Parsley has fared better, both with gods and men. Hercules and Anacreon crowned themselves with it. It was worn both at joyous banquets and funeral feasts; and not only horses, but those who bestrode them, ate of the herb, in order to find the excitement to daring which otherwise lacked. In contrast with parsley stood the water-cress, a plant honoured and eaten only by the Persians. It was, indeed, medically esteemed as curative of consumption, and, by placing it in the ears, of toothache. But the wits and Plutarch denounced its use in any case; and few cared to affect love for a plant which was popularly declared to have the power of twisting the noses of those who put it into their mouths!
Parsley was as popular in what may be called “classical” times, as the asparagus has invariably been with a particular class in France. This vegetable has ever been, I know not wherefore, a favourite vegetable with the officials of the Gallican Church. One day, Monseigneur Courtois de Quincy, Bishop of Belley, was informed that an asparagus head had just pierced the soil in His Eminence’s kitchen-garden, and that it was worth looking at. Cardinal and convives rose from table, visited the spot, and were lost in admiration at what they saw. Day by day the Bishop watched the growth of the delicious giant. His mouth watered as he looked at it, and happy was he when the day arrived in which he might with his own hands take it from the ground. When he did so, he found, to his disappointment, that he held a wooden counterfeit, admirably turned and painted by the Canon Rosset, who was famous for his artistic abilities, and also for his practical jokes. The joke on this occasion was taken in good part, and the counterfeit asparagus was admitted to the honour of lying on the Bishop’s table.
I have noticed, that asparagus has been suggested as one of the substitutes for coffee. In this case, the seeds are taken from the berries, by drying the latter in an oven, and rubbing them on a sieve. When ground, the seeds make a full-flavoured coffee, not inferior, it is said,—but that is doubtful,—to the best Mocha.
It was the opinion of Pliny, that nature intended asparagus to grow wild, in order that all might eat thereof. That was esteemed the best which grew naturally on the mountain-sides. The famous Ravenna asparagus was cultivated with such perfection, that three of them weighed a pound. Lobster surrounded with asparagus was a favourite dish; and the rapidity with which the latter should be cooked, is illustrated, as I have said, by a proverb: “Velocius quam asparagi coquuntur!” There is a story told of an intrusive traveller forcing his company at supper on another wayfarer, before whom were placed an omelette and some asparagus. The intruder had not before seen any “grass,” and inquired what it was. “O, it is very well in its way,” said the other, “and we will divide both omelette and asparagus;” and therewith, after carving the first, he cut the bunch in two, and gave the white ends to the importunate visitor. The greatest indignation ever experienced by Carême, was once at hearing that some guests had eaten asparagus with one of his new entremets, and mixed it in their mouths with iced champagne.
There is an opinion current in some parts of England, that they who eat of old parsnips that have been long in the ground invariably go mad; and on this account the root is called “mad-nip.” On some such “insane root,” it is said, the Indians, named by Garcilasso, whetted their appetites before they ate their dead parents. Such form of entombment was accounted most dignified and dutiful. If the defunct was lean, the children boiled their parent; but obesity was always honoured by roasting. Fathers and mothers were religiously picked to the very bones, and the bones themselves were then consigned to the earth. This, however, is not an exclusively Indian custom. The Indians only devoured their deceased parents; but I have seen, in Christian England, many a son devouring father and mother, too, during their lives, swallowing their very substance, and then, like the Indians, committing their bones to the bosom of a tender mother,—earth.
Perhaps there is nothing, in the vegetable way, more insipid than parsnips; but these are sometimes as mischievous as insipid persons. This is the case, if the above-named tradition be worthy of credit, wherein we are told, that old parsnips are called “mad-nips,” and that the maids who eat of them invariably become more like Salmacis than the youth she wooed, and are as much given to dancing as though they had been bitten by a tarantula. I fear the “mad-nip” is too much eaten in many of our rural districts, and perhaps by the acerba virgo of metropolitan towns and episcopal cities also. But let us look at our ancient friend, the potato.
It has been well said, that the first art in boiling a potato, is to prevent the boiling of the potato. “Upon the heat and flame of the distemper sprinkle cool patience;” for without patience, care, and attention,—extreme vigilance being implied by the latter, a potato will never come out of the pot triumphantly well boiled.
The potato has been found in an indigenous state in Chili, on the mountains near Valparaiso and Mendoza; also near Monte Video, Lima, Quito, in Santa Fé da Bogota, and on the banks of the Orizaba, in Mexico. Cobbett cursed the root as being that of the ruin of Ireland, where it is said to have been first planted by Raleigh, on his estate at Youghal, near Cork. Its introduction into England is described as the effect of accident, in consequence of the wrecking of a vessel on the coast of Lancashire, which had a quantity of this “fruit” on board.
The common potato (solanum tuberosum) was probably first brought to Spain from Quito by the Spaniards, in the early part of the sixteenth century. In both of those countries the tubers are known by the designation of papas. In passing from Spain into Italy, it naturalized itself under the name of “the truffle.” In 1598, we hear of its arrival at Vienna, and thence spreading over Europe. It certainly was not known in North America in 1586, the period at which Raleigh’s colonists in Virginia are said to have sent it to England; and in the latter country it was not known until long after its introduction, as noticed above, into Ireland. In Gerard’s Herbal (1597) the Batata Virginiana, as it is called, to distinguish it from the Batata Edulis, or “sweet potato,” is described; and the author recommends the root, not for common food, but as “a delicate dish.” The sweet potato was the “delicate dish” at English tables long before the introduction of its honest cousin. We imported it from Spain and the Canaries, and in very considerable quantities. It enjoyed the reputation of possessing power to restore decayed vigour. This reputation has not escaped Shakspeare, who makes Falstaff exultingly remark, in a fit of pleasant excitement, that “it rains potatoes!” The Royal Society of England, in 1663, urgently recommended the extensive cultivation of the root as a resource against threatened famine; but as late as the end of that century, a good hundred years after its first introduction, the writers on gardening continued to treat its merits with a contemptuous indifference; though one of them does “damn with faint praise,” by remarking, that “they are much used in Ireland and America as bread, and may be propagated with advantage to poor people.” As late as 1719, the potato was not deemed worthy of being named in the “Complete Gardener” of Loudon and Wise, and it was not till the middle of the last century that it became generally used in Britain and North America. The “conservatives of gulosity” of that day continued long to disparagingly describe it as “a root found in the New World, consisting of little knobs, held together by strings: if you boil it well, it can be eaten; it may become an article of food; it will certainly do for hogs; and though it is rather flatulent and acid in the human stomach, perhaps, if you boil it with dates, it may serve to keep soul and body together, among those who can find nothing better.”
Some sixty years since, the Dutch introduced the potato into Bengal. The produce was sold in Calcutta at 5s. a pound. The English tried to raise them, and all their plants grew like Jack’s bean-stalk, but lacked its strength. The Hollanders continually cut the swiftly-growing plant, and so compelled it to produce its fruit beneath the ground. The secret was as well worth knowing as that other touching potatoes during frost. The only precaution necessary is, to retain the potato in a perfectly dark place, for some days after the thaw has commenced. In America, where they are sometimes frozen as hard as stones, they rot if thawed in open day; but if thawed in darkness, they do not rot, and lose very little of their natural odour and properties. So, at least, they assert, who profess to have means of best knowing. The potato is said to have been first planted, in England, in the county of Lancashire, which was once as famous for the plant as Lithuania is for beet-root. It is not much more than a century since cabbages reached us from Holland. They were first planted in Dorsetshire, by the Ashleys; and I may add here what I have omitted in speaking of it in earlier times, namely, that the Athenians administered the juice of it in cases of slow parturition. Let me farther add, that such terms as “cow-cabbage,” “horse-radish,” “bull-rush,” and the like, do not imply any connexion between the article and the animal. The animal prefix is simply to signify unusual size. The prefix was commonly so applied by the ancients: hence the name of Alexander’s charger; and a not less familiar illustration is afforded us in the case of the “horse-leech.” Cabbage used to have said of it what Lemery, physician of Louis XIV., more truly said of spinach; namely, that “it stops coughing, allays the sharp humours of the breast, and keeps the body open.” Spinach, to be truly enjoyed, should never be eaten without liberal saturation of gravy; and French epicures say, “Do not forget the nutmeg.” This vegetable goes excellently with swine’s flesh in every shape, but especially ham, the stimulating flavour of which it strongly modifies.