Historians are usually so deeply interested in all the petty details
of politics that such trifles as the food which keeps us alive gets
no attention at all. Macaulay was a laudable exception. Another is
Macmaster. In the first volume of his "History of the People of the
United States" he remarks that a century ago tomatoes, cauliflower,
and eggplants were not to be found at the corner grocery; oranges
and bananas were a luxury of the rich; and there were no cultivated
varieties of strawberries or raspberries. Of apples and pears there
were plenty, but "none of those exquisite varieties, the result of long
and assiduous nursing, grafting, and transplanting, which are now to
be had of every greengrocer."
In Boston, at that time, "beef and pork, salt fish, dried apples and
vegetables, made up the daily fare from one year's end to another."
"The wretched fox grape was the only kind that found its way to
the market, and was the luxury of the rich." "Among the fruits and
vegetables of which no one had then even heard are cantaloupes, many
varieties of peaches and pears, tomatoes and rhubarb, sweet corn, the
cauliflower, the eggplant, head lettuce and okra."
To-day, how different the situation! In the catalogues of the seedsmen
more than fifty kinds of vegetables are listed, and of each kind a
dozen, or several dozen, distinct varieties are offered for sale. Yet
these varieties represent only a very small proportion of the vast
number that have been created.
In his instructive book on Plant Breeding, L. H. Bailey has a chapter
on one of the most deserving of American originators of new varieties
of vegetables, N. B. Keeney, of Leroy, New York. Mr. Keeney was at one
time raising sixty-five varieties of garden peas and sixty-nine of
beans, thirteen of the latter of his own originating, including the
stringless kinds which have been introduced throughout the country by
Mr. Burpee, and which are one of America's greatest achievements in
plant development. The Professor was told by Mr. Keeney that fully
three thousand varieties and forms of beans had been discarded by him
as profitless!
In the same volume Professor Bailey informs us that the date of the
first fruit book is 1817. "In 1845, nearly two hundred varieties of
apples were described as having been fruited in this country, of which
over half were of American origin." In 1872 the number of varieties
described was 1823, and in 1892 American nurserymen offered for sale
878 varieties of apples.
Among the vegetables which have been varied and improved by American
breeders are the squashes, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, rhubarb, celery,
corn, lettuce, tomatoes, watermelons, cantaloupes, cucumbers, potatoes,
and eggplants.
One vegetable, Brussels sprouts, has not been improved but greatly
impaired by some man (whether an American or a European I do not know)
who crossed it with cabbage, making the sprouts larger but less finely
flavored and also less digestible.
As I wrote of tomatoes, which are of American origin, in the chapters
on France and Italy I have only a few words to add.
It is an odd fact that although we can claim this succulent vegetable
as one of the New World blessings, it was in the Old World, in the
Mediterranean countries that its gastronomic value was first fully
realized. In the United States, as in England and Germany, there seems
to have been a prejudice against it because of its belonging to the
same family as the deadly nightshade.
Much ingenuity has been expended in creating new varieties and
prolonging the season. It is a most unfortunate circumstance that some
of our most important vegetables are killed by the slightest frost.
This is true of squashes, pumpkins, potatoes, beans, cucumbers, melons,
and tomatoes. Knowing that Luther Burbank had succeeded in making
apple-blossoms frost-proof, I once asked him to please do the same
for tomatoes. He shook his head and replied that that was beyond his
powers, because of their semi-tropic origin and habits.
Yellow tomatoes are not so much used (except for preserves) as they
deserve to be. They have a very fine Flavor of their own. In regard to
red varieties, it may be well to warn the breeders not to go too far in
their efforts to create "beefsteak" varieties by reducing the seed pulp
to a minimum. It is in that pulp that the richest Flavor is found, and
the seeds do not appear to be indigestible.
Like the tomatoes, celery belongs to a family of poisonous plants and
was also for a long time considered poisonous, which is doubtless the
reason why it is only within comparatively recent years that it has
come so much into demand. To-day it is raised all the way from Florida
to Michigan, where it flourishes, particularly in the muck-bed area.
Celery is not indigenous to our soil. It has been used in Europe
for centuries, but in the kitchen rather than as an ornament of the
dining-room. In Italy, France, Germany, it is treated as a pot-herb,
for flavoring stews and soups, the unbleached plant being preferred
because of its more powerful Flavor; but all celery tops and leaves are
useful for this purpose; they certainly do much to give zest to soups
and stews.
So far as known England was the first country to appreciate the
charm of blanched celery. In a book called "The New World of Words,"
published by a nephew of Milton in 1678, we read that "Sellerie is an
herb which, nursed up in a hot-bed and afterwards transplanted into
rich ground, is usually whited for an excellent winter sallad."
We also use it to some extent as a salad, but it needs no vinegar for
pungency, and most of us prefer to eat the stalks plain, _cum grano
salis_. Few who eat it this way know that it is much more digestible
if the stalk is broken in pieces and the fiber stripped off. Stewing
softens the fibers. Cooked _au jus_, celery is almost better even than
raw. If I had the choice of a dozen vegetables at dinner, I would more
often than any other choose celery _au jus_.
Raw celery is seen so much more frequently on the table in this country
than in any other that it may be virtually considered an American
specialty. Nowhere else is it so crisp and tender, or so eagerly
craved. It is a nerve tonic, and we need nerve tonics.
While melons are not indigenous to America, many of the choicest
varieties of cantaloupes and watermelons are creations of our growers.
Nowhere in the world will you find anything to surpass in sweetness
and fragrance the Emerald Gem, the New Spicy, or the Rocky Ford, most
luscious of all.
The New World's most important contribution to other countries, so
far as nutritive value is concerned, is the potato. How Ireland and
Germany, in particular, could have ever got on without this vegetable,
it is difficult to imagine.
Sweet potatoes also are of American origin. They have been slow in
making headway in Europe because they do not, like the white potato,
grow in almost any soil and climate. Farmers' Bulletin No. 324 is
devoted to sweet potatoes. Its author, W. R. Beattie, of the Bureau
of Plant Industry, remarks that "as a commercial truck crop the sweet
potato would be included among the five of greatest importance, ranking
perhaps about third in the list. As a food for the great mass of the
people living in the warmer portions of our country the use of this
crop is exceeded by hominy and rice only." In the Philippine Islands
it is at certain seasons almost the only food available for the lower
classes. There are many varieties, the soft, moist kinds being richer
in Flavor than the others. These are preferred in the South where a
mealy sweet potato would not be eaten.