FoodTimeline library
Fruit or vegetable? (definitions through time)
What's the difference between fruits & vegetables?
Excellent question with several answers. The "correct answer" depends upon who you ask: botanist, linguist, culinary
professional, legal professional average or consumer. Period and place also matter. In the most general terms, vegetable
is the broader term, encompassing all edible plant matter. Fruit is a subset of this larger group. In practice, definitions
fall in two camps:
1. Scientific classification...fruits are result in flowers, or have pits/seeds/stones.
2. Culinary application...vegetables are part of the main meal (savory) & fruits are dessert (sweet).
Botanically speaking, tomatoes (eggplants, cucumbers, melons, squash, peas, beans) are fruits. Culinary applications reasonably
argue these plants are vegetables. Major culinary texts/cookbooks through time don't bother offering definitions.
We have to think there is some wisdom in that.
Historic fruit/vegetable defintions through time
[1893]
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled tomatoes are vegetables in
Nix v Hedden, 149 US 304, 1893.
[1911]
"Fruit...it its widest sense, any product of the soil that can be enjoyed by man or animals...Between this wide and frequently figurative use of the word and its application in the strict botanical sense treated below, there is a popular meaning, regarding the objects denoted by the word entirely from the standpoint of edibility, and differentiating them roughly from those other products of the soil, which, regarded similarly, are known as vegetables. In this sense, 'fruit' is applied to such seed-envelopes of plants as are edible, either raw or cooked, and are usually sweet, juicy or of a refreshing flavour. But applications of the word in this sense are apt to be loose and shifting according to the fashion of the time. Fruit, in the botanical sense, is developed from the flower as the result of fertilization of the ovule. After fertilization various changes take place in the parts of the flower...In popular language, the fruit includes all those parts which exhibit a striking change as the result of fertilization. In general, the fruit is not ripened unless fertilization has been effected; but cases occur as the result of cultivation in which the fruit swells and becomes to all appearances perfect, while no seeds are produced. Thus, there are seedless oranges, grapes and pineapples. When the ovules are unfertilized, it is common to find that the ovary withers and does not come to maturity; but in the case of bananas, plantains and breadfruit, the...development of seeds seems to lead to a larger growth and a greater succulence of the fruit."
"Vegetable...as a general term from plants, and specifically, in language, of such plants as can be eaten by man...whether cooked or raw, and whether the whole or cuch are edible,or only the leaves of the roots or tubers, such edible or culinary plants or portions of plants, a distinction is made popularly between 'fruits' and 'vegetables,'..."
---Encyclopedia Britannica [Encyclopedia Britannica Company:New York] 11th edition, 1911
[1957]
"Fruit. 1. In the widest sense, any product of plant growth useful to man or woman, as grain, vegetable, cotton, flax, etc., 2. The edible, more or less succulent, product of a perennial or woody plant, consisting of the ripened seeds and adjacent tissues, or of the latter also. In popular usage, there is no exact distinction between a fruit and a vegetable, except there the latter consists of the them, leaves, and root of the plant. Thus, the apple, pear, orange, lemon, peach, plum, grape, banana, persimmon pineapple, and most berries are generally recognized as fruits; the pea, bean, pumpkin, squash, eggplant, cucumber, etc., are vegetables; while the tomato, melon and rhubarb are variously regarded." (p. 1014)
Vegetable. A plant; specif. , in common usage, a herbaceous plant cultivated for food, as the cabbage, turnip, potato, bean, etc.; also the edible part or parts of such plants, as prepared for market or table. There is no well-drawn distinction between vegetables and fruits...in the popular sense; but it has been held by the courts that all those which, like potatoes, carrots, peas, celery, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. are eaten (whether cooked or raw) during the principal part of the meal are to be regarded as vegetable, while those used only for dessert are fruits." (p. 2823)
---Webster's New International Dictionary, unabridged, 2nd edition [G.C. Merriam:Springfield MA] 1957
[1970]
"Fruit. The seed-bearing product of a plant, simple, compound, or aggregated, of whatever form."
---Gray's Manual of Botany 8th edition [D. Van Nostrand Co,.:New York] 1970 (p. 1575)
[NOTE: This book does not offer a separated definition for vegetable.]
[1981]
"Fruit. Botanically, a fruit is a mature ovary of a flower. It contains the seed or seeds. it may or may not be edible, juicy, fleshy, or quite dry. Fruits come in many forms; some of the most familiar are achenes, berries, capsules, nuts, and pods. Some plant parts commonly called fruits, such a s blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and pineapples, are really conglomerates of numerous little fruits each developed from a separate ovary. In this Encyclopedia the term fruit is used for these as well as for what are more correctly single fruits."
---New York Botanical Garden Illustrated Encyclopedia, edited by Thomas H. Everett [Garland Publishing:New York] Volume 4, 1981 (p. 1414)
[NOTE: This book does not offer a separated definition for vegetable.]
[2004]
"Vegetable took on its current sense just a few centuries ago, and essentially means a plant materials that is neither fruit nor seed. So what is a fruit? The word has both a technical and a common meaning. Beginning in the 17th century, botanists defined it as the organ that develops from the flower's ovary and surrounds the plant's seeds. But in common usage, seed-surrounding green beans, eggplants, cucumbers, and corn kernels are called vegetables, not fruits. Even the United States Supreme Court has preferred the cook's definition over the botanists. In the 1890s, a New York food importer claimed duty-free status for a shipment of tomatoes, arguing that tomatoes were fruits, and so under the regulations of the time, not subject to import fees. The customs agent ruled that tomatoes were vegetables and imposed a duty. A majority of the Supreme Court decided that tomatoes were 'usually served at dinner in, with, or after the soup, fish, or meat, which constitute the principal part of the repast, and not, like fruits, generally as dessert.'"
---On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, Harold McGee, completely revised and updated edition [Scribner:New York] 2004 (p. 247-248)
[2006]
"Fruits are the ovaries that surround or contain the seeds of plants. Customarily used in sweet dishes, fruits are also excellent with savory items, such as potato latkes and grilled pork chops. Fruit is wonderful served alone as a refreshing breakfast or a finale to a meal. Dried fruits find their way into compotes, stuffings, and sauces.
"Vegetables are the roots, tubers, stems, leaves, leaf stalks, seeds, seedpods, and flour heads of plants that may be safely eaten. Vegetables commonly include a number of foods that botanically are classified as fruits, such as tomatoes. Their culinary application is the guiding principle for placing them in this section, rather than the previous one."
---The Professional Chef, Culinary Institute of America, 8th edition [John Wiley:New York] 2006 (p. 227)
[2013]
"Fruit 1. Vegetable products in general, that are fit to be used as food by men and animals. Now usually in pl. Also fruits of the earth or the ground .2. The edible product of a plant or tree, consisting of the seed and its envelope, esp. the latter when it is of a juicy pulpy nature, as in the apple, orange, plum, etc. †tree of fruit = fruit tree n. at Compounds 2.As denoting an article of food, the word is popularly extended to include certain vegetable products that resemble ‘fruits’ in their qualities, e.g. the stalks of rhubarb.
Vegetable 1. a. Any living organism that is not an animal; (in later use) spec. one belonging to the plant kingdom...3. A plant or fungus cultivated for food; esp. an edible part of a herbaceous plant (as a leaf, stem, or root) which typically forms (part of) the savoury course of a meal, served either in a cooked or raw state; such a plant or plant part prepared for eating. Freq. in pl."
---Oxford English Dictionary (online, accessed May 20, 2013)
Apples
Wild apples grew in prehistoric times. Food historians generally agree they originated in the
Caucauses. The fruit was introduced to Europe by the Roman legions. They were actively cultivated. Apples are considered one of America's symbols
because they are prominently featured in recipes throughout our nation's history. Apple origins and dispersion is generally
revealed through archaolgica, rather than etymological, evidence. This is because early words denoting round tree fruit
did not necessarily distinguish between specific fruits and varieties. Crab apples are said to be the
ancestor of cultivated appples.
"Of the tree fruits, the apple is known to have been widely cultivated from an early date. The wild varieties were also much in demand
by early peoples, carbonized apples from about 6500BC have been found at Catal Huyuk in Anatolia. The Swiss prehistoric lake-dwellings
revealed not only large quantities of sour crabs which seem to have been a very important food at the time, but also larger ones
which appear to have been of a cultivated variety. These were mainly cut into two pieces, which suggests that they were dried, while the
smaller ones were left whole...The apple seems to be indigenous mainly in the area extending through Anatolia to parts of
Persia, and we know that the Hittites cultivated apple-trees at an early date. Apples were grown in Mesopotamia, and in Egypt; Ramesses II
(early thirteenth century BC) had apple-trees planted in gardens laid out in the Nile delta...From Greece we have no
archaeological evidence to show how early they were used, but the classical writers make it clear that by Homeric times
orchard husbandry and gardening were well established. Theophrastus knew two apple varieties...by Pliny's time about thirty-six
kinds of apple were known, and certain long-keeping ones selected for storing."
---Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples, Don Brothwell and Patricia Brothwell, expanded
edition [Johns Hopkins University Press:Baltimore MD] 1998 (p. 132-133)
"Apple, tree fruit important in ancient food and religion. Wild apples (crab-apples) of the
European wild species gradually spread from northern Anatolia after the last ice age. Apples
were in due course transplanted, or grown from seed, far to the south of their native habitat, in
Mesopotamia in particular, where strings of sliced dried apples are described in literary sources
and have been found by archaeologists. In the Near East in the third and second millennia BC the
apple was important in cookery, in medicine and also in love charms. There is no evidence that
grafting was known at that period, and it is not known at what date cultivated apple varieites of
modern type spread westwards from Cental Asia, where they originate. In Greece the apple was a
typical orchard fruit, at least from the Odyssey (c.700 BC) onwards..."
---Food in the Ancient World From A to Z, Andrew Dalby [Routledge:London] 2003 (p. 19)
"The large, sweet apple familiar in modern times is essentially a cultivated product, much
changed from the tiny, sour fruits, such as those of the crabapple, which were its wild
ancestors...The original wild crabapple of Europe...is not the direct ancestor of the cultivated
apple...The main ancestor of the modern apple was M. Pumila var mitis, a native of the Caucasus
where it still grown wild. Early, small, apples were pale green, yellow, or red and consisted principally of core, the part of the
apple which is sueful for the tree's reproduction..The first written mentions of apples, in Homer's Odyssey, is not
specific, since the Greek would melon is used for almost any kind of round fruit which grows on
a tree. In later Greek writings a distinction was based between the apple and the related quince, which had been browing in the E.
Mediterranean region before the arrival of the apple...The Bible is not specific about the nature of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. The notion that it was an apple came much later, possibly because of the high opinion of the apple which was general in
Roman times...The Romans considered the apple a luxury fruit...After the fall of the Roman Empire the
cultivation of apples lapsed into dissaray...apples continued to be brown, and certain distinct
types were recognized...Grafting was reintroduced and became systematic by the 16th
century."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davison, 2nd edited by Tom Jaine [Oxford Univeristy Press:Oxford] 2007 (p. 26-7)
England
"The Romans introduced new economic plants. They had already developed several apple
varieties, with fruits smaller than those of today but larger and sweeter than those borne by
Britain's indigenous wild crabs...Their apple varieties included types for good keeping, and villa
owners stored them spread out in rows in a dry, well-ventilated loft...Apples were sliced into two
or three pieces with a red or bone knife (since metal stained the fruit), and were put to lie in the
sun."(p. 325-6)..."One of the earliest named apples was the pearmain, recorded soon after 1200.
The copstard, a very large apple, was popular from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. It
was sold in the streets fo London by costermongers...By the fifteenth century pippins,
pomewaters, bittersweets and blanderelles had become fashionable apple varieties. Several of the
medieval apples were good keeping types; indeed, apples were preferred when they had been
kept awhile and allowed to mellow." (p. 330-1)...Apples were pulped in the mortar and then put
into tarts." (p. 334)
---Food and Drink in Britain: From the Stone Age to the 19th Century, C. Anne Wilson
[Academy Chicago:Chicago] 1991
Apples in the New World
"Peregrine White, the first child of English parents born in New England (on the Mayflower, as it sat in Cape Cod harbor in
November 1620)planted an apple orchard from seed when he was twenty-eight
years old. By this time, there were many apple orchards in the Masachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies. The array of fruit and vegetable
seeds stowed in the first ships had...included apple seeds...the first apple orchard in the Massachusetts Bay region had been planted even before
organized settlement began--in 1625 on a slope of what was to become Becon Hill in Boston by the clergyman William Blaxton.
According to Ann Leighton, 'the first universally recognized New England apple' was the Blaxton's Yellow Sweeting...
John Chapman (1774-1845) from Leominster, Massachusetts, better known...as Johnny Appleseed. By the late 1790s, Chapman had established
a apple tree nursery in northrwestern Pennsylvania and central Ohio and eastern Indiana, 'shrewdly judging along what routes
pioneers would be likely to settle and planting apple seedlings just ahead of settlements which wich homesteaders coudl start their own
orchards.'"
---America's Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking, Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald
[University of North Carolina Press:Chapel Hill NC] 2004 (p. 200-202)
In 1524, Verazzano, on the coast of what is supposed to be the present Massachusetts, mentions apples bu we know not to what fruit he could
have referred. Apple seeds were in the Memorandum of 1629 of seeds to be sent the Massachusetts Company. In 1642, Peregrin White...
planted apples at Marshfield. In 1639, Josselyn was treated with 'half a score very fair apples' from Governor's Island in
Boston Harbor, though there was then 'not one apple tree nor pear tree planted yet in no part of the country but upon that
island.' In 1635, at Cumberland, Rhode Island, a kind called Yellow Sweeting was originated. In 1635, as Josselyn states, Mr.
Wolcott, a distinguished Connecticut magistrate, wrote that he made 'five hundred hogshead of cider' out of his own orchard in one year and yet this was not more than
five years after his colony was planted...In Downing's Fruits, edition of 1866, some 643 varieties are noticed."
---Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants, edited by U.P. Hedrick, Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for the
Year 1919 II [J.B. Lyon:Albany NY] 1919 (p. 476-477)
Popular apple recipes: apple pie, apple sauce, apple butter, apple cider, apple crisp, apple sauce cakes & candied apples.
Crab Apples
Food historians tell us wild crab apples were the ancestors of cultivated apples.
"There are several species of wild fruit trees of the genus Malus...that produce small, brightly colored crab apples. The
crab apple is the ancestor of cultivated apples and has been used as a food since prehistory."
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Conee Ornelas
[Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000 Volume Two (p. 1764)
Why call it crab apple?
"No one is too sure where this term for the small sour wild apple came from. All that is clear is that it has no connection with the
crustacean of the same name. It first appears in the late fourteenth century, and the northern and Scottish from scrab suggets
that it may be of Scandinavian origin (there is a Swedish dialect work skrabba for 'wild apple')."
---An A-Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 93)
Recommended reading:
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What is a grape & where did it originate?
"Botanically, the grape is a berry of any species of Vitis, the genus of the vine family that
was growing wild over much of the earth long before there were humans about. In North
America, the vines evolved toward the species V. Labrusca--the fox grape, one variety of
which is the Concord grape. But practically all of the world's wine comes from varieties
of a single Old World species, V. Vinifera--the vine that bears wine. It is though to have
originated in Asia Minor and, as people early discovered (to their delight) that grapes and
their juice ferment, has been cultivated for some 6,000 years. Perhaps the Egyptians
initially exploited the grape on a large scale. New varieties were developed by the Greeks
and, later, by the Romans, who first practiced grafting and who introduced the vines into
the cooler regions of Europe, including what is now France."
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Orneals
[Cambridge Universtity Press:Cambridge] 2000 Volume Two (p. 1781)
Old World grapes
"Grape, fruit of the grape vine, useful as a fresh fruit, a dried fruit (raisin) and as the source of must and wine. In all these roles, but especially the last, the
grape was a major component of the diet of the ancient Meditrranean. The grape vine is native to southern Europe and the Near and
Middle East...The vine is thought to have been brought into cultivation in the Caucasus region...about 4000BC, although wine from
wild grapes was already being made by that time. Cultivated varieties spread to norhtern Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and north Africa;
also eastwards to Iran, Bactria and Sogdiana and (about 120 BC) onwards to China; also westwards through Anatolia and on to Greece
and the Balkans, Italy and the western Mediterranean. It was under the Roman Empire that the vine was introduced to the Moselle and Rhine
valles and to southern Britain. It is likely...that as knowledge of vine cultivation spread to new areas local wild grapes were taken
into cultivation and crossed with already cultivated varieties...By classical times vine cultivation had reached a high
level of skill...Smoked raisins were a Roman fovourite."
---Food in the Ancient World From A to Z, Andrew Dalby [Routledge:New York] 2003 (p. 163-164)
[NOTE: Mr. Dalby profiles 29 different varietes of ancient grapes on pages 164-166).]
Grape symbolism & mythology--Old World
"Since antiquity the grapevine has served as a symbol of the benevolent nature god. It was the gods' gift to human beings, full of the power to inspire
and to lift the spirit to a higher realm. In ancient belief, the nature god revealed himself in the grapevine. The plant assumed such
significance in life that people accepted it as a symbol of peace and abundance...the biblical 'Promised Land' was often called the
Land of Grapes...For many, grapes symbolized fertility...In Indian myth they...represent the goddess of the earth. The ancient
Egyptians also considered grapes a fertility sybmol and the grapevine a Tree of Life...Much of the symbolsm of grapes has to do with their
use in making wine. Because red wine resembles blood, grapes came to symbolize blood sacrifice...for Christians, the blood of
grapes came to symbolize the blood of Christ. Grapes and wine permeate Christan symbolism, with biblical references to vinyards,
grapes, raisins, wine and vinegar numbering in the hundreds...Christian and Jewish myths generally credit Noah with the cultivation of the
grapevine, and Egyptian myths gave Orisis this honor. In prersian myth, the grapevine sprang from the tail of the primordial bull slain by Mithras, and in
Greek myth, it sprang form a stick buried by Orion's dog. But the most popular myth of cultivation features Dionysus, the jovial wine god,
whom the people envisionsed crowned with grape leaves and carring a staff, or thrsos, wrapped in grapevines. According to legend, a
snake taught Dionysus how to cultivate grapes and to make wine."
---Nectar and Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews [ABC-CLIO:Santa Barbara CA] 2000 (p. 109-111)
Grapes in the New World
"Although the Old World was the first to exploit it, the grape vine is a particularly American plant. Only one species of
grape is to be found wild in Europe, while there are a few places in temperate North America...without a native grape
species...American grapes found their first culinary use in the Native Americans' pemmican...Viking explorers named their Newdoundland
landfall Vinland, for the vines there; early colonists from England remarked on the bounty of grapes in their new home--and
also their acrid flavor. These grapes, Vitus labrusca, have two outstanding characteristics: a thick skin...and a highly
pungent aroma...Introducing the wine grape of Europe...to America was a matter of policy in the colonies...That attempts at
introduction were not successful is evidenced by Thomas Jefferson's correspondence with Europe, seeking more robust as well as finer
varieties of grape. Lack of sucess is explained not only by the occasionally harsh winters of the Atlantic seaboard but also by the
numerous pathogens specific to the vine...of which most native American species had developed resistnace or immunity, but to which
the European grape had none at all...Until the 1850s, grapes of dessert quality remained a luxury for those few who maintained a
greenhouse to grwo varieties of European origin...The first generations of American hybrid grapes were the basis of a wine
industry founded on the Ohio River new Cincinati, and later on Lake Erie and in upstate New York."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 574-575))
California grapes
"The V, vubufera of Europe was introduced to California in 1769 to produce altar wines for the missions. The easy growth of this
species under California conditions impressed later immigrants from the Eastern states and a wine industry soon developled. The market
was limited for dessert fruit until the advent of the refrigerated railway car in the 1880s. At that point, grape plantings in the Modesto and
Fresno districts expanded, chiefly in varieties of character and flavor...At the same time, the sultana type of V. vinifera, which has no
seeds, was planted for sun-drying, especially in the southern San Joquin valley."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 576)
Additional history from industry experts.
Flame Seedless grapes
Most sources agree that Flame seedless is the mostimportant of red
seedless grapes. The "invention" of Flame seedless is credited to John
Weinberger, who began working on this variety in the mid-1950s. Flame
seedless was introduced to the American public in 1973. Thompson
seedless (introduced in the late 19th century) is a green grape.
John Weinberger was inducted into the USDA Agricultural Reseach Service
Hall of Fame in 1991:
"The late John H. Weinberger retired from the Horticultural Crops Research Laboratory in
Fresno, California, where he worked as a research horticulturist. He earned a place in the
Hall of Fame for his lifelong research contributions to developing fruit varieties and fruit-breeding technology. During his career at ARS, Weinberger developed and released 37
fruit varieties. Flame Seedless, a table grape he released in 1973, is now the second most
important seedless grape produced in the United States."
Related item: Thompson Seedless grapes.
Ancient Roman Must
"Must, fresh grape juice. Must is a product which in normal conditions begins to ferment into wine almost as soon as it flows from
the press, and therefore is soon somewhat alcoholic."
---Food in the Ancient World From A to Z, Andrew Dalby [Routledge:New York] 2003 (p. 224)
Must is referenced in books detailing Ancient Roman wine making. Recommended reading: Vinum: The Story of Roman Wine/Stuart J. Fleming. Compare with modern grape juice & ancient/medieval verjuice.
[14th century]
Vertsaus Broun/A Forme of Cury
[15th century]
"On Verjuice.
What they commonly call acresta, I would call omphacium, on the authority of Pliny, and acor [verjuice], on the authority of
Macrobius, for omphax, as I have said, means a still-bitter grape; therefore, I would rather call oil from an unripe berry
omphacium than acresta, which I do not quite see as being from omphax. [Macrobius] thus devines verjuice: vinegar is sharper than
verjuice, whose force it is agreed is greater than acresta, which soothes the burning of the stomach more mildly and does not emaciate or
weaken the body as vinegar is apt to do. Verjuice is wonderfuly good for unsettled or upset stomach or thirsty liver, if you use it
raw, for it is less helpful cooked. We use it easily and healthfully against poison and in seasoning foods."
---On Right Pleasure and Good Health, Platina, critical edition and translation of De Honesta Voluptate et Valetudine by
Mary Ella Milham [Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies:Tempe AZ] 1998 Book II, no. 26 (p. 169)
"Brouet de vergus...To make Verjuiced Broth. Cook whatever meat you like in water, wine and for the most part, verjuice. Get sieved
bread tempered in verjuice, and egg yolks and spices--ginger, grains of paradise and long pepper; boil everything together, well
seasoned with salt; the verjuice should predominate. Pour it over your meat, which has been well sauteed in fine rendered
lard."
---The Vivendier, a critical edition with English Tranlsation by Terence Scully [Prospect Books:Devon] 1997 (p. 51)
[17th century]
"Verjuice liquid.
Take the fairest you can get, and take out all the seeds. Boile some water, and let your verjuice steep a little in it, then put it into some
sugar a little sod, and boile it seven or eight high boilings, and take it out.
"Dry verjuice
Drain it well, seeth some sugar into a conserve, and put your verjuice in. Set it on the fire, and cause it to take the same
seething as it had when you have mixed it, so that the plume, or skin, or crust of it be very strong." (p. 234)
"How to make a gelee of verjuice
[19th century]
"Well it speaks for the stabilty of human nature that the same delights, even to the verjuice, hold their own today. The French, wise beyond all other men in table
lore, make their delicious Sirop de Groseilles as the ancients made their delcious verjuice and then sweeten and color it before bottling. Verjuice proper, which is
used in England and on the Continent as as substitute for lemon-juice, is made by expressing the juice from unripe grapes, gooseberries and sour crabapples. The
juice, filtered through a cloth until clear, and exposed uncorked to the sun for a week, as the fermentation progresses, the verjuice overflows the bottles, and
more is added daily; at the end of a week an ounce of salt is put into each pint of verjuice, and the bottles are tightly corked and sealed. Before the final
bottling, the bottles should be held over the smoke of burning sulpher, the verjuice is poured into them before the smoke escapes, and the corking and sealing is
done at once...Our (USA) nearest approach to verjuice is cider vinegar..."
---"Hints for the Household, Miss Corson Discourses About Pickles," Miss Juliet Corson, New York Times, October 30, 1881 (p. 13)
[20th century]
"Verjuice: the juice of unripe fruits, escpecially grapes and crab apples, either separate or together. It was in olden time considered a pleasant beverage, but
is now only used in cooking."
---The Grocer's Encyclopedia, Artemas Ward [New York] 1911 (p. 667)
"M. Paul Claudel, the French Ambassador, rose early on Thursday in order to pay the Advertising Club of New York a...visit...As everone knows, M.
Claudel is a poet as well as a diplomat...There is another trait which, according to M. Claudel, the poets and the advertisers have in common--and that is a
spririt of praise: 'The cup of the poets and the advertisers knows only honey; not a drop of verjuice is admitted to spoil the taste of ambrosia.' The listeners
were plainly puzzled by this pronouncement. Strange to say they did not boggle at 'ambrosia' but 'verjuice' bowled them over. There were whisperings and putting of
heads together but that did no good, and it was only when the distinguished guest had taken his departure that a dictionary could with decency be requisitioned and then
the hosts read: Verjuice--1. Sour juice of crabapples, green or unripe grapes, apples, &c.: also an acid liquor made from sour juice. 2. Tartness, sourness as of
disposition."
---"Verjuice," Washington Post, February 26, 1928 (p. S1)
[NOTE: What is ambrosia?]
[21st century]
"Let's not stereotype power ingredients....Need proof? Go get yourself a bottle of verjuice. The French spelling, verjus, tells you what it is: 'vert
jus" or 'green juice.' But in this 'green' as in unripe, not as in color. In medieval times, when sour was more widely appreciated than it is now, the term
could refer to the juice of a variety of unripe fruits, from grapes to crab apples to plums. Verjuice was used to deepen flavors and add a delicate
tartness to all kinds of sauces, condiments, stews and meats; it was a staple of the French pantry. But then came an interloper: the lemon, introduced to
Europe by returning Crusaders, this medieval convenience food had only to be cut open to yield a tart juice. No pressing or bottling required. Over the
years the popularity of verjuice began to fade, until by the 19th century it had been relegated to the back of the top of the pantry shelf. Fortunately in the last
decade or so it has begun to seep back into the consciousness of Western cooks. In its odern iteration, verjuice refers only to the bottled juice of unripe grapes,
usually picked halfway during the thinning process about halfway toward maturity. Green grapes are most often used, but sometimes red are added, creating a slightly
heartier product. Like lemon juice, verjuice adds a bright tartness to a wide range of dishes. But it has an advantage over its far more popular competitor. It's a
more gentle, subtle tartness, with a faint but definite undercurrent of vegetal sweetness. Because of this, it is more adept at complementing rather than masking
other flavors in dishes where it's used...Unfortunately, verjuice can be sometimes hard to find. It's available by mail order...Most of them hover around the $20
mark for a 750-milliliter bottle."
---"Power Ingredients: Try a Little Tartness in a Medieval Staple," John Willoughby, New York Times, October 2, 2010 (p. D9)
Compare with ancient must & modern grape juice.
Bananas & plantains
Prehistoric hunter-gatherers used banana plants for food, fiber, and building materials. The general place of origin is
Southeast Asia; the exact epicenter is still debated. Global diffusion and varieties reflect local history and exploration.
Botanists tell us banans are herbs. They are consumed as fruit, vegetable, and flour.
Plantains are starchy cousins that are generally cooked. The other kind of plantain is a
wild leafy green.
What is a banana?
Banana...The various forms of the banana (Musa paradisiaca) are probably native to South and Southeast Asia and doubtless helped feed hunter-gatherers for hundreds of thousands
of years. The banana is among the oldest plants that humans have used, was one of the first to be cultivated, and today constitutes one of the most important food crops in the world.
The identity of the exact homeland of the banana has been blurred by the plant's ability to spread rapidly throughout the tropics....when bananas reached the tropical New World
(apparently with Spanish explorers), they propagated with such rapidity that some of the earliest chroniclers through that the fruit was an American native. And bananas apparently
reached tropical Africa and Polynesia much earlier (c. A.D. 500 and 1000, respectively) than they did in the New World. The banana 'tree' is really a giant herb that can grow to 20 or more
feet in height in only a year."
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000, Volume Two (p. 1726)
Why were bananas "domesticated?"
"The evolution and spread of the banana has recently been discussed in detail by N.W. Simmonds, but although much is now known of the taxonomy, genetics and more recent
origins of this fruit, its early domestication is still rather questionable. The wild banana is somewhat unattractive, seedy, and inedible, and has been changed by man from this jungle weed tino
a large seedless fruit. The wild plants are distributed in tropical Asia and Australiasia ...and certainly this area is the cradle of banana domestication. However, the story is not simply one of deliberage
selection for larger and larger fruit, and Simmonds has pointed out that in fact the plant may well at first have been cultivated for other reasons. In particular, the sheaths yield
valuable fibres, the leaves are useful wrapping materials, and from the point of view of food, the soft inner sheaths, the male buds and flowers, and the immature fruits can all be eaten as
vegetables...Thus, fruit improvements probably followed long after the plant was cultivated for these other resasons. Literary and archeological evidence for the banana is scattered and as
yet very sparse. In India, it is not noted before 600 BC, although linguistic studies trace its use back possibley to pre 3000BC. The early African cultivars...probably reached Madagascar
from Malaya late in the first half of the first millennium AD, and then spread westwards through Africa. Possibly many of the Pacific islands were cultivating the banana by about
AD 1000. Claims of a considerable antiquity for the plant, in two widely separated regions of the world, are still open to debate. In one or two Assyrian carvings, representing royal
banquets, banana-like fruits are depiced. As texts make no mention of the fruit, we have only the art evidence at present, but it would not be unreasonable to postulate a very early
introduction from India, perhaps by traders wishing to provided special variety at the royal table. The other instance concerns pre-Columbian America, wehre it is claime that
banana reamains were found in early Peruvian tombs. This claim would seem to deserve careful investigation, and if substantiated, would give added weight to early trans-Pacific
human movements."
---Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples, Don Brothwell and Patricia Brothwell, expanded edition [Johns Hopkins University Press:Baltimore MD] 1998 (p. 138-140)
Why do we call them "bananas?"
"Banana appears to be a tropical African word, but its lexical origins represent only a single stage in the fruit's worldwide wanderings before it reached British shores. It probably
grew first in Southeast Asia, and did not make a big impact elsewhere until in the early Islamic period it was brought from India to the Middle East, and thence to Africa. The odd
banana had turned up in Europe before that...but only as an exotic rarity: in ancient Rome...it had to make do with borrowing the name of the fig (a notion which lived on in the early
French term for 'banana', fitue du paradis). Spanish and Portuguese colonists took the banana with them across the Atlantic form Africa to the Americas, and along with it they
brought its African name, banana, apparently a word from one of the languages of the Congo area (it has been speculated that it derives ultimately form Arabic banana,
'finger toe', an origin which would be echoed int the English term hand for a bunch of bananas..."
---An A-Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 17-18)
Bananas in India
"Both the Sanskrit terms for the banana, mocha and kandali...are believe to be of Munda origin...When these plants reached India several thousand years abo, they crossed with a wild
plant M. balbisiana,...Foreign visitors to India noted the abundance and variety of bananas. Ludocico di Varthema in AD 1505, described three varieties...It is only as late as in c. 400 BC that the banana
is frist noted in Pali/Sanskrit literarure, though in the south the fruit must have been known earlier."
---A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food, K.T. Achaya [Oxford University Press:Delhi] 1998 (p. 13-15)
When did Americans "discover" bananas?
Bananas were introduced and actively promoted after the U.S. Civil War. Advances in transportation parlayed this exotic
fruit to the forefront of national cuine. Bananas were introduced as fruits, to be consumed raw (fruit salads),
and as a dessert flavoring (banana cream, banana custard, banana ice cream, banana cake). From the 1880s forwards, cookbooks offered banana recipes.
In the mid-20th century, corporate cooking brochures published by Dole and Chiquita promoted bananas for
all meals and courses: grilled bananas, ham banana rolls, baked bananas (in the peel), banana scallops & broiled bananas.
Think: Bananas Foster, Brennan's c. 1951.
"Residents of the United States became familiar with bananas in a variety of ways. Missionary society Sunday school stories about
exotic tropical places included tales of bananas and other strange fruit...cookbooks, newspaper articles, and advertisements promoted the new fruit. Bananas began to
appear in retail networks, in greengrocer shops, and on pushcarts. They were linked to romantic adventure and associated with palm trees, warm
weather, and perpetual vacation. many nineteeth-century writers confused the banana and the plantian. One descrpbed the banana as
'similar in composition to the potato...'In 1872 housewives were told that 'bananas have a taste something like muskmelons. They are
not improved by cooking, yet may be preserved to taste as well when raw...'...Bananas were also described as being 'as large as a cucumber
and resembling it in color and shape.'...In the nineteenth cnetury the people of the United States loved fruit...They had also enthusiastically
adopted such exotic imported delicacies as the pineapple and the coconut...The Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in
1876 included a forty-acre display of tropical plants in the Horticultural Hall with...a panana plant...The banana plant was so
popular that a guard had to be posted near it so that visitors would not pull it apart for souvenirs...Bananas were
available at a specialty greengrocer in Philadelphia in 1876, wrapped in tinfoil at 10 cents apiece--an hour's wage for
many people...It was not until the mid-1880s that people in the Midwest became somewhat familiar with the banana as a fruit and
could find them in grocery stores. Even then bananas were expensive and remained a luxury item for some time."
---Bananas: The American Story, Virginia Scott Jenkins [Smithsonian Institution Press:Washington D.C.] 2000 (p. 9-12)
[NOTE: We highly recommend this book. Your local public librarian can help you obtain a copy.]
"In The Notions of a Travelling Bachelor, James Fenimore Cooper listed bananas among
tropical fruits 'as common as need be' in New York markets during the 1830s. But the great
popularity of the fruit in the United States had to wait until the improvement of refrigeration and
transportation facilities, a generation or so after Captain Lorenzo Baker of Wellfleet in 1870
brought the first ship loaded exclusively with bananas into Boston harbor. Breads, pies, and cakes
made with bananas--and cookies, too--were soon thereafter being turned out by innovative
American cooks."
---American Food: The Gastronomic Story, Evan Jones, 2nd edition [Vintage Books:New
York] 1981(p. 473)
"When bananas were broadly introduced in the 1880s, tableware designers and glass
manufacturers quickly responded by producing special footed serving bowls, called banana bowls
or banana boats..."
---Savory Suppers and Fashionable Feasts: Dining in Victorian America, Susan Williams
[Pantheon:New York] 1985 (p. 108)
Popular American recipes: Banana bread, Banana cream pie & Banana splits.
Plantains
There are two distinct foods called plantians. One plantain is related to bananas. Larger and tougher, it is generally (but not always) cooked and consumed as
a starchy vegetable. The other plantain is a wild leafy green consumed in salads. A careful reading of historic descriptions and recipes can help
determine which of these is the "real" ingredient in any given dish. Synonyms ("poor man's bread") and descriptions ("green bananas") challenge, rather than elucidate.
Plantain=starchy vegetable & fruit
"Plantain...A herbaceous plant ot the tropics, the plantain (Musa X paradisiaca) is a fruit similar to the banana (and a close relative), but it is larger, is green (although some varieties
undergo the same changes of color as bananas), has more starch, and is not eaten raw. Plantains are believed to have originated in Southeast Asia, but are now grown throughout the
topics of Asia, the New World, Africa, and the Pacific. They are fried, roasted, baked, boiled, and also dried and ground into flour. In addition, in Africa plantains are sued to make
beer."
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000, Volume Two (p. 1836)
"Plantain (fruit) the name given to varieties of the banana which are only suitable for cooking. They are not botanically disctinct, but for the consumer they are einterily different from
eating bananas. The are most important as staple foods in E. and C. Africa, and to a lesser extent in SE Asia and the islands, S. India, and the . Indies. Most varieties are longer and
thicker than typical eating bananas, often rather angular in cross-section. There are pink, green, red, blackish-brown, and black-spotted yellow varieties...Plantains are used much in
the same way ans any starchy vegetable. In E. Africa they are pounded and boiled to make Foo-Foo...An excellent specialty of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean is tostones, for which
slices of slightly unripe plantain are gently fried, squashed flat, and further fried until crisp. Plantain also makes successful chips (US French fries)."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson, 2nd edition edited by Tom Jaine [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2004 (p. 612)
Oxford English Dictionary (partial entry)
"Etymology: < Spanish †plantano, variant of plátano(see platano n.), in forms probably with alteration after plantain n.1(compare forms at that entry). Compare ( < Spanish) French plantain (1784 or earlier in this form; 1617 as †plantanes (plural)), now only in sense ‘plantain tree’ (the fruit is banane plantain ).
Compare earlier platano n...
1. Any of several varieties of banana with a high starch content and little sugar, which are picked when not yet ripe and cooked as a vegetable in tropical countries. Also occas. more generally: a banana of any kind.
1582 R. Madox Diary 28 Aug. in E. S. Donno Elizabethan in 1582 (1976) 176 Plantens..is a very delyciows fruyt and groeth lyke a beane 2 or 3 fadom hygh.
1591 J. Hortop Trauailes Eng. Man 8 On the top grow the fruit which is called Plantaines, they are crooked and a cubite long.
1657 R. Ligon True Hist. Barbados 81 The Bonano... This fruit is of a sweeter taste then the Plantine..we find them as good to stew, or preserve as the Plantine.
1697 W. Dampier New Voy. around World xi. 311 The Plantain I take to be the King of all Fruit."
How are plaintains prepared?
The answer depends on the culinary history of each region. In the Caribbean region plantains used for both savorey and sweet dishes:
Fried Green Plantains, Fried Yellow Plantains, Platanutri, Baked Plantains, Tostones, Pious Nuns, Baked Pie, Dulce de Amarillo, Boiled Plantain, Mashed
Plantain, Plantain Balls, Plantain Omelette, Arepitas, Croquettes, Baked with Cinnamon & Mayaguez Rose. Source: Puerto Rican Cook Book,
Eliza B.K. Dooley [Dietz Press:Richmond VA] 1948 (p. 102-105). In West Africa "The plantina is generally used in the unripe state, when it consists almost
entirely of starch and is usually roasted in oil or boiled, and then eaten, either in pieces, or pounded into plantain 'fufu'. Sometimes the unripe fruits are sliced and put out into the
sun to dry in much the same way as cassava 'kokonte'...From dried slices of plantain a good flour can be prepared, by grinding or pounding them into a powder."
Source: A Text-book of West African Agriculture Soils and Crops, F.R. Irvine, 2nd edition [Oxford University Press:London] 1934, 1957 (p. 221)
Bergamot
19th century desserts, confections, and beverages sometimes list "bergamot" as an ingredient. What was this stuff? Great question with
three possible answers: Italian orange, Arabian pear or
North American herb. In sum: context clues count when deciphering historic recipes.
What is Bergamot?
"Bergamot, the name for three quite distinct plants. I. Monarda didyma, an ornamental herb, native to North America and brought
to Britain in 1656. The leaves can be dried and brewed as a tea called Oswego tea. The fresh leaves are good in salad. This plant likes damp
ground, and grows easily from seed. The blooms are red and very attractive. II. Pyrus persica, one of the oldest pears in
England, also known by the name bergamot, which in this case is said to be a corruption of the Turkish word beg-armudi--'prince's pear.' It was
probably introduced into England by the Romans. III. Citrus bergamia, a pear-shaped orange which is grown in Calabria, Italy,
for the oil obtained from its peel. The peel itself is also used in confectionery and cookery as a flavouring agent."
---The Food of the Western World: An encyclopedia of food from North America and Europe, Theodora FitzGibbon [Quadrangle/The New
York Times Book Co.:New York] 1976 (p. 39-41)
Why call them bergamot?
"The word apparently is derived from the Italian town Bergamo. The name Bergamot, for a variety of pear, is an entirely different word, supposed to be a corruption of the Turkish beg-armudi (=prince's pear)."
---Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, 1911, Volume 3 (p. 772)
Bergamot pears
"Among fruit fanciers several incline to derive name of this favorite species of pear from the Italian town of Bergamo, while a larger number prefer Pergamos, laying stress on the fact that this species was first introduced into Europe by the Crusaders, which is now doubt the reason why in some parts of Southern Europe they are still known by the name of Syrian pears. But the geographer Ritter more than 30 years ago pointed out what seems to be a more probably derivation. A fine and late ripening pear is much cultivated in the neighborhood of Angora, and on account of its lateness in maturing used formerly to be in great favor at Constantinople. It was known as Beg-Armud, or the 'prince pear.' and the Crusaders, who traversed all Asia Minor, brought back with them the name and the fruit."
---"Bergamot Pears," New York Times, November 13, 1885 (p. 4)
Bergamont herb
"Monarda citriodora...Lemon Beebalm, food, Hopi...Plant boiled and eaten only with hares...Monarda fistulosa...Wildbergamot Beebalm...
Food, Cherokee...Species used for food...Flathead, preservative, leaves pulverized and sprinkled on meats as a preservative...
Iroquois, beverage, used to make a beverage...Lakota, special food, leaves chewed while people were singing and dancing...
Blackfoot, cooking tools, dried flowerheads used by invalids for sucking broth and soup...Monarda fistulosa...Mintleaf Beebalm...
Acoma, spice, leaves ground and mixed with sausage for seasoning...Apache, Chiricahua & Mescalero, beverage, leaves and young
stems boiled ot make nonintoxicating beverage...spice, leaves used as flavoring...Hopi, dried food, dried in bundles for
winter use...Isleta, spice, leaves used for seasoning soups and stews...Laguna, spice, leaves ground and mixed with sausage for
seasoning...Pueblo, dried food, dried and stored for winter use, spice, cooked with meats and soups as a flavoring...Monards sp, Mont...Bannock,
appetizer, infusion of seed heads used as an appetizer."
---Native American Ethnobotany, Daniel E. Moerman [Timber Press:Portland OR] 1998 (p. 346-348)
Blueberries
Blueberries are New World foods. European settlers embraced them because they resembled familiar berries, most notably
blackberries, whortleberries, and huckleberries. Thrifty colonial cooks found blueberries adapted well to traditional recipes.
Blueberries were consumed as fresh fruit, incorporated into baked goods (think: pies, muffins), preserved as jams & jellies
and dried, like grapes, for future use.
Industry experts: Blueberry History/U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council.
Pawpaws
Asimina Triloba are fruits native to temperate eastern and central North America. While they grow and fruit prolifically given optimal conditions, thin skin and short ripening period defies cultivation, transportation and commercialization. Researching the history of pawpaws presents a linguistic tangle of alternative names. Some of these names are also names of totally different plants (papayas, custard apples); others are local appellations (Michigan banana, false banana, Indian banana). Spelling variations (papaw, paw-paw) and alternative definitions (in some Appalachian USA regions papaw can also mean grandfather) render this fruit one of the most interesting to subjects for study.
[1955]
"The pawpaw appears to be a 'widowed' species that has survived from some earlier distribution in these temperature latitudes. The 'literature' consists of just two articles. H.P. Gould in 1939 wrote a thin leaflet, 'The Native Papaw' (Department of Agriculture, No. 129)....The other treatise, by H.A. Allard, was published in 'Atlantic Naturalist'
'...in the March-April 1955, issue...You are likely to encounter the trees as you stroll over bottomland along streams...They like the protection of some forest cover...The fruiting season of the early and late varieties extends from late August until well into November. Picked before ripe, the pawpaw does not soften or develop its aromatic quality. It must ripen on the tree and fall to the ground before it is really edible. At that time its skin is green, its flesh soft and creamy whitish or yellowish...The fruit...has a somewhat laxative property and is rich in Vitamin C...The Indians not only ate the pawpaw in season but made ropes, fishing nets, cloth and bags of its tough inner bark."
---"Pawpaw Fruit Delicacy You Can Enjoy on Hike, Aubrey Graves, County Life Editor, Washington Post, October 28, 1955 (p. 51)
[NOTES (1):
The Native Pawpaw/Gould is available online, thank you University of North Texas! (2)
Updated bibliography, courtesy of Kentucky State University.]
[1993]
"The pawpaw harvest is in. The fruit has gone to market--what little market there is. And the Johnny Appleseed of pawpaws is waxing poetic. ..The taste is a 'symphony of flavors in your mouth. It's like the finest custard you ever ate,' He is R. Neal Peterson, a 45-year-old agricultural economist who has spent much of his free time since 1979 studying the fruit. The Washington D.C. resident grew up eating wild pawpaws in West Virginia and developed a scientific interest in the tree when he was in college studying plant genetics. He took pity on the poor pawpaw. Around the turn of the century, the fruit, native to the Central and Southern U.S., had actually been quite popular. A children's song was written about it...Towns and streams ain Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky were named after it. And during the Depression, some people who couldn't afford to buy food lived on the fruit of the pawpaw. But the pawpaw went into decline as the banana became very popular in the U.S. during World War II, and as the population became more urban and thus less likely to encounter wild pawpaw trees. The pawpaw, a fruit of the custard apple family that resembles a green potato or a mango with bright yellow flesh, also has some built-in commercial disadvantages: It is thin-skinned and doesn't travel well. 'I though this was one of the most overlooked trees in the country,' Mr. Peterson says. 'It hasn't been domesticated. It hasn't received thousands of years of breeding like apples and apricots...Through proper selection and breeding, Mr. Peterson hopes one day to grow a pawpaw that has fewer of those large reddish-brown seeds...which are annoyingly numerous and can account for about 20% of a fruit's weight.
Right now, harvested pawpaws, picked soft or taken when they fall from the tree, keep only for about two days...About five years ago, Mr. Peterson set up the PawPaw Foundation to further the scientific study of his favorite fruit...Guy Reinhold, executive chef for the Stouffer Harbor Place Hotel in Baltimore, created a pawpaw salsa and pawpaw chutney to go with some of his seafood and chicken dishes. 'The flavor blends with anything...It's pretty versatile, but you have to use it fast.'"
---Neal Peterson's Goal Is to Domesticate the World Pawpaw," Elena Liser, Wall Street Journal, November 18, 1993 (p. A1)
[NOTE: Neal Peterson's pawpaw web flourishes in 2013.]
Pear cookery
The Romans ate pears, like apples, both raw and cooked. The less
exquisite fruits were made into perry, or into pear vinegar...The
Byzantines feasted on pears in jelly, pear preserves, pears cooked in wine
or in ocxymel (a syrup of vinegar and honey). The Roman spread the
cultivation of the pear."
---History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, translated by Anthea
Bell [Barnes & Noble Books:New York] 1992 (p. 637)
"From a clever object-lesson taught to a courtesan in a play by Alexis we
know that pears were served as a dessert or at symposia in classical
Athens...From Roman sources we know other ways in which pears were
used. They could be cooked with wine and water to make a kind of
pulmentarium, as Pliny describes it. They were conserved in grape syrup,
and also dried, for use over the winter--an important point becuase pears
are at their peak of ripeness only for a short tiem (which made them a
good example for the courtesan's best firend to use) and must be
conserved in some way if they are not to be wasted. By late Roman times
perry (an alcoholic drink analogous to cider), pear vinegar and pear
liquamen were all being manufactred, as shown by Palladius; pear
liquamen served as a vegetarian alternative to garum."
---Food in the Ancient World from A to Z, Andrew Dalby
[Routledge:London] 2003 (p. 253)
Pears Syrup, a popular Medieval dessert of the weathy classes.
What was "Pearmania?"
Throughout history, pears have been associated with the wealthier classes. This non-pedestrian fruit was cultivated in
great estates and relished by nobles throughout Europe. This passion was introduced to North America (there are no
native American pears) by early European colonists. New England's "Pear mania" (circa 1820-1870) was a pasttime of
the upper class. These prized pears were not for sale; they were offered to honored guests. It is interesting to note that
New England cookbooks published in this period contain very few pear recipes. Stewed pears and pear tarts are the
norm. This suggests (perhaps) pears were not widely consumed by the general public.
"From approximately 1820 to 1870 a mania for pears raged in New England, particularly in eastern Massachusetts.
Gentlemen farmers vied to produce the most luscious specimens of fine European pears and in the selection of seedling
varieties. They savored the fruits in the library as an occasion for male bonding and connoisseurship, much as they
played golf and smoked cigars together in later periods. Once California started shipping tons of fruit by rail car to the
east, interest in the pear as a status symbol diminished."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor in chief [Oxford University Press:New
York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 530)
Pear symbolism & lore
"People in much of Europe viewed the pear as a symbol of fertility and womanhood. The fruit had a shape
similar to that of a woman's body as well as that of the womb...Some Europeans also recognize longevity
and even immortality in their pears. A Gaelic legend referred to apples of Avalon as pears, and these fruits
grew in paradise and held the secret to everlasting life..."
---Nectar and Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews [ABC-CLIO:Santa
Barbara CA] 2000 (p. 172)
Additional varieties & growing conditions (current)
Japanese persimmons/Morton
Persimmons/California Rare Fruit Growers
Persimmon history/New World
"The British first encountered the persimmon in Virginia in the early seventeenth century, a fact
revealed by the name they gave to it: persimmon is a somewhat garbled version of a word in one
of the Algonquin languages of North America, perhaps Cree pasiminan or Lenape pasimenan
(the earliest recorded attempt at it is English is in Captain John Smith's Map of Virginia (1612):
the fruit like melders; they call Putchamins, they cast upon hurdles on a mat, and preserve them
as Prunes'). Most persimmons available in Europe, however, are of the related Japanese
variety...Somewhat resembling large orange tomatoes, they have a bitter-sweet slightly
mucilaginous flesh which only develops to full sweetness and fragrance when the fruit is very
ripe."
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 251-2)
"The accepted story about the persimmon is that when Europeans first encountered it in America they
found it too acid to eat and abandoned it until the Indians explained to them that it becomes
sweet and palatable after the first frost. Writers ever since...have been stating confidently, that
it is frost which tames the persimmon. It isn't The Indians must have known better, but their calendar was
nature, and when they said that persimmons were best after the first frost, they were only dating this phenomenon in
terms which for them were equivalent to Euell Gibbons's statement that persimmons are best in
October They did not mean that frost causes the persimmon to lose its astrigency and reveal its basic
sweetness. It is probably the latest ripener of all tree fruits..The first Europeans to encounter the persimmon, Diospyros
virginiana, were either the Spanish conquistadors, who fed largely on the during their grueling marh...from Florida to New
Mexico, or Herandez de Soto, who reported circa 1540 that he had found the Indians along the Mississippi eating bread
made of 'prunes' (they dried the persimmons before converting them into a sort of dough)..."
---Food, Waverly Root [Smithmark:New York] 1980, 1996 (p. 346)
[NOTE: This book contains far more information than we can paraphrase.]
"Persimmon or American persimmon...(Diospyros virginiana)The name persimmon comes from
putchamin', a phonetic rendering of the name used by the American Indians of the Algonquin
tribe. They ate them when they were ripe and had fallen from the tree and dried them to be eaten
in the winter. The first European to write about the fruit was probably the Spanish explorer Don
Fernando de Soto, who learned about it from the Indians of Florida in 1539. Captain John Smith,
in the 17th century, likened it to the medlar...Ripe persimmons were eaten by the settlers, or used
in puddings, breads, preserves, etc. But the production of persimmon (or ‘simmon') beer and
wine and other alcoholic drinks was an equally important use...During the 19th century and the
early years of the 20th there was considerable interest in the development of improved
persimmons, based for example on the Early Golden cultivar which originated in Illinois; but this
was largely stifled by the introduction of the khaki to California...There is one other persimmon
native to America, D. Texense, known as the chapote, or black or Mexican persimmon. Its range
includes Central and Western Texas and parts of Mexico."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 596-7)
"Persimmon...Also called "date plum." A tree chiefly of the tropics bearing a late-ripening
orange-red fruit. The word is from the Algonquin, akin to the Cree word for dried fruit,
pasiminan, first appearing in print as "putchamin" in 1612, then in its present form in 1709...The
earliest explorers and colonists of the New World were fascinated by the persimmon. Hernando
de Soto, in about 1540, compared it with the Spanish red plum and preferred the persimmon.
John Smith in Virginia at the beginning of the seventeenth century called it "one of the most
palatable fruits of this land," something like an apricot. Not every settler agreed...The Native
Americans made it into beer, which the colonists soon adapted, and bread, which in Missouri was
called "stanica."...The Native "American persimmon" was eventually pushed aside as a
commercial crop in favor of the "Japanese persimmon", which may have been introduced to the
United States in 1855 by Commodore Matthew C. Perry. In the South persimmon seeds are
ground to be used as a coffee substitute, and throughout the Southeast and Midwest persimmon
pudding is a Thanksgiving tradition. "Locust beer" is made persimmons and locusts."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York]
1999 (p. 237-8)
American recipes
Michigan State University's Feeding America digitized historic cookbooks returns two recipes, beer & bread.
Search persimmon either as recipe title or ingredient.
Mythology & symbolism
"Persimmons...The bright color of persimmons, combined with their sweet flavor and aromatic
scent, made them particularly alluring, and led some people of times past to identify these fruits
as the golden apples in the Greek myth of the Garden of the Hesperides. The Chinese...have a
high regard for persimmons, and because of their bright color, consider them symbols of joy.
Many varieties of the fruit grown in China. Scholars have found remains of these fruits in ancient
tombs and mention of them in ancient writings, suggesting that the Chinese regarded persimmons
as valuable fruit far back in history. The Chinese continue to use persimmons as offerings to the
moon goddess Heng O...To this day, the Chinese not only present these fruits to their moon
goddess but they also make dried fruits or cakes out of persimmons and give them as gifts. They
also attribute healing and fertilizing powers to persimmons because of their many seeds."
---Nectar and Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews [ABC
CLIO:Santa Barbara CA] 2000 (p. 176-7)
Watermelon
Watermelons were consumed by the earliest civilizations. Treasured for their juicy refreshment, they provided
sustenance in times of drought. Did Cleopatra eat watermelons? Historic evidence suggests she did. Watermelons were introduced
to the New World by Euopean explorers. They thrived, multiplied, and grew to epic proportions. In the American colonies,
watermelons were sometimes called "American Citrons."
Seedless watermelons were introduced in 1949.
"Watermelon...A native of Africa...It reached the Middle East, India, and what is now Russia in prehistoric times, was
consumed in Egypt and ancient Persia some 6,000 years ago, and was later cultivated by the ancient Greeks and Romans. The
Chinese were growing the fruit by the tenth century A.D.; it entered Europe through Spain with the Moors and reached the
Americas via the slave trade."
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2001, Volume Two (p. 1877)
"Watermelon, fruit domesticated in prehistoric times in the deserts of northern Africa or southwestern Asia. Watermelons
were cultivated in Egypt by 2000 BC and were known in the Aegean region by around 1000 BC; their seeds have been found at
sites including Kastanas. They are not commonly mentioned in classical literature but are familiar from dietary texts...
Watermelons are to be eaten with vinegar and pennyroyal, accoridng to Anthimus."
---Food in the Ancient World from A to Z, Andrew Dalby [Routledge:London] 2003 (p. 347)
"The best known species of Citrullus is the water-melon which grows wild in large tracts of Africa and is an extremely important
souce of water in dry periods. Its cultivation is of very great antiquity as can be seen from its many and varied names in different
languages. This was the melon for which the Israelites pined in their desert wanderings. It was widely cultivated in Ancient
Egypt and its seeds and leaves have been foundamong funerary offerings in Egyptian tombs."
---Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples, Don Brothwell and Patricia Brothwell, expanded edition
[Johns Hopkins University Press:Baltimore MD] 1998 (p. 127)
Watermelon in America
"The Spanish introduced watermelons into the Caribbean and Florida and later into the American Southwest. Early French
explorers and trappers plantd watermelon seeds in Canada and subsequently the Midwest and along the Mississippi River
System. The first known references to watermelons in the English colonies are from Massacusetts, dated 1629...Watermelons also
grew easily in other colonies; they were a field crop in many places and were commonly consumed throughout colonial
America. Amelia Simmons published a watermelon recipe in her American Cookery (1796), an most nineteenth-century cookbooks included
directions for serving them cold and recipes with watermelons as ingredients...chilled watrmelon was a a favorite picnic food; the
fruit was eaten as a snack and incorporated into salads, desserts, and preserves...and spicy pickled rind served as a
condiment with meats. Watermelons were also used to flavor ice cream and other frozen desserts...It also has been fermented to
make wine and other alcoholic beverages, which became a specialty item in the South...Beginning in the 1830s medical
professionals proclaimed watermelons were deleterious to health, a view that survived for decades. The cookbook writer Pierre
Blot pronounced in his Hand-Book of Practical Cookery, for Ladies and Professional Cooks (1867) that watermelons were 'considered
very unwholesome by the great majority of doctors, chemists, and physiologists.' Most Americans continued eating watermelons
despite the warnings."
---The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford University Pres:New York] 2004,
volume 2 (p. 597-598)
[NOTE: Early American cookbooks called watermelons "American Citrons." Amelia Simmons' recipe
here.]
"The watermelon has succeeded especially well under American culture, the varieties being many in number and continuously increasing,
either through imporation or through the process of selection. The size has also become enormous selected specimins sometimes
weighing 96 pounds or even more. The varietes vary in shape from round to oblong and in color from a light green to almost a
black, self-colored or striped with paler green or marbled. The flesh may be whtie, cream-color, honey-color, pale red, red
or scarlet. The seeds are white, white with two black spots, cream-colored tipped with brown and a brown stripe around the
edge, yellow with a black strip round the margin and with black spots, dark brown, reddish-brown, russet-brown, black, cultured or as if
engraved with ornamental characters, and pink or red. The watermelon is mentioned by the early botanists and described as of large
size, but it must be considered that this fruit even now is not a successfully grwon in Europe as in more southern countries. That
none or few types have originated under modern culture is indicated by an examination into the early records...Cardanus, 1556,
writes that the size is sometimes so great that a man can scarcely embrace the fruit with his expanded arms. Marcgravius, 1648,
described thos of Brazil as being as large as a man's head...This melon is said to have ben introduced to Britain in 1597. By
European colonists...it was carried to Brazil and the West Indies, to eastern North America, to the islands of the Pacific, to
New Zealand and Australia. Watermelons are mentiond by Master Graves as abounding in Massachusetts in 1629...Before 1664...watermelons were cultivated by
the Florida Indians. In 1673, Father Marquette, who descended the Wisconsin and Mississipi Rivers, speaks of melons 'whoch are excellent, especially those
with a red seed.' In 1822...of the Illinois Region: 'Watermelons are also in great plenty, of vast size; sime I suppose weigh
20 pounds...They are round or oblong, generally green, or a green and whitish color on the outside, and white or pale on the
inside, with many black seeds in them, very juicy, in flavor like rich water, and sweet...In 18747 Jared Eliot mentions
watermelons in Connecticut, the seed of which came originally from Archangel in Russia. IN 1799, watermelons were raised
by the tribes on the Colorado River."
---Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants, edited by U.P. Hedrick, Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for the
Year 1919 II [J.B. Lyon Co.:Albany NY] 1919 (p. 169-172)
[1796]Additional information.
"The American Citron
Take the rine of a large watermelon not too ripe, cut it into small pieces, take two pound of loaf sugar, one pint of water, put it all into a kettle, let it boil gently for four hours, then put it into pots for use."
---American Cookery, Amelia Simmons
Recommended reading:
Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants/E. Lewis
Sturtevant [1919]