  THE customer at a Lewiston market was in a reflective mood Saturday morning and would talk. "How many of your customers know anything about what they eat?" said he. "They ought to," said the blue frock, "they buy it and they order it." "I don't mean that," was the reply. "Of course they know what they eat, but who of them know anything about the stuff? Take vegetables, for instance." "Oh, lots of 'em know," said the market man. "Here's potatoes, for instance. They are native Americans. I guess Sir Walter Raleigh introduced them to Europe." "I guess he never ate one, for in his time they were not considered fit to eat. They went to Europe from the hills of South America and a strange matter of fact, when you come to think of it, is that in the United States, where, barring a few sections, vegetables grow in greater abundance and beauty than any other part of the world, none save maize and the ground artichokes are native products." "Nonsense!" ejaculated the amazed market man. "No nonsense about it," continued the contemplative customer. "Europe, Asia, Africa and South America are all more richly endowed than we. I used to think the watermelon was ours, but, bless you! the north African tribes grew the big, juicy fellows and gave us our first seeds. As to the musk-melon, it is a vegetable of such lineage that, like the cabbage and lettuce, nobody knows just who were their first wild progenitors. The melon, at any rate, came out of Persia as a developed table delicacy, while the Adam of the cabbage family is agreed by botanists to have flourished way back there in Central Asia, where they say the Caucasian race came from. The Romans ate cabbage salad, and, according to count, there are nearly as many varieties of this sturdy old green goods as there are different races of men. "There is another Roman delicacy," continued the customer, pointing to a box of beets. "They do say that the Greek philosophers thought a dish of boiled beets, served up with salt and oil, a great aid to mental exercise. For my part, though, I don't know a vegetable that should be prouder of its family history than the radish. Radishes came from China, but a scientific journal the other day announced the discovery from a translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics that Pharaoh fed his pyramid builders on radishes. He even went so far as to spend 1,900 silver talents in order to regale his masons with the crisp and spicy root. Again, if you read the Old Testament carefully, you will be sure to come across the announcement that in Egypt the children of Israel ate melons, beets, onions and garlic, and, evidently, in traveling through the wilderness, Moses had a great deal of difficulty in persuading them to cease yearning after these Egyptian dainties. "Besides the melons and peaches and geraniums," continued the garrulous customer, "for all of which we have to thank productive Persia, water cress comes from her valleys and brooks and she taught the world how to grow and head lettuce. However, the Roman gourmands, who adopted both these salads, ate green peas and string beans that their gardeners found growing in France and South Germany, and cucumbers were as popular with them as with the Jews and Egyptians. "To Arabia honor is due for the burr artichoke. They ate it for liver difficulties—and, as a matter of fact, there is no vegetable so good for men and women who lead a sedentary life, just as carrots, that grew first in Belgium, are an admirable tonic for the complexion, spinach for the blood, potatoes for the hair, and celery for the nerves. Rhubarb, they say, was never known until the fifteenth century, when the Russians found it on the banks of the Volga, and, if you will believe it, the only European people who appreciate the eggplant as we do are the Turks. North Africa first produced |
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