Apparently because this legumen is unknown to her. The others, whether natives or acclimatized foreigners from the East, have been familiar to her for centuries; she tests their excellence [[216]]year by year and, relying on the lessons of the past, she bases her forethought for the future upon ancient custom. She suspects the haricot as a newcomer whose merits she has still to learn.
The insect tells us emphatically that the haricot is of recent date. It reached us from very far away, surely from the New World. Every edible thing attracts those whose business it is to make use of it. If the haricot had originated in the old continent, it would have had its licensed consumers, after the manner of the pea, the lentil and the others. The smallest leguminous seed, often no bigger than a pin’s head, feeds its Bruchus, a dwarf that nibbles it patiently and hollows it into a dwelling, whereas the plump and exquisite haricot is spared!
This strange immunity can have but one explanation: like the potato, like maize, the haricot is a present from the New World. It arrived in Europe unaccompanied by the insect that battens on it regularly in its native land; it found in our fields other seed-eaters, which, because they did not know it, despised it. In the same way, the potato and maize are respected over here, unless their American consumers are imported with them by accident.
The insect’s report is confirmed by the negative evidence of the ancient classics: the haricot never appears on the rustic table of their peasants. In [[217]]Virgil’s second Eclogue, Thestylis is preparing the reapers’ repast:
Thestylis et rapido fessis messoribus æstu
Allia serpyllumque herbas contundit olentes.[2]
The mixture is the equivalent of the aioli dear to the Provençal palate. It sounds very well in verse, but it lacks substance. On such an occasion men would prefer such solid fare as a dish of red haricots seasoned with chopped onions. Capital: that ballasts the stomach, while remaining just as countrified as garlic. Thus filled, in the open air, to the chirping of the Cicadæ, the gang of harvesters could take a brief mid-day nap and gently digest their meal in the shade of the sheaves. Our modern Thestyles, differing so little from their classic sisters, would take good care not to forget the gounflo-gus, that thrifty stand-by of big appetites. The Thestylis of the poet does not think of it, because she does not know it.
The same author shows us Tityrus offering a night’s hospitality to his friend Melibœus, who, driven from his property by the soldiers of Octavius, goes off limping behind his flock of goats.
‘We shall have chestnuts,’ says Tityrus, ‘cheese and fruits.’
History does not say if Melibœus allowed himself [[218]]to be tempted. It is a pity, for during the frugal meal we might have learnt, in a more explicit fashion, that the shepherds of olden time had to do without the haricot.