Dr. Dewees regards most fruits as difficult of digestion. I do not think they are so, if perfect and ripe. The experiments of Dr. Beaumont, so far as they prove any general principle, show conclusively that mellow sweet apples are more quickly digested than any kind of vegetable food whatever, except rice and sago. But even admitting they were slow of digestion, I do not think—as I have already shown in another place—that they ought on that account to be excluded. Besides, my opinion differs from that of Dr. D. in regard to the strength of the digestive powers of children. After teething, they seem to me to be able to digest any substances which adults can; and with as little difficulty.
But to return:—No fruit is in perfection longer than the apple. Besides, no fruit appears to be less injured in its nature and properties by picking it a little before it is ripe, and preserving it during the winter. It is on this account, more perhaps than any other, that I value it more highly than all other fruits united.
Apples may be used either raw or cooked. In either case, the skins and seeds should be avoided, as has been before suggested. I am not ignorant that WILLICH, in his "Lectures on Diet and Regimen"—an excellent work, in the main—says that the seeds ought to be eaten; but I believe few physiologists would comply with his injunction, especially when it is considered that he recommends, in the same connection, that we swallow the stones of cherries and plums. Strange how far our theories will sometimes carry us!
The apple is excellent when roasted or baked, especially the sweet apple. It is very common, in some places, to eat baked sweet apples with milk; and the practice is by no means a bad one. Indeed, baked or raw apples might be advantageously made a part of at least one of our meals every day. There is said to be a miserly farmer—a single gentleman—in the western part of the state of Massachusetts, who has lived on nothing but apples for his food, and water for his drink, about forty years. And yet he is said to enjoy the most perfect health. I do not propose this as an example worthy of imitation; but it shows that apples maybe made to subserve an important purpose in diet. And though I have more than once expressed an opinion highly unfavorable to the exclusive use of any one article of diet, yet if I were to confine myself to any one thing, I know of nothing except bread that I should prefer to good apples. Still, however, I prefer a variety—sweet, sour, early, late, &c.; and I should use them raw, roasted, baked, made into sauce with new or unfermented cider, and boiled. Good apples, eaten raw, with bread, form not only a very wholesome, but, to an unperverted appetite, a most delicious dinner.
Much has been said about cutting down orchards; but the whole seems to me idle—for if the fruit is of a good quality, it may be used as food, either for man or beast. And if not good, the trees ought either to be destroyed or replaced by those that will produce fruit which is better—even if the object were to make it into cider. I have said that apples may be used both by man and beast. It is well known that most domestic animals thrive well on good apples, especially sweet ones. Very tolerable molasses is also sometimes made from sweet apples.
Nearly everything which has been said above in regard to apples, will apply to pears. The best varieties of this excellent fruit are quite as nutritious and as wholesome as the apple; and as much improved for the table by baking. I believe, however, that no cheap process has yet been devised for keeping them as long in the winter. They may be preserved in the form of sauce, prepared in the same way with common apple sauce. The skins, of many kinds of pears are less injurious than those of apples; but even the skins of pears need not be eaten.
Some kinds of peaches are tolerably wholesome; but the stringy character of their pulp appears to me to render them less so than apples and pears, though I am not confident on this point. But if used at all, they should be used in less quantity at one time. Tempting as their flavor is, I seldom eat them, when I can get apples and pears; holding myself in duty bound to use the best, even of the fruits.
"Fruit," says Mr. Locke, "makes one of the most difficult chapters in the government of health, especially that of children. Our first parents ventured Paradise for it; and it is no wonder our children cannot stand the temptation, though it cost them their health. The regulation of this cannot come under any one general rule; for I am by no means of their mind who would keep children wholly from fruit, as a thing totally unwholesome for them, by which strict way they make them but the more ravenous after it, to eat good or bad, ripe or unripe, all that they can get, whenever they come at it.
"Melons, peaches, most sorts of plums, and all sorts of grapes, in England, I think children should be wholly kept from, as having a very tempting taste, in a very unwholesome juice, so that if it were possible, they should never so much as see them, or know that there was any such thing. But strawberries, cherries, gooseberries and currants, when thoroughly ripe, I think may be pretty safely allowed them."
Excellent as these remarks are, in general, I do not like his entire interdiction of the use of melons, peaches, plums, and grapes, even in England. Peaches, to be sure, as they come at a season when apples or pears, or both of them—which are more wholesome than peaches—are abundant, may be better omitted, delicious as they are to the taste; and I do not think very highly of plums. But melons, in very moderate quantity, and grapes, if we eat nothing but the ripe pulp, rejecting both the husk and the interior hard part, including the seeds, are, I think, useful and wholesome. On the other hand, I should never place cherries and gooseberries in the same list with strawberries; for the latter are, if I may use the expression, infinitely the most wholesome.