Wild edible plants of Belarus: from Rostafiński’s questionnaire of 1883 to the present
1
Institute of Applied Biotechnology and Basic Sciences, Department of
Botany and Biotechnology of Economic Plants, University of Rzeszów,
Werynia 502, 36-100 Kolbuszowa, Poland
2 Institute of Botany, The Jagiellonian University, ul. Kopernika 27,31-501 Kraków, Poland
3 Department of Botany, Institute of Biology, University of Białystok, ul. Świerkowa 20B, 15-950 Białystok, Poland
4 Herbarium of the Institute of Botany of the University of Warsaw, University of Warsaw, Al. Ujazdowskie 4, 00-478 Warszawa, Poland
5 University of Gastronomic Sciences, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele 9, I-12060 Bra/Pollenzo, Cuneo, Italy
2 Institute of Botany, The Jagiellonian University, ul. Kopernika 27,31-501 Kraków, Poland
3 Department of Botany, Institute of Biology, University of Białystok, ul. Świerkowa 20B, 15-950 Białystok, Poland
4 Herbarium of the Institute of Botany of the University of Warsaw, University of Warsaw, Al. Ujazdowskie 4, 00-478 Warszawa, Poland
5 University of Gastronomic Sciences, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele 9, I-12060 Bra/Pollenzo, Cuneo, Italy
Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 2013, 9:21
doi:10.1186/1746-4269-9-21
The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.ethnobiomed.com/content/9/1/21
The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.ethnobiomed.com/content/9/1/21
| Received: | 13 February 2013 |
| Accepted: | 16 March 2013 |
| Published: | 4 April 2013 |
© 2013 Łuczaj et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background
Belarus is an Eastern European country, which has been little studied ethnobotanically.
The aim of the study was to compare largely unpublished 19th century sources with
more contemporary data on the use of wild food plants.
Methods
The information on 19th century uses is based on twelve, mainly unpublished, responses
to Józef Rostafiński’s questionnaire from 1883, and the newly discovered materials
of the ethnographer Michał Federowski, who structured his data according to Rostafiński’s
questionnaire and documented it with voucher specimens. Rostafiński’s questionnaire
was concerned mainly with Polish territories, but for historical reasons this also
encompassed a large part of Belarus, and we analyzed only the twelve responses (out
of the few hundred Rostafiński obtained), which concerned the present Belarus. These
data were compared with a few 20th century ethnographic sources, and our own 40 interviews
and questionnaires from Belarus.
Results and discussion
58 taxa of wild food plants used in the 19th century were identified. Some of them
are still used in modern Belarus, others are probably completely forgotten. In the
19th century several species of wild greens were widely used for making soups. Apart
from Rumex, other wild greens are now either forgotten or rarely used. The list of species used
in the 20th and 21st century encompasses 67 taxa. Nearly half of them were mentioned
by Rostafiński’s respondents. The list of fruit species has not changed much, although
in the 19th century fruits were mainly eaten raw, or with dairy or floury dishes,
and now apart from being eaten raw, they are incorporated in sweet dishes like jams
or cakes. Modern comparative data also contain several alien species, some of which
have escaped from cultivation and are gathered from a semi-wild state, as well as
children's snacks, which were probably collected in the 19th century but were not
recorded back then.
Conclusion
The responses to Rostafiński from 1883 present extremely valuable historical material
as the use of wild food plants in Belarus has since undergone drastic changes, similar
to those, which have taken place in other Eastern European countries.
