It is safe to say that in no other country has the Government done so
much as ours has to advise and aid those who raise foods and those who
prepare them for the table. In the preceding pages reference has been
made to dozens of Farmers' Bulletins and other publications containing
the results of experiments, made at the cost of many millions of
dollars, with a view to informing the public on those matters. Every
State and Territory now has its own Agricultural Experiment Stations.
Primarily, the aims of these stations are of course agricultural and
economic; in the last analysis, however, what are all the Bulletins
issued by them but so many lessons in national gastronomy?
A few years ago the Department of Agriculture boldly invaded the
kitchen itself, providing excellent lessons in the arts of preparing
and preserving good food, in such bulletins as "The Care of Milk and
Its Use in the Home," "Bread and Bread-making," "Food Customs and Diet
in American Homes," "Care of Food in the Home," "Economical Use of Meat
in the Home," "Preparation of Vegetables for the Table," "Composition
and Digestibility of Potatoes and Eggs," "Cereal Breakfast Foods,"
"Food Value of Cottage Cheese, Rice, Peas, and Bacon," "Cheese and Its
Economic Uses in the Diet," "Varieties of Cheese," "Fish as Food,"
"Sugar as Food," "Beans, Peas, and Other Legumes as Food," "Poultry as
Food," "Use of Fruit as Food," "Nuts and Their Uses as Food," "Canning
Vegetables in the Home," etc.
For farmers, truck gardeners, and those who market foods, there is a
still longer list of Bulletins, Circulars, Experiment Station Reports,
and other Government publications. To mention only a few of them:
"Potato Culture," "Sheep-feeding," "The Sugar Beet," "Asparagus
Culture," "Marketing Farm Produce," "Care of Milk on the Farm,"
"Ducks and Geese," "Rice Culture," "The Apple and How to Grow It,"
"Grape Growing in the South," "Home Fruit Garden," "Home Vineyard,"
"Cheese-making on the Farm," "Cranberry Culture," "Squab Raising,"
"Meat on the Farm: Butchering, Curing, Etc.," "Importation of Game
Birds and Eggs for Propagation," "Strawberries," "Turkeys," "Canned
Fruits, Preserves, and Jellies," "Cream Separators on Western Farms,"
"Raspberries," "Tomatoes," "The Guinea Fowl," "Cucumbers," "Maple Sugar
and Syrup," "Home Vegetable Garden," "Celery," "Poultry Management,"
"Sweet Potatoes," "Onion Culture," "A Successful Poultry and Dairy
Farm," "Bees," "A Successful Hog and Seed-Corn Farm," "Manufacture of
Butter for Storage," "Butter-making on the Farm," "Facts Concerning
the History, Commerce and Manufacture of Butter," "The Cultivation of
Mushrooms," and many more.
These valuable monographs were prepared by experts, mostly specialists,
women as well as men. Distributed free when first published, they are
afterwards sold at cost price, usually a nickel apiece; few of them
cost more than a dime. Full lists, with prices and general instructions
can be obtained by sending a postal card to the Superintendent of
Documents at Washington. There are separate price lists of documents
relating to agriculture, dairying, food and diet, irrigation, soils,
wild animals, fishes, health and hygiene, poultry and birds, etc.
In addition to all these documents there are many papers in the
_Daily Consular and Trade Reports_ containing valuable information on
foreign foods and methods of marketing, gathered by the Consuls at the
Government's request.
The supplying of information on everything relating to foods is only
one phase of the Government's gastronomic activity. Another consists in
calling attention to neglected edible plants. On this subject one of
the experts of the Bureau of Plant Industry says:
What we call weeds are no more so than other plants that we
term vegetables. Weeds are vegetables, and our so-called
vegetables were once upon a time no more than weeds. The
classification results from a matter of habit. We are slaves
of habit, and because we are so it has not occurred to us that
we could eat anything but just the old list of vegetables
our ancestors have eaten for generations. But now we are
having our eyes opened and are beginning to peer into fence
corners and back yards and wild pastures for new and wonderful
foodstuffs that we have heretofore regarded as just weeds. It
is a bit mortifying that because of this preconceived idea we
have let most nutritious and valuable foodstuffs go to waste
under our very eyes, while perhaps we were wailing that we had
little to eat and that vegetables were too expensive and so on.
Among the plants thus neglected, but which, if properly improved and
marketed, would enrich truck farmers, are yellow dock, dandelions,
milkweed, golden thistles, mallows, purslane (recommended by Thoreau),
poke shoot, red clover, sorrel, hop shoots, yarrow, leek, and lupines.
A third gastronomic function of our Government is the importing of
foreign fruits and vegetables that promise to add agreeable variety to
the American dietary. For this purpose experts are sent to all parts of
the world to find and bring home new plants which are then acclimated
in accordance with the latest scientific methods.
David Fairchild, one of these gastronomic explorers, has repeatedly
given in the "National Geographic Magazine" fascinating glimpses of the
activity of the Bureau of Plant Industry in this direction. What he
says about the date is particularly suggestive.
Search through the deserts of the world has revealed the fact that the
dates of our markets are only one or two kinds of the vast number of
varieties known to the Arabs and others whose principal food is the
date. "Those we prize as delicacies are by no means looked upon by the
desert dwellers as their best." The search has brought to light, among
other desirable kinds, "the hard, dry date, which Americans do not know
at all, and which they will learn to appreciate as a food, just as the
Arab has."
In 1906 no fewer than a hundred and seventy varieties of dates had been
introduced, and many of these are now growing successfully in Arizona.
The time will come when we can have the choice of as many different
kinds of dates in our markets as we have now of apples and pears. And
this experiment with dates is, as Mr. Fairchild says, something that
"private enterprise would not have undertaken for decades to come."
Experiments by the Bureau of Plant Industry are being carried on also
in Porto Rico, the Philippines, Hawaii, and the Panama Canal Zone.
It makes one's mouth water to read what Mr. Fairchild writes, for
instance, of the mangosteen. There are at least fifteen edible species.
"It has a beautiful white fruit pulp, more delicate than that of a
plum, and a flavor that is indescribably delicate and luscious, while
its purple-brown rind will distinguish it from all other fruits and
make it bring fancy prices wherever it is offered for sale."
The mango has for many years tried to secure a place in our markets,
but the specimens supplied--usually from worthless seedling trees--have
given it a bad name.
The Government office of Pomology has been cultivating the infinitely
superior Mulgoba mangoes of East India, "fit to set before a king," and
will probably, ere long, add this to the list of marketable delicacies.
In India there are mangoes of all sizes and flavors, some of which
Americans of the future will no doubt enjoy.
The United States Government has, furthermore, gone into the business
of creating entirely new fruits, and valuable varieties of nuts,
particularly pecans, on which the Department of Agriculture has
specialized. Great improvements in corn, wheat, and other cereals
have also been made at the Government's Experiment Stations, not to
speak of stock breeding, some of which has a gastronomic value. Nearly
every volume of the "Year Book" of the Department of Agriculture has
a chapter or two on this subject, and some of the papers have been
reprinted separately.
Probably the two most important of the new creations are the tangelo
and the citrange--new names for new fruits which seem destined
to become as common in our markets as oranges, lemons, limes and
grapefruit.
The tangelo is a hybrid of the tangerine orange and the pomelo
(grapefruit). There are several varieties. It is described as being
sweeter than the pomelo, but more sprightly acid than the tangerine. It
has the loose "kid-glove" skin of the latter fruit. "The characteristic
bitter flavor of the pomelo is considerably reduced but remains as a
pleasant suggestion of that popular fruit." I have had no opportunity
to try this novelty, but Professor Bailey pronounces it "an excellent
dessert fruit and an interesting and valuable acquisition."
Of the citrange, also, there are several varieties, the Rusk, Willits,
and Morton. They are the outcome of an attempt to combine the
hardiness of the worthless trifoliata orange (_citrus trifoliata_) with
the sweetness of the common orange. The Morton is very near to a sweet
orange; while the Willits makes a good drink and replaces the lemon for
culinary purposes. The Rusk "makes a very delightful citrangeade, a
good pie, and excellent marmalade and preserves. For the latter uses it
may ultimately be grown extensively."