Do you ever think of spinach and not think of Popeye, the popular comic character (1929), movie cartoon star (1933) and TV cartoon celebrity (1960)? Popeye the Sailor Man and spinach are almost synonymous.

Spinach made its debut long before Elzie Segar, in his comic strip Thimble Theater, brought Popeye to the world. It has been consumed for thousands of years.

The first records of spinach can be traced to Persia sometime in the years 226 to 640 A.D. By 647, when it was introduced to China as a gift from the King of Nepal, it was referred to as the “Persian Green.” Spreading through Asia and Europe, it reached Italy by the 9th century; Spain by the 11th century.

Spinach was widely used in Mediterranean cooking by the 13th century. In the 16th century spinach became the favorite vegetable of Franco-Italian noblewoman Catherine de’ Medici, queen consort of France. When she left Italy to marry the King of France, she took her own cooks with her to prepare spinach the ...