old folk names for potatoes and tomatoes. The problem is, they easily recall the modern common names.

By: kyta

kyta — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:56:40 +0000

When I make a spiced lamb stew, I normally don’t add tomatoes, but use reconstituted dried apricots and/or plums. A different sort of flavor, I suppose, more North African (fittingly), but it adds some of the pungency or fruit-like flavors, potentially? I also thought of quince for a starchy, but somewhat fruity addition to lamb stew; it’s another ingredient used in many Moroccan tagines.

By: elizabeth

elizabeth — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:24:09 +0000

Redroots are more a tuber, but not sweet like a sweet potato. Raw, they are “dry” and bitter. Definitely famine-food in the dry state.

By: Keith McCormic

Keith McCormic — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:20:17 +0000

I agree that turnips or parsnips would be the old-world analogs for potatoes, but they are definitely not the same thing taste-wise. As far as tomatoes, there are definitely some sour old-world foods that we don’t see much around here, like quince. Supposedly, both quince and chaenomeles (colder-climate quinces) turn red when stewed.

Of course, quinces would be much more citrusy and less sweet than tomatoes, but you could easily have a tree fruit of some kind fill the gap. Hmm… Is this an area with blackwood trees? You could have a variety of persimmon (“blackwood fruit”?) that isn’t quite as sweet and which is used more for flavoring stews than as a dessert food.

My suggestion for potatoes is to utilize a chestnut (most varieties taste like potatoes) or some kind of vinous or grassy groundnut-like plant (“pigroot”?). Either way, you could have the item be considered “famine food” in many areas.

This could easily be established by having the innkeeper say something like, “The stew’s okay, but I had to use pigroot because I ran out of turnips. I added some blackwood fruit to cover up the blandness.”

Oh, out of curiosity- are redroots a taproot like carrots or more of a tuber like sweet potatoes?

By: Victoria

Victoria — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:11:40 +0000

I’ve heard potatoes called “ground apples” before.

Another term for tomatoes is “love apple.”

By: Tina Black

Tina Black — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:23:42 +0000

My mom used to make the BEST Scotch broth with lamb, barley, carrots and turnip cubes to replace the potatoes. Try it!

By: elizabeth

elizabeth — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 04:23:07 +0000

Given the English/French antagonism, could be that the English went and found another name in order to avoid anyone thinking they’d merely translated the French…maybe?