William Rubel is talking about how a French garden manual, translated into English by my hero John Evelyn, is the first really useful gardening book, and is still relevant. If you were to bring together the cookbook literature, the herb books, and the gardening books of the 18th century you would find described the golden age of vegetable gardening and cooking. “The lettuce had a poetic space around it,” and this is increasingly relevant as we move to local, fresh sourcing and eating.
Andrew Marvell’s The Garden is perfection.
What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons as I pass,
Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
We tend the garden, “and the poetry of Eden was on the plate, of everyone who at a vegetable”. The English way of cooking was green and tender, and the French way was green and crisp.
The French intensive system of raised beds was not invented in France. What the French added was an unlimited amount of fermented manure, and hot beds. “The French remade the world, they were masters of the seasons, they had asparagus in November.”
“If you were a certain kind of snob, you would serve asparagus in November, but if you were interested in taste, you would serve frost-kissed broccoli.”