Chinese Spinach

This time of year the Asian farmers sell a leafy green with plenty of red and purple color as well. They call it Chinese spinach and also sometimes amaranth.

This has always intrigued me. I encountered amaranth as a grain when I worked in a natural food store in the 1980's. I was under the impression that it was indigenous to the Americas, and widely used by the Incas and Aztecs before European colonization. I figured there had to be some kiind of story as to how it came to be called "Chinese spinach," but I didn't hope to find it. After all, we barely understand how more common plants like corn and potatoes spread, although it's reasonably clear that, before 1492, nobody knew about them outside the Americas.

I did some cursory research, and learned that amaranth was mentioned in Aesop's fables, and was also used in the rites of the Ephesian god Artemis. Because these references preceded 1492, the plant must have been found in both hemispheres. That's not altogether unheard of--there were species of grapes evolving in both hemispheres--but it's really not very common. There are more than 60 species of amaranth, so different species must have evolved in different hemispheres. I'm on shaky ground here, speculating about something that I don't know much about. But, to paraphrase Socrates, another venerable Greek, I suppose I know more now knowing what I don't know, than I did when I thought I knew something I didn't actually know.