Part 17

This plant was cultivated with us as early as the year 1580. The parts that are eaten are the receptacle of the flower, which is called the _bottom_, and a fleshy substance on each of the scales of the calyx. The _choke_ consists of the unopened florets, and the bristles that separate them from each other: these stand upon the receptacle, and must be cleared away before the bottom can be eaten. Its name has doubtless been obtained from a notion that any one unlucky enough to get it into his throat must certainly be choked.

With us artichokes are generally plain boiled, and eaten with melted butter and pepper; and they are considered both wholesome and nutritious. The bottoms are sometimes stewed, boiled in milk, or added to ragouts, French pies, and other highly-seasoned dishes. For winter use they may be slowly dried in an oven, and kept in paper bags in a dry place. On the Continent artichokes are frequently eaten raw, with salt and pepper.

By the country people of France the _flowers_ of the artichoke are sometimes used to coagulate milk, for the purpose of making cheese. The _leaves_ and _stalks_ contain a bitter juice, which, mixed with an equal portion of white wine, has been successfully employed in the cure of dropsy, when other remedies have failed. The juice, prepared with bismuth, imparts a permanent golden yellow colour to wool.

212. _The CARDOON_ (Cynara cardunculus) _is a species of artichoke which grows wild in the south of France, and has smaller flowers than the common artichoke, and the scales of the calyx terminated by long, sharp spines._

_The stems rise to the height of four or five feet, and are upright, thick, and cottony. The leaves are large and winged, and the flowers of blue colour._

The parts of the cardoon that are eaten are not those belonging immediately to the flower, as of the artichoke, but the roots, stalks, and middle ribs of the leaves; and chiefly the latter, which are thick and crisp. But, as all these are naturally very bitter, the plants, previously to being used, are blanched, by being tied up like lettuces, about the month of September, and having earth thrown upon their lower parts, to the depth of eighteen inches or two feet.

Cardoons come into season for the table about the end of November; and are either eaten alone, or as a sauce to animal food, particularly to roasted meat; or are introduced as a dish in the second course. They are, however, not so much used in England as on the Continent; and this in consequence chiefly of the trouble attending their cultivation, and their preparation for the table, so as to render them palatable.

213. _LETTUCE_ (Lactuca sativa) _is an esculent vegetable, that is cultivated in nearly every kitchen garden in the kingdom._

The different kinds or varieties of lettuce are extremely numerous: but those best known are the _cos lettuce_, and _cabbage lettuce_, the former having upright leaves, and the latter having its leaves folded over each other like those of a cabbage. Their culture is very simple. The seeds are sown at various seasons of the year, that the plants may be ready, in succession, for the table. After a while, they are planted out from the seed-bed into another part of the garden, at a certain distance from each other, to allow of room for their expansion and growth. When the cos lettuces have attained a sufficient size, their leaves are tied together with strings of matting, to blanch them for use. From seeds that are sown towards the end of summer, lettuces may, with care, be obtained in perfection during the ensuing winter and spring.

Lettuces have an odour somewhat resembling that of opium; and they also possess somewhat similar narcotic properties, which reside in the milky juice. The properties of this vegetable as a salad, if eaten without oil, are considered to be emollient, cooling, and wholesome.

214. _ENDIVE_ (Cichorium endivia) _is a common vegetable in kitchen gardens, having curled or crisped leaves._

We are supposed to have been originally indebted to the East Indies for this useful winter salad. It is chiefly cultivated in the south of England; being sown generally about June or July, and afterwards planted out, like lettuce.

The chief excellence of endive consists in the whiteness of its inner leaves. It is, therefore, adviseable, either to cover the plants with flower-pots, or, when full grown, to tie them loosely together, for two or three weeks. By so doing, they will become perfectly blanched; and, in winter, they may be preserved, either by covering them with straw and mats, or by putting them in sand in a dry cellar.

The French consume a great quantity of endive at their tables. They either eat it raw in salads, boiled in ragouts, fried with roast meat, or as a pickle. It is a wholesome vegetable which seldom disagrees with the stomach.

SUPERFLUA.

215. _CAMOMILE_ (Anthemis nobilis) _is a well-known plant, the dried daisy-like flowers of which are frequently used in medicine._

The principal use to which camomile _flowers_ are applied is to excite vomiting, and promote the operation of emetics. They have likewise occasionally been substituted for Peruvian bark, in the case of intermittent fevers or agues, particularly on the Continent, but not with much success; and are used as a valuable stomachic. Both the _leaves_ and flowers are employed in fomentations and poultices. They each, but particularly the flowers, have a powerful, though not an unpleasant smell, and a bitter taste.

They are administered in substance, as a powder or electuary, in infusion as tea, in decoction or extract, or in the form of an essential oil obtained by distillation.

So fragrant is the camomile plant, that the places where it grows wild, on open gravelly commons, may easily be discovered by the somewhat strawberry-like perfume which is emitted by treading on them. This quality alone has sometimes induced the cultivation of camomile for a green walk in gardens.

216. _TARRAGON_ (Artemisia dracunculus) _is a hardy plant of the wormwood tribe, which grows wild in India and the southern parts of Europe, and is cultivated with us in gardens for culinary uses._

_It has a somewhat shrubby stem; smooth, spear-shaped, leaves tapering at each end; and flowers roundish, erect, and on footstalks._

This is a hot and bitter vegetable, which is sometimes eaten with lettuces, or other salad herbs: and sometimes used as an ingredient in soup. Its _seeds_ are pungent; and may be advantageously substituted for the more costly spices obtained from the Indies. The Indians frequently eat the _leaves_ of the tarragon plant with bread.

The sauce called _tarragon vinegar_ is made by infusing for fourteen days, one pound of the leaves of tarragon, gathered a short time before the flowers appear, in one gallon of the best vinegar: straining this through a flannel bag, and fining it by means of a little isinglass.

A distilled water is sometimes prepared from the leaves of tarragon.

FRUSTRANEA.

217. _The JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE is a somewhat potatoe-shaped root, produced by a species of sunflower_ (Helianthus tuberosus) _which grows wild in several parts of South America._

_This plant bears single stalks, which are frequently eight or nine feet high, and yellow flowers, much smaller than those of the common sunflower._

So extremely productive are these valuable roots, that betwixt seventy and eighty tons' weight of them are said to have been obtained, in one season, from a single acre of ground. They succeed in almost any soil; and, when once planted, will continue to flourish in the same place, without requiring either much manure, or much attention to the culture. The season in which they are dug up for use is from about the middle of September till November; when they are in greatest perfection. After that they may be preserved in sand, or under cover, for the winter.

The roots are generally eaten plain boiled; but they are sometimes served to table with white fricassee-sauce, and in other ways. Their flavour is so nearly like that of the common artichoke, that it is difficult to distinguish them from each other. We are informed that Jerusalem artichokes are a valuable food for hogs and store pigs; and that if washed, cut, and ground in a mill, similar to an apple-mill, they may also be given to horses.

218. _The COMMON or ANNUAL SUNFLOWER_ (Helianthus annuus) _is a Peruvian plant, with large yellow flowers, that is well known in our gardens._

The uses to which this plant may be applied are such as to render it well deserving of attention in rural economy. Its _stalks_ contain a white, shining, fibrous substance, which might be advantageously employed in the manufacture of paper; and the woody part of them makes excellent fuel. Its ripe _seeds_, when subjected to pressure, yield a great proportion of sweet and palatable oil. These seeds may also be used for the feeding of poultry. The _receptacles of the flowers_, it is said, may be boiled and eaten like artichokes.

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CLASS XX.--GYNANDRIA.

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DIANDRIA.

219. _SALEP is the powder of the dried roots of several well-known field-plants of the orchis tribe_ (Orchis morio, O. mascula, &c.)

As an article of diet, salep is supposed to contain the largest portion of nutriment, in an equal compass, of any known vegetable production: even arrow root (17) is, in this respect, inferior to it. The orchises from which it is manufactured flourish in great abundance in meadows and pastures of several parts of England, flowering about the months of May and June. As soon as the flower-stalks begin to decay, the roots should be dug up, and the newly-formed bulbs, which have then attained their perfect state, should be separated. When several roots are collected, they should be washed in water, and have their external skin removed by a small brush, or by dipping them in hot water, and rubbing them with a coarse linen cloth. The next process is to place them on a tin plate, and put them into an oven for about ten minutes, by which time they will have lost the milky whiteness which they before possessed, and will have acquired a transparency like horn. They are then to be spread in a room, where, in a few days, they will become dry and hard.

Although salep might be procured in great abundance in our own country, we import nearly the whole of what we use from the Levant, and generally in oval pieces of yellowish white colour, somewhat clear and pellucid, and of almost horny substance. When these, or the powder prepared from them, are put into boiling water, they dissolve into a thick mucilage.

With the Turks, salep has great celebrity, on account of the restorative qualities which it is supposed to possess. It is much recommended as nutritive food for persons recovering from illness; and, in particular, as a part of the stores of every ship about to sail into distant climates. It not only possesses the property of yielding an invaluable nutriment, and, in a great measure, of concealing the saline taste of sea-water, but is likewise of essential service against the sea-scurvy. When it is stated that one ounce of this powder and an ounce of portable soup, dissolved in two quarts of boiling water, will form a jelly capable of affording sustenance to one man for a day, the utility of salep will be further seen as a means of preventing famine at sea for an infinitely longer time than any other food of equal bulk.

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CLASS XXI.--MONOECIA.

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MONANDRIA.

220. _The BREAD FRUIT is a large globular berry of pale green colour, about the size of a child's head, marked on the surface with irregular six-sided depressions, and containing a white and somewhat fibrous pulp, which, when ripe, becomes juicy and yellow._

_The tree that produces it_ (Artocarpus incisa, Fig. 57) _grows wild in Otaheite and other islands of the South Seas, is about forty feet high, has large and spreading branches, and large bright green leaves, each deeply divided into seven or nine spear-shaped lobes._

We are informed, in Captain Cook's first voyage round the world, that the edible part of this fruit lies between the skin and the core; and that it is white as snow, and somewhat of the consistence of new bread. It is generally used immediately when gathered; if it be kept more than twenty-four hours it becomes hard and chokey. The inhabitants of the South Sea Islands prepare it as food, by dividing the fruit into three or four parts, and roasting it in hot embers. Its taste is insipid, with a slight tartness, and somewhat resembles that of the crumb of wheaten bread mixed with Jerusalem artichoke (217). Of this fruit the Otaheitans make various messes, by putting to it either water or the milk of the cocoa-nut (233), then beating it to a paste with a stone pestle, and afterwards mixing it with ripe plantains (270), bananas (271), or a sour paste, made from the bread fruit itself, called _mahié_.

It continues in season eight months of the year; and so great is its utility in the island of Otaheite, that (observes Captain Cook), if, in those parts where it is not spontaneously produced, a man plant but ten trees in his whole life-time, he will as completely fulfil his duty to his own and to future generations, as the natives of our less temperate climate can do by ploughing in the winter's cold, and reaping in the summer's heat, as often as these seasons return; even if, after he has procured bread for his present household, he should convert the surplus into money, and lay it up for his children.

Not only does this tree supply food, but clothing, and numerous other conveniences of life. The _inner bark_, which is white, and composed of a net-like series of fibres, is formed into a kind of cloth. The wood is soft, smooth, and of yellowish colour; and is used for the building of boats and houses. In whatever part the tree is wounded, a glutinous milky _juice_ issues, which, when boiled with cocoa-nut oil (233), is employed for making bird-lime, and as a cement for filling up cracks in such vessels as are intended for holding water. Some parts of the _flowers_ serve as tinder in the lighting of fire; and the leaves are used for wrapping up food, and for other purposes.

As the climate of the South Sea Islands is considered not much to differ from that of the West Indies, it was (about thirty years ago) thought desirable that some of the trees should be transferred, in a growing state, to our islands there. Consequently, his Majesty's ship the Bounty, in 1787, sailed for this purpose to the South Seas, under the command of Lieutenant, afterwards Admiral Bligh. But a fatal mutiny of the ship's crew prevented the accomplishment of this benevolent design. The commander of the vessel, however, returned in safety to his country; and a second expedition under the same person, and for the same purpose, was fitted out in the year 1791. Captain Bligh arrived in safety at Otaheite, and, after an absence from England of about eighteen months, landed in Jamaica with 352 bread fruit-trees, in a living state, having left many others at different places in his passage thither. From Jamaica these trees were transferred to other islands; but the negroes, having a general and long established predilection for the plantain (270), the bread fruit is not much relished by them. Where, however, it has not been generally introduced as an article of food, it is used as a delicacy; and whether employed as bread, or in the form of pudding, it is considered highly palatable by the European inhabitants.

221. _The JACK FRUIT is a species of bread fruit that is grown in Malabar and other parts of the East Indies._

_The tree which produces this fruit_ (Artocarpus integrifolia) _differs from the common bread fruit-tree, in having the leaves entire, each about a span in length, oblong, blunt, serrated at the edges, bright green, and very smooth on the upper surface, paler beneath, and clad with stiff hairs._

Few of the fruits even of eastern climates are so large as this. Its weight is sometimes upwards of thirty pounds; and it generally contains betwixt two and three hundred nuts or seeds. These are each about three times as large as an almond, of somewhat oval shape, blunt at one end, sharp at the other, and a little flatted on the sides. Some varieties of the fruit, however, contain no nuts.

The season in which the jack fruit is in perfection is about the month of December. Though esteemed by many persons, it is so difficult of digestion, that great caution is requisite in eating it. The unripe fruit is sometimes pickled; it is sometimes cut into slices, and boiled as a vegetable for the table; and sometimes fried in palm-oil. The _nuts_ are eaten roasted, and the _wood_ serves for building materials.

TRIANDRIA.

222. _MAIZE, or INDIAN CORN_ (Zea mays, Fig. 58), _is a species of grain much cultivated in America and other climates: the grains are of yellow colour, somewhat shaped like flattened peas, and grow closely set round the upper part of high perpendicular stalks._

To the inhabitants of many countries of warm climates the cultivation of maize is a very important pursuit. These plants are propagated by sowing the seed in rows, in March, April, or May: they generally produce two crops in the year, and yield, according to the soil, from fifteen to forty bushels per acre. As soon as they are ripe, the ears are gathered. They are shortly afterwards threshed, and the grain, when separated, is spread out to dry in the sun; for, if it were heaped together in this state, it would ferment, and sprout or grow.

The American Indians parch this kind of corn over a fire, in such manner as not to burn it. Afterwards they pound it, sift the meal and preserve it for their chief food. They make it into puddings and cakes, or bread, the quality of which is extremely nutritive. Maize is useful for poultry and cattle of every kind; and, if converted into malt, a wholesome beverage may be brewed from it. Of the leafy _husk_ which surrounds the ear of the maize a beautiful kind of writing paper is manufactured at a paper-mill near Rimini in Italy; and a greyish paper may be manufactured from the whole plant. The _stalks_ are said to afford an excellent winter food for cattle. When the _young ears_ are beginning to form, they have a sweet and agreeable taste. If, in this state, the leaves be stripped off, and the ears be subjected to pressure, a pleasant and palatable milky juice may be obtained from them.

It is supposed that maize might, with advantage, be cultivated in England.

223. _The COMMON CUCUMBER_ (Cucumis sativus, Fig. 59.) _is an oblong, rough, and cooling fruit, which is cultivated in our kitchen gardens, and is supposed to have been originally imported into this country from some part of the Levant._

Cucumbers are always eaten before they are ripe, and usually with vinegar, oil, pepper, and salt. They are sometimes stewed; and when young (under the name of _gerkins_), are pickled with vinegar and spices, or preserved in syrup as a sweetmeat.

As the cucumber plants are too tender to sustain the coldness of our climate exposed to the open air, it is necessary to sow the seed in hot-beds, or under hand-glasses; though, in the beginning of summer, the glasses may, without danger, be removed. The fruit is much improved by putting a piece of slate or a tile under each, instead of allowing it to lie upon the naked ground.

224. _The COMMON MELON, or MUSK MELON, is a species of cucumber, produced by a creeping herbaceous plant_ (Cucumis melo), _which has leaves with rounded angles, and grows wild in Tartary._

In hot climates this fruit attains great perfection and a peculiarly fine flavour; and even in England, where it is cultivated in hot-beds, and sheltered by glass frames, it is one of the coolest and most delicious summer fruits that we possess. Its size and form vary beyond description. Sometimes it is smooth, and only three or four inches in length: sometimes its whole surface is rugged, or netted, and is many pounds in weight. Melons are, in colour, grey, yellowish, or green, externally; whilst their flesh is white, yellow, reddish, or green.

They are usually eaten with sugar; sometimes with pepper or ginger, and salt; and sometimes alone. In France, they are often eaten as a sauce to boiled beef. The smaller kinds are pickled; and one particular sort of melons are filled with mustard seeds and shred garlic, and pickled under the name of _mangos_ (73).

The propagation of melons is by seed, sown in February or March; and the cultivation is somewhat similar to that of the cucumber, but is attended with considerably more trouble and expense.

225. _The PUMPKIN, or POMPION, is a species of gourd which grows to an enormous size, contains several cells, and numerous seeds with tumid margins, and is produced by a creeping plant, with lobed leaves_ (Cucurbita pepo).

_The shape of the pumpkin is generally globular, or flatted at top and bottom, and ribbed. The rind is glossy, and of yellow or green colour. The flesh is firm, but melting, and the whole weight is sometimes more than thirty pounds._

The Germans cultivate this plant in extensive fields, for various economical purposes, but particularly for the feeding of swine, and other animals. They cut it into pieces, and throw it into fish-ponds, as food for carp. Little trouble is required in its culture; and it will flourish on any tolerable soil, in a warm and sheltered situation. The pulp is served at table in various forms, but particularly in pies, and as an ingredient in puddings and pancakes. The Americans frequently gather pumpkins when half grown, and eat them boiled as a sauce to meat. If the _seeds_ be subjected to pressure, they will yield a proportion of oil so great as nearly to amount to their own weight; and, when ground with water, they afford a cooling and nutritious kind of milk.

226. _The BOTTLE GOURD is an American fruit with woody rind, and of very various shape, belonging to the same tribe as the pumpkin, and produced by a creeping plant_ (Cucurbita lagenaria) _with somewhat angular and downy leaves, each having two glands at the base underneath._

This fruit is at first green, but when ripe, it assumes a dull yellow colour; and the flesh is spongy and very white. Its size and shape are so varied, that it would be impossible to describe them; sometimes it has a long slender part next the stalk, like the neck of a bottle; sometimes it is swollen, and sometimes of great length, and of form so curved as to be shaped almost like a bugle horn, or the musical instrument called a serpent.

So hard and strong is the _rind_ of the bottle-gourd, that this, when freed from the pulp, is frequently converted by the Americans, as well as the inhabitants of the West Indies, into drinking cups, flagons, bottles, and other domestic utensils; but, on being first used, it communicates a disagreeable taste to the juices contained in it. The _pulp_, boiled with vinegar, is sometimes eaten.

227. _The WATER MELON_ (Cucurbita citrullus) _is a roundish or oblong species of gourd, with thin smooth rind, marked with star-like spots, the leaves deeply divided into lobes, and the flowers somewhat resembling those of the cucumber._

Persons who have visited hot climates know well how to appreciate the grateful coolness and delicious flavour of the water melon, the flesh of which is so succulent that it melts in the mouth; and the central pulp of which is fluid, like that of the cocoa-nut, and may be sucked, or poured out through a hole in the rind, and thus made to afford a most refreshing beverage.