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Friday 29 May 2015

Changes in the utilization of wild green vegetables in Poland since the 19th century: A comparison of four ethnobotanical surveys

Volume 128, Issue 2, 24 March 2010, Pages 395–404

Changes in the utilization of wild green vegetables in Poland since the 19th century: A comparison of four ethnobotanical surveys

 

Abstract

Aims of study

The aim of this paper is to compare the presence of wild green vegetables in four ethnobotanical questionnaires. This range of surveys offers a rich diachronic perspective, possibly unique in ethnobotany.

Materials and methods

Four archival questionnaires (by other researchers), whose results have been only partly published, were analyzed. They are Rostafiński's questionnaire of 1883–1909, the Gajek team's questionnaires of 1948–1949 and 1964–1969, and Stoličná and Kłodnicki's questionnaire of 2000–2003.

Results

Green shoots or leaves of least 58 species (belonging to 43 genera) of wild plants have been used as green vegetables or culinary herbs for nutritional purposes since the 19th century. The disappearance of wild green vegetables from the Polish diet was a gradual process, in which the sequence of disappearance of the species from diet was as follows: (1) Aegopodium & Heracleum, (2) Cirsium, Sinapis & Raphanus, (3) Urtica, (4) Chenopodium, (5) Oxalis, (6) Rumex. In Poland, within the studied time scale, there was no tradition of incorporating more than a few species of wild greens in one dish. Local people usually utilized a small number of taxa, but in large quantities, resorting to some other available species only in times of famine.

Conclusions

The relatively low number of wild green vegetables utilized has gradually decreased to practically none, mainly due to replacement by a few cultivated vegetables. This process must have started well before the 19th century, but became most dramatic throughout the 20th century.

Graphical abstract

The aim of this paper is to compare the presence of wild green vegetables in four ethnobotanical questionnaires from 1883, 1948, 1964 and 2000, carried out in Poland. This range of surveys offers a rich diachronic perspective, possibly unique in ethnobotany. The use of 58 species was recorded but these were mainly famine plants. Very few species were used per locality, even in the 19th century. Wild green vegetables have been gradually disappearing from Polish folk cuisine for the last few hundred years. The sequence of disappearance is as follows: (1) Aegopodium & Heracleum, (2) Sinapis, Raphanus, Cirsium, (3) Urtica, (4) Chenopodium, (5) Oxalis, (6) Rumex.
Full-size image (4 K)

Keywords

  • Wild food plants;
  • Wild edible plants;
  • Historical ethnobotany;
  • Leaves in nutrition

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