"I have only outlined briefly the almost infinite number of improvements that could be named, not only in the plants named, but in all other plants as well as fruits; in which people recognize flavors most quickly.
"It is almost necessary to knock a man down before you can convince him that there are differences in flavors of herbs and vegetables, or that such things as coffee, cinnamon and other plants can be improved in this respect."
EATING WITH THE EYES.
The object of this whole book is to furnish a "knockdown" argument as to the overwhelming importance of securing the best flavors in food and to demonstrate at the same time that commercially the richest Flavor pays best.
A few years ago Professor J. L. Henderson of the Harvard Medical School astonished newspaper readers by saying that the needed food for one person costs only ten cents a day and that the rest we spend goes largely for flavor.
Had he made this remark some years hence he might have said "goes chiefly for flavor." At the present time, unfortunately, not a few purchasers of foods are guided to a considerable extent by appearance. Dr. Wiley has written trenchantly on the widely prevalent habit of "eating with the eyes"—of selecting articles of food for their size and color instead of their flavor. Inferior or imitation butter, for example, is artificially colored and the ignorant consumer meekly buys it. The epicure buys butter for its Flavor and the dealer cannot deceive his eyes. To him, in the words of Dr. Wiley, "the natural tint of butter is as much more attractive than the artificial as any natural color is superior to the artificial. There is the same difference between the natural tint of butter and the artificial as there is between the natural rose of the cheek and its painted substitute. The dairymen of our country are honest and honorable and evidently do not clearly see the false position in which the practice of coloring butter puts them. When the dairymen of the country understand that the naturally colored products will bring the highest price on the market and appeal more strongly to the confidence of the consumer it is believed the artificial coloring in butter will be relegated to the scrap pile of useless processes." Natural butter is yellow in May and June; but whoever buys yellow butter at other times in the belief that it is fresh is a greenhorn. Even harmless coloring matter, like carrot juice, is objectionable, because it makes the butter spoil sooner.
George K. Holmes, Chief of the Division of Foreign Markets, contributed to the Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture for 1904 an article entitled "Consumers' Fancies" which gives some curious illustrations of the stupid underrating of the all-important Flavor. To cite one of them: "Although it may seem that it is positively not worth while, to say nothing of money, to buy a nut except to enjoy its flavor, yet to taste is assigned only 25 per cent., while 50 per cent. is given to the eye, the remaining 25 per cent. going to the convenience of cracking the shells."
Judges at county fairs have been known to allow 20 points on looks and only 15 on the flavor of foods. They knew that city folk are easily fooled by appearances. On this point Mr. Holmes remarks: "In the city, a large city especially, the appearance of an apple is everything and taste nothing, unless the purchaser was once a country boy and enjoyed the freedom of an orchard." And again: "City-bred people, who have little knowledge of the origin and real character of food and food products, such as the country man has, and who have no childhood's acquaintance with the good things of the farm, are especially liable to suggestion; they are governed largely by appearances in their selection of farm products and are easily deceived by the trick of a false name or a false ingredient in a prepared food."
One of the standing jokes in our comic papers concerns the "hayseed" who comes to town and buys a "gold brick." If the farmers edited comic papers, they would have a standing joke about the city folk who buy their showy products, leaving them the best flavored, which may not appeal to the eye.
It is not true, however, that all the showy fruits are insipid and all the small plain fruits full-flavored. The delicious Winter Nellis pear is not nearly as pretty to look at as the Bartlett, yet it is quite as popular, while the Bartlett is as luscious as it is beautiful and often imposing in size, especially on the Pacific Coast. Among the apples in our markets, also, some of the biggest and most beautiful are the best to eat.