Although salep might be procured in great abundance in our own country, we import nearly the whole of what we use from the Levant, and generally in oval pieces of yellowish white colour, somewhat clear and pellucid, and of almost horny substance. When these, or the powder prepared from them, are put into boiling water, they dissolve into a thick mucilage.
With the Turks, salep has great celebrity, on account of the restorative qualities which it is supposed to possess. It is much recommended as nutritive food for persons recovering from illness; and, in particular, as a part of the stores of every ship about to sail into distant climates. It not only possesses the property of yielding an invaluable nutriment, and, in a great measure, of concealing the saline taste of sea-water, but is likewise of essential service against the sea-scurvy. When it is stated that one ounce of this powder and an ounce of portable soup, dissolved in two quarts of boiling water, will form a jelly capable of affording sustenance to one man for a day, the utility of salep will be further seen as a means of preventing famine at sea for an infinitely longer time than any other food of equal bulk.
CLASS XXI.—MONŒCIA.
MONANDRIA.
220. The BREAD FRUIT is a large globular berry of pale green colour, about the size of a child's head, marked on the surface with irregular six-sided depressions, and containing a white and somewhat fibrous pulp, which, when ripe, becomes juicy and yellow.
The tree that produces it (Artocarpus incisa, Fig. 57) grows wild in Otaheite and other islands of the South Seas, is about forty feet high, has large and spreading branches, and large bright green leaves, each deeply divided into seven or nine spear-shaped lobes.
We are informed, in Captain Cook's first voyage round the world, that the edible part of this fruit lies between the skin and the core; and that it is white as snow, and somewhat of the consistence of new bread. It is generally used immediately when gathered; if it be kept more than twenty-four hours it becomes hard and chokey. The inhabitants of the South Sea Islands prepare it as food, by dividing the fruit into three or four parts, and roasting it in hot embers. Its taste is insipid, with a slight tartness, and somewhat resembles that of the crumb of wheaten bread mixed with Jerusalem artichoke ([217]). Of this fruit the Otaheitans make various messes, by putting to it either water or the milk of the cocoa-nut ([233]), then beating it to a paste with a stone pestle, and afterwards mixing it with ripe plantains ([270]), bananas ([271]), or a sour paste, made from the bread fruit itself, called mahié.
It continues in season eight months of the year; and so great is its utility in the island of Otaheite, that (observes Captain Cook), if, in those parts where it is not spontaneously produced, a man plant but ten trees in his whole life-time, he will as completely fulfil his duty to his own and to future generations, as the natives of our less temperate climate can do by ploughing in the winter's cold, and reaping in the summer's heat, as often as these seasons return; even if, after he has procured bread for his present household, he should convert the surplus into money, and lay it up for his children.