Nobody wants a boiled or fried orange or grapefruit for breakfast.
Other fruits, such as apples, pears, peaches, plums, cherries, grapes,
and diverse berries are often cooked, in many ways; but when ripe,
sound and of good stock, they usually "taste" better raw than cooked.
We do not boil our melons, nuts, or radishes, nor, as a rule, our
celery and green-salad leaves of various kinds, or our cucumbers.
Tomatoes make an excellent stew, but they are better still sliced raw,
with vinegar and oil, and best of all eaten out of hand right off the
plant.
These things nearly everybody knows. Many, however, are not aware
that the best thing about a cabbage is the core, eaten raw, and that
carrots, turnips, and particularly peas, when young and tender, are
far better raw than cooked. Raw carrots taste a little like celery.
One of my chief delights when on a farm is to stroll about the garden
and orchard, sampling the various vegetables, berries, and fruits just
before breakfast.
A tolerable case might thus be made out for those faddists who preach
the gospel of raw food. Like all fads, it is nevertheless foolish. Were
we to accept it, we might still eat sun-dried meat, or ham, sausages,
and fish thoroughly smoked, but we would hardly care to eat raw bacon,
or veal, or mutton, or poultry, or beef (though a "beefsteak à la
Tartare" is edible when buried under diverse "trimmings" from the
delicatessen store). I should like to see a faddist eat a raw potato or
beet, or a plateful of raw pumpkin, squash, or beans!
Were we to live on raw foods altogether, we might survive to tell the
tale, but we should have to give up that infinite variety which is the
chief spice of our diet. At the same time one of the great arts of
civilization would vanish from the earth--an art which does as much to
distinguish us from animals as the fine arts do--more so, in fact, for
birds sing and beavers build houses, but no bird or other animal ever
cooks its food.