
An Archaeobotanist Searching Art for Lost Fruit - headalgorithm
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/fruit-in-renaissance-art
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pvaldes
> found that the pear in Albrecht Dürer’s “Madonna and child with the pear” is
> actually an apple.

An apple that quince? :-)

Look at the blue flower in the hand of the child...

She need to look at the picture in its own cultural and symbolic context.
Quince, or pear quince, is a fruit associated with fertility

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ginko
Yeah, came to mention that that looks more like a quince.

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montroser
I've often thought while eating avocados or dates or olives, how different it
would be if they didn't exist. There are some fruits that are so uniquely
distinct.

And then I wonder how much we're missing out on fruits lost long ago. Like,
what if there could have been something else so wonderful as an avocado, in
its completely own other way?

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soperj
Or fruits that still exist that we don't really know about. There are 3800
different types of potatoes in Peru apparently. Why can we only get like 7?

Also, seems like Asian countries all have their distinct version of
aspergillus oryzae that they've domesticated, how many others are there
waiting out there to dramatically change the taste of food.

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nkurz
> There are 3800 different types of potatoes in Peru apparently. Why can we
> only get like 7?

If you are willing to grow you own, the Kenosha Potato Project gives sources
for a few hundred:
[http://www.curzio.com/N/PotatoCatalog.htm](http://www.curzio.com/N/PotatoCatalog.htm)

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soperj
v. cool. thanks!

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webwielder2
Considering the human grotesqueries on display in early Renaissance paintings,
I’d be wary about fruit being rendered accurately.

