John Evelyn

"to health and long life, and the wholesomeness of the herby-diet"

John Evelyn (the 17th century diarist and writer) came to my attention during the excellent programme 'Supersizers' currently showing on BBC2. If you are interested in food please watch it... it is a delight... it is informative and it is funny.

Back to Evelyn.... I was interested that in a time of meat excess this man should promote the eating of healthy salads. Many of the time thought salads indigestible. It is horrifying to think that those wealthy enough to enjoy good food totally neglected the vegetables and salads. No wonder they were all constipated and diseased. John Evelyn was one of the first to link diet to health, promoting the eating of salad leaves. His book Acetaria catalogues seventy-three possible salad ingredients including plants like samphire, rocket, sorrel and nasturtium that have only recently come back into vogue (I am sure that there would have been many of the poor that survived on the wild food available - it is just lost to us now).

There is a great article on John Evelyn at - http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/lane/kal69/shop/pages/isbn653.htm


I especially enjoyed the quote about mushrooms - "rank and provocative excresences" that needed to be boiled for at least an hour "to exhaust the malignity".