Various authors however mention the cultivation of the Common Mallow in gardens. See Virgil, Moretum, 73. Pliny, Hist. Nat. l. xix. c. 22 and 31. Isidori Orig. l. xvii. c. 10. Papiæ Vocabular. v. Malva. Geoponica, xii. l. Palladuis, iii. 24. xi. ll.
Dioscorides (l. ii. c. III.) calls it the Garden Mallow. Aristophanes (Plutus 544.) mentions eating the shoots of mallows instead of bread, intending by this to represent a vile and destitute kind of living. Plutarch (Septem Sapientum Convivium) says, “The mallow is good for food, and the Anthericus is sweet.” According to Le Clerc ὁ ἀνθέρικος (Anthericus) means the scapus of the asphodel: if he is right, this plant was eaten as we now eat asparagus. It is also remarkable that on this supposition Plutarch mentions the same two plants, which are also mentioned together by Hesiod.
According to Theophrastus (Hist. Plant. vii. 7. 2.) the mallow was not eaten raw, as in a salad, but required to be cooked. Cicero (Epist. ad Fam. vii. 26.) mentions the highly-seasoned vegetables at a dinner given by his friend Lentulus. Having been made ill by them, he says, that he, “who easily abstained from oysters and lampreys, had been deceived by beet and mallows.” Probably the leaves of the mallow were on this occasion boiled, chopped, and seasoned, much in the same way as spinach is now prepared in France.
Moschus in the following well-known lines refers to the common mallow together with other culinary vegetables:
Αἲ, αἲ, ταὶ μαλάχαι μὲν, ἐπὰν κατὰ κᾶπον ὄλωνται,
Ἠδὲ τὰ χλωρὰ σέλινα, τό τ’ εὐθαλὲς οὖλον ἄνηθον,
Ὕστερον αὖ ζώοντι, καὶ εἰς ἔτος ἄλλο φυόντι.
Mallows, alas! die down, and parsley, and flourishing fennel;
Then they spring up afresh, and live next year in the garden.
This is accurately true of the common mallow, the root of which is perennial, so that the stems grow up and die down again every year. Accordingly Theophrastus brings it as an example of a plant with annual stems[191].