Harper's New Monthly Magazine, February, 1852

by Unknown

What Becomes Of The Rind?

Of all the occupations that exercise the ordinary energies of human beings, the most abstracting is that of sucking an orange. It seems to employ the whole faculties for the time being. There is an earnestness of purpose in the individual so employed—an impassioned determination to accomplish what he has undertaken—that creates a kindred excitement in the bystanders. His air is thoughtful; his eye severe, not to say relentless; and although his mouth is full of inarticulate sounds, conversation is out of the question. But the mind is busy although the tongue is silent; and when the deed is accomplished, the collapsed spheroid seems to swell anew with the ideas to which the exercise had given birth. One of these ideas we shall catch and fix, for occurring as it did to ourselves, it is our own property: it was contained in the question that rose suddenly in our mind as we looked at the ruin we had made—What becomes of the rind?

And this is no light question; no unimportant or merely curious pastime for a vacant moment. In our case it became more and more serious; it clung and grappled, till it hung upon our meditations like the albatross round the neck of the Ancient Mariner. Only consider what a subject it embraces. The orange, it is true, and its congener the lemon, are Celestial fruits, owing their origin to the central flowery land; but, thanks to the Portuguese, they are now domesticated in Europe, and placed within the reach of such northern countries as ours, where the cold prohibits their growth. Some of us no doubt force them in an artificial climate, at the expense of perhaps half a guinea apiece; but the bulk of the nation are content to receive them from other regions at little more than the cost of apples. Now the quantity we (the English) thus import every year from the Azores, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Malta, and other places, is about 300,000 chests, and each of these chests contains about 650 oranges, all wrapped separately in paper. But beside these we are in the habit of purchasing a [pg 403] large quantity, entered at the custom-house by number, and several thousand pounds' worth, entered at value; so that the whole number of oranges and lemons we consume in this country may be reckoned modestly at 220,000,000! Surely, then, it is not surprising that while engaged in the meditative employment alluded to, we should demand with a feeling of strong interest—What becomes of the rind?

Every body knows that Scotch marmalade uses up the rinds of a great many Seville oranges, as well as an unknown quantity of turnip skins and stalks of the bore-cole, the latter known to the Caledonian manipulators of the preserve as “kail-custocks.” Every body understands also, that not a few of the rinds of edible oranges take up a position on the pavement, where their mission is to bring about the downfall of sundry passers-by thus accomplishing the fracture of a not inconsiderable number—taking one month with another throughout the season—of arms, legs, and occiputs. It is likewise sufficiently public that a variety of drinks are assisted by the hot, pungent rinds of oranges and lemons as well as by the juice; but notwithstanding all these deductions, together with that of the great quantity thrown away as absolute refuse, we shall find a number of rinds unaccounted for large enough to puzzle by its magnitude the Statistical Society. This mystery, however, we have succeeded in penetrating, and although hardly hoping to carry the faith of the reader along with us, we proceed to unfold it: it is contained in the single monosyllable, peel.

Orange-peel, lemon-peel, citron-peel—these are the explanation: the last-mentioned fruit—imported from Sicily, Madeira, and the Canary Islands—being hardly distinguishable from a lemon except by its somewhat less acid pulp and more pungent rind. Even a very careless observer can hardly fail to be struck at this season by the heaps of those candied rinds displayed in the grocers' windows; but the wildest imagination could not guess at any thing so extravagant as the quantity of the fruit thus used; and even when we learn that upward of 600 tons of peel are manufactured in the year, it is a hopeless task to attempt to separate that prodigious bulk into its constituent parts. Six hundred tons of candied peel! of a condiment employed chiefly if not wholly, in small quantities in the composition of puddings and cakes. Six hundred tons—12,000 hundredweights—1,344,000 pounds—21,504,000 ounces! But having once got possession of the fact, see how suggestive it is. Let us lump the puddings and cakes in one; let us call them all puddings—plum-puddings of four pounds' weight. We find, on consulting the best authorities—for we would not presume to dogmatize on such a subject—that the quantity of peel used in the composition of such a work is two ounces; and thus we are led to the conclusion that we Britishers devour in the course of a year 10,752,000 full-sized, respectable plum-puddings, irrespective of all such articles as are not adorned and enriched with candied peel.

Citrons intended for peel are imported in brine, but oranges and lemons in boxes. All are ripe in December, January, and February; but as it would be inconvenient to preserve so vast a quantity at the same time, the juice is squeezed out, and the collapsed fruit packed in pipes, with salt and water, till wanted. When the time for preserving comes, it is taken from the pipes, and boiled till soft enough to admit of the pulp being scooped out; then the rind is laid in tubs or cisterns, and melted sugar poured over it. Here it lies for three or four weeks; and then the sugar is drained away, and the rind placed on trays in a room constructed for the purpose. It now assumes the name of “dried peel,” and is stored away in the original orange and lemon boxes, till wanted for candying.

The other constituents of a plum-pudding add but little testimony on the subject of number. We can not even guess the proportion of the 170,000 lbs. of nutmegs we receive from the Moluccas, and our own possessions in the Malay Straits, which may be thus employed; nor how much cinnamon Ceylon sends us for the purpose in her annual remittance of about 16,000 lbs.;[6] nor what quantity of almonds is abstracted, with a similar view, from the 9000 cwts. we retain for our own consumption from the importations from Spain and Northern Africa. Currants are more to our purpose—for that small Corinth grape, the produce of the islands of Zante, Cephalonia, and Ithaca, and of the Morea, which comes to us so thickly coated with dust that we might seem to import vineyard and all—belongs, like the candied peel, almost exclusively to cakes and puddings. Of this fruit we devour in the year about 180,000 cwts. Raisins, being in more general use—at the dessert, for instance, and in making sweet wine—are in still greater demand; we can not do with less than 240,000 cwts of them. They are named from the place where they grow—such as Smyrna or Valencia; or from the grape—such as muscatel, bloom, or sultana; but the quality depends, we believe, chiefly on the mode of cure. The best are called raisins of the sun, and are preserved by cutting half through the stalks of the branches when nearly ripe, and leaving them to dry and candy in the genial rays. The next quality is gathered when completely ripe, dipped in a lye of the ashes of the burned tendrils, and spread out to bake in the sun. The inferior is dried in an oven. The black Smyrna grape is the cheapest; and the muscatels of Malaga are the dearest.

With flour, sugar, brandy, &c., we do not propose to interfere; for although the quantities of these articles thus consumed are immense, they bear but a small proportion to the whole importations. Eggs, however, are in a different category. Eggs are essential to the whole pudding race; and without having our minds opened, as they now are, to the full greatness of the plum-pudding, it would be difficult for us to discover [pg 404] the rationale of the vast trade we carry on in eggs. In our youthful days, when, as yet, plum-puddingism was with us in its early, empirical state, we used to consider “egg-merchant” a term of ridicule, resembling the term “timber-merchant,” as applied to a vender of matches. But we now look with respect upon an egg-merchant, as an individual who manages an important part of the trade of this country with France and Belgium; not to mention its internal traffic in the same commodity. It strikes us, however, that on this subject the Frenchman and Belgian are wiser in their generation than ourselves. We could produce our own eggs easily enough if we would take the trouble; but rather than do this we hire them to do it for us, at an expense of several scores of thousands sterling in the year. They, of course, are very much obliged to us, though a little amused no doubt at the eccentricity of John Bull; and with the utmost alacrity supply us annually with about 90,000,000 eggs. John eats his foreign pudding, however—he is partial to foreign things—with great gravity, and only unbends into a smile when he sees his few chickens hopping about the farm-yard, the amusement of his children, or the little perquisite, perhaps, of his wife. He occasionally eats a newly-laid egg, the date of its birth being carefully registered upon the shell; thinks it a very clever thing in him to provide his own luxuries; and is decidedly of opinion that an English egg is worth two of the mounseers'. His neglect of this branch of rural economy, however, does not prevent his wondering sometimes how these fellows contrive to make the two ends of the year meet, when he himself finds it so difficult a matter to get plums to his pudding.

What becomes of the rind? We have shown what becomes of the rind. We have shown what apparently inconsiderable matters swell up the commerce of a great country. A plum-pudding is no joke. It assembles within itself the contributions of the whole world, and gives a fillip to industry among the most distant tribes and nations. But it is important likewise in other respects. Morally and socially considered, its influence is immense. At this season of the year, more especially, it is a bond of family union, and a symbol of friendly hospitality. We would not give a straw for that man, woman, or child, in the frank, cordial circles of Old English life, who does not hail its appearance on the table with a smile and a word of welcome. Look at its round, brown, honest, unctuous face, dotted with almonds and fragrant peel, surmounted with a sprig of holly, and radiant amid the flames of burning brandy! Who is for plum-pudding? We are, to be sure. What a rich perfume as it breaks on the plate! And this fragrant peel, so distinguishable amid the exhalations! ha! Delaeioucious!—that's what becomes of the rind!