# Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management/Chapter XXIX

VEGETABLES.
1.—Croquette Potatoes. 2.—Spinach and Eggs. 3.—Asparagus. 4.—Cauliflower. 5.—Wafer Potatoes. 6.—Mushrooms. 7.—New Peas. 8.—French Beans. 9.—Stuffed Tomatoes. 10.—New Carrots.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES
Remarks on the Science of Botany and the Properties of Vegetables.
The knowledge of plants in the earlier history of mankind was restricted to those from which food was obtained, or were remarkable for their curative or poisonous nature, their relative value being determined by practical experience. As civilization advanced, the priests, who made a study of the medicinal properties of the plants then known to them, were the doctors of the period, and thus the connexion between religion and medicine which so long prevailed became established.
Hippocrates (fifth century b.c.), the "Father of Medicine," enumerated 234 species of plants known in his time and used for medicinal purposes. The first book, having a basis of science, was that of Aristotle (384–322 b.c.), the celebrated philosopher and naturalist of ancient Greece. His pupil, Theophrastus, describes some 500 plants known in agriculture, domestic use, and medicine. No further progress seems to have been made in the study of botany until the first century a. d., when Dioscorides, a Greek physician, the author of a celebrated work on medicine, long a standard work, describes some 600 plants used in the healing art. Pliny the Elder (23–79 a.d.), who perished in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum, utilized the labours of his predecessors, and collected the most interesting facts from their writings, which he embodied in his Natural History, the only work of the Roman naturalist now extant. The above-mentioned works on botany were the best until the sixteenth century, and were held in high reputation. At this period the Germans began those investigations in this branch of science in which they have long and honourably held a distinguished place. The first to classify plants systematically was Caesalpinius (died 1603), dividing the vegetable kingdom into woody and herbaceous plants. The growth of ​mercantile enterprise in the East and the discovery of America added greatly to botanical knowledge, hampered, however, by the different names given to the same plant by various discoverers, a difficulty which the brothers John and Casper Banhin endeavoured to overcome. Jung, the rector of the Gymnasium at Hamburg (died 1657), originated the Latin system of botanical nomenclature; and in 1700 Tournefort first classified plants into strictly defined genera founded on the form of the flower. It was, however, reserved to Carl von Linné, more generally known by his latinized name, Linnæus, in the eighteenth century, to place the science of botany on a firm foundation, and to propound the system which bears his name. The Linnæan system, although it possesses many advantages for the purpose of classification, is an artificial one, the Vegetable Kingdom being divided into 24 classes (23 comprising flowering plants, the 24th including the Cryptogamia, or flowerless plants), dependent on the number and arrangement of the stamens, and these, again, into orders with respect to the pistils or carpils. Linnæus also introduced the binomial system of classification, by means of which every plant is distinguished by two Latin names, the first denoting the genus, the second the species: for example, the common hemlock is described as Conium masculatum, L., the letter appended indicating the name of the botanist who first bestowed it. The Linnæan system has since been superseded by the natural system, originally promulgated by Jussieu (1748-1836) in his work "Genera Plantarum," the first complete exposition of the natural system, since modified by a combination of systems proposed by De Candolle, Endlicher, Meisner, Lindley, Sir W. and Dr. J. H. Hooker, Bentham, and other botanists. The natural system divides the Vegetable Kingdom into two great sections, Cryptogamia, or plants destitute of flowers, containing anthers, and Phanerogamia, or plants containing the organs above specified.
Lichens and Mosses.—These low classes of cryptogamous plants are widely distributed over the surface of the earth, the lichens being most abundant in the colder regions of the globe, and are of considerable importance in the economy of nature. They assist materially in the creation of the soil, and thrive in the coldest and most sterile situations, many of them growing on the barest rocks and receiving no other nourishment than that afforded by air and rain. They pass into a state of decay, and by their débris sustain other species, which in their turn supply nourishment to other plants. This continuous process of growth and decay assists by chemical and mechanical action in the disintegration of rock, and forms a soil sufficient to maintain larger plants, which also die and decay, and thus the soil is increased until it is sufficiently deep to sustain the beech or oak, or even the trees of a tropical forest. Some species of lichens are useful as articles of food to the inhabitants of the northern regions and their domesticated animals, as the "Iceland moss" (Cetraria islandica), which contains ​the gelatinous substance lichenin, and the "reindeer moss" (Cladonia rangiferina), which grows abundantly in the Arctic regions, and forms the chief nourishment of the reindeer. Other lichens are valuable for medicinal purposes, as Parmelia parietina, used as a remedy for fever. Several other lichens such as "Roccella tinctoria" are employed in dyeing important shades of crimson and purple in silk and wool. This colouring matter, known as arehil, or orchil, is obtained from various lichens natives of the rocks of the Canary and the Cape de Verd Islands, and is principally used in conjunction with aniline dyes to improve their tints. The Parmelia esculenta of Asia Minor and the Sahara is identified by some with the "Manna" of Scripture.
In the vicinity of lichens, the Musci, or mosses, are generally to be found. Like the lichens, wherever vegetation can be sustained they are present, affording protection to the roots and seeds of more highly organized plants, and by their spongy texture retaining moisture which preserves other plants from the drought of summer. Mosses abound in our pastures and woods, attaching themselves both to the living and dead trunks and branches of trees. They also grow luxuriously in marshy places, and become a medium for the conversion of these into fruitful fields. The bog-mosses (Sphagnaceæ) grow in water or on some solid sub-stratum, and contribute largely to the formation of peats.
When nature has provided a soil, her next care is to perfect the growth of her seeds and then to disperse them. This is effected by the structure and arrangement of the seed varying according to the nature of its particular habitat. When the seed, or mature ovule, is ripe, it bursts the capsule in which it is contained and falls to the ground, or is scattered by the wind. Some seeds, as the Cuckoo-flower (Cardamine pratensis), escape by an elastic jerk at the moment of their explosion, and by this means are cast to a distance. Others like those of the maple, elm, and ash have wing-like appendages which enable the seed to be curried in the air; others again, like the thistle and dandelion, are provided with downy hairy filaments, by means of which they are conveyed long distances by the breezes.
Birds, quadrupeds and insects are likewise the means of dispersing the seeds of plants, and placing them in situations where they ultimately grow. Amongst the latter is the squirrel, which is an extensive planter of oaks. It is related that a gentleman was walking one day in some woods belonging to the Duke of Beaufort, near Troy House, in Monmouthshire, when his attention was arrested by a squirrel, sitting very composedly upon the ground. He stopped to observe its movements. In short time the little animal suddenly quitted its position, and darted to the top of the tree beneath which it had been sitting. In an instant it returned with an acorn in its mouth, and with its paws began to burrow in the earth. After digging a small hole, it deposited in it an acorn, which it hastily covered, and then darted up the tree again. In a moment it was down with another which it buried in the same ​manner; and so continued its labour, gathering and burying, as long as the gentleman had patience to watch it. This industry in the squirrel is an instinct which directs it to lay up a store of provision for the winter; and it is probable that its memory is not sufficiently retentive to recollect all the spots in which it deposits its acorns; it no doubt makes some slips in the course of the season, and loses some of them. These few spring up, and are, in time, destined to supply the place of the parent tree. As with the squirrel, so with the jays and pies, which plant horse-beans among the grass and moss, and probably forget where they have secreted them. John White of Selborne, the naturalist, said that both horse-beans and peas sprang up in his field-walks in the autumn; and he attributed the sowing of them to birds. Bees, he also observed, are much the best setters of cucumbers. If they do not happen to take kindly to the frames, the best way is to tempt them with a little honey put on the male and female bloom. When they are once induced to haunt the frames they set all the fruit, and will hover with impatience round the lights in a morning till the glasses are opened. The important function which insects discharge in the fertilization of plants will be familiar to all who have read the late Mr. Darwin's works.
Some of the acorns planted by the squirrel of Monmouthshire may be now in a fair way to become, at the end of some centuries, venerable trees, for not the least remarkable quality of oaks is the strong principle of life with which they are endued. In Major Rooke's Sketch of the Forest of Sherwood, we find it stated that, on some timber cut down in Berkland and Bilhaugh, letters were found stamped in the bodies of the trees, denoting the King's reign in which they were marked. The bark appears to have been cut off, and then the letters to have been cut in, and the next year's wood to have grown over them without adhering to where the bark had been cut out. The ciphers were found to be of James I, William and Mary, and one of King John. One of the ciphers of James was about one foot within the tree, and one foot from the centre. It was cut down in 1786. The tree must have been two feet in diameter, or two yards in circumference, when the mark was cut. A tree of this size is generally estimated at 120 years' growth; which number being substracted from the middle year of the reign of James, would carry the year back to 1492, which would be about the period of its being planted. The tree with the cipher of William and Mary displayed its mark about nine inches within the tree, and three feet three inches from the centre. This tree was felled in 1786. The cipher of John was eighteen inches within the tree, and rather more than a foot from the centre. The middle year of the reign of that monarch was 1207. By subtracting from this 120, the number of years requisite for a tree's growth to arrive at the diameter of two feet, the date of its being planted would seem to have been 1085, or about twenty years after the Conquest.
​Science tends more and more to show that a closer affinity exists between plants and animals than was formerly believed, and consequently the old "hard and fast" division made by older naturalists cannot now, in the presence of the facts established by microscopic research, be maintained. Some animals, as, for example, the sea-anemone, have no power of locomotion or the ability to effect changes of place at will; on the other hand, some plants are endowed with the power of voluntary movements, apparently spontaneous and independent. In certain cases these movements are effected by means of little vibrating hairs or cilia, in others, as the Diatomaceæ, and Desmidiæ, they are not produced by cilia, but by some other means. In general terms the differences between animals and plants may be stated as follows, it being borne in mind that the rules are not universally applicable, some fungi, for instance, cannot live on inorganic substances alone, while some of the lower forms of animal life act like plants and manufacture organic compounds out of inorganic materials.
1. Plants live on purely inorganic substances, such as water, carbonic acid and ammonia, and they have the power of making out of these true organic substances, such as starch, cellulose, sugar, etc. Plants, therefore, take as food very simple bodies, and manufacture them into more complex substances, so that plants are the great producers in nature.
2. Plants in the process of digestion break up carbonic acid into the two elements of which it is composed, namely, carbon and oxygen, keeping the carbon and setting free the oxygen. As carbonic acid occurs always in the air in small quantities, the result of this is that plants remove carbonic acid from the atmosphere, and give out oxygen.
3. Animals, on the other hand, have no power of living on inorganic matters, such as water, carbonic acid, and ammonia. They have no power of converting these into the complex organic substances of which their bodies are composed. On the contrary, animals require to be supplied with ready-made organic compounds if their existence is to be maintained. These they can only get in the first place from plants, and therefore are all dependent upon plants for food either directly or indirectly. Animals, therefore, differ from plants in requiring as food complex organic bodies, which they ultimately reduce to very much simpler inorganic bodies. Whilst plants, then, are the great manufacturers in Nature, animals are the great consumers. Another distinction arising from the nature of their food is that whilst plants decompose carbonic acid, keeping the carbon and setting free the oxygen, animals absorb oxygen and give out carbonic acid, so that their reaction upon the atmosphere is the reverse of that of plants.
A certain analogy may be observed between the organs of life in plants and those of animals. If, for example, we take a thin transverse slice of the stem of any plant, and cut across that stem and immerse it in pure water, and place it under a microscope, we shall find that it ​consists principally of cells of various shapes according to particular plants. The cells, which are generally very minute, are the elementary organs, and although the cell may vary in form, in its essential nature it is always the same. Most cells are inclosed by a cell-wall, and contain a watery cell-sap, and a mucilaginous semi-fluid substance called protoplasm, composed of different organic constituents; among these nitrogenous or albuminous matter is always present, and in the largest proportion. In some plants the protoplasm is not at first inclosed by cell-walls, but it is sooner or later enclosed in a more or less elastic membrane. No cell can exist in a living state or grow unless it contains protoplasm, which is therefore the basis of all vegetable life. In addition to protoplasm and the watery cell-sap, there exists in the cell various substances and gases in a state of solution, albumins, proteins, etc., and chlorophyll, the green colouring matter in plants, which always occurs combined with protoplasm. The action of chlorophyll in the life of a plant is important, as it breaks up the carbonic acid gas taken in by the plant into its two elements, oxygen and carbon, converting the carbon with the water in the plant into starch, and giving back the oxygen to the air. Light is indispensable for the production of chlorophyll; without light plants become bleached or etiolated, a circumstance utilized by the gardener to produce a blanched appearance on certain vegetables. Those parts of a plant which are not green, as the petals of flowers, owe their colour to the presence of peculiar pigments which give their tint to the blossom.
The forms of the cells are various; they are also subject to various transformations. Sometimes a number of cells are laid end to end, and, by the absorption of the transverse partitions, form a continuous tube, as in the sap vessels of plants, or in muscular and nervous fibre; and when the cells are thus woven together, they are called cellular tissue, which, in the human body, forms a fine net-like membrane, enveloping or connecting most of its structures. In pulpy fruits, the cells may be easily separated, one from the other; and within the cells are smaller cells, commonly known as pulp. Among the cells contents of some plants are beautiful crystals, called raphides. The term is derived from "raphis," a needle, on account of the resemblance of a crystal to a needle. They are composed of the phosphate and oxalate of lime; but there is a great difference of opinion as to their use in the economy of the plant. The differences between the highest form of crystal and the lowest form of organic life known, viz., a simple productive cell, are manifold and striking. In a layer of an onion, a fig, a section of garden rhubarb, in some species of the aloe, in the bark of many trees, and in portions of the cuticle of the medicinal squill, bundles of these needle-shaped crystals are to be found. Some of them are as large as 1-40th of an inch, others are as small, as 1-1000th. They are found in all parts of the plant—in the stem, bark, leaves, stipules, petals, fruit, roots, and even in the pollen, with some few ​exceptions, and they are always situated in the interior of cells. Some plants, as many of the cactus tribe, are made up almost entirely of these needle-crystals; in some instances, every cell of the cuticle contains a stellate mass of crystals; in others the whole interior is full of them, rendering the plant so exceedingly brittle that the least touch will occasion a fracture; so much so, that some specimens of Cactus senilis, said to be a thousand years old, which were sent to Kew from South America, were obliged to be packed in cotton, with all the care of the most delicate jewellery, to preserve them during transport.
Besides the cellular tissue, there is a vascular system, which consists of another set of small vessels. If, for example, we, early in the spring, cut a branch transversely, we should perceive the sap oozing out from numerous points over the whole of the divided surface, except on that part occupied by the pith and the bark; and if a twig, on which the leaves are already unfolded, be cut from the tree, and placed with its cut ends in a watery solution of Brazil-wood, the colouring matter will be found to ascend into the leaves and to the top of the twig. In both these cases, a close examination with a powerful microscope will discover the sap exuding from the divided portion of the stem, and the colouring matter rising through real tubes to the top of the twig; these are the sap or conducting vessels of the plant. If, however, we examine a transverse section of the vine, or of any other tree, at a later period of the season, we find that the wood is apparently dry, whilst the bark, particularly that part next the wood, is swelled with fluid. This is contained in vessels of a different kind from those in which the sap rises. They are found in the bark only in trees, and may be called returning vessels, from their carrying the sap downwards after its preparation in the leaf. It is believed that the passage of the sap in plants is conducted in a manner precisely similar to that of the blood in man, from the regular contraction and expansion of the vessels; but, on account of their extreme minuteness, it is almost an impossibility to be certain upon this point. Numerous observations made with the microscope show that their diameter seldom exceeds a 3000th part of an inch. Leuwenhoeck reckoned 20,000 vessels in a piece of oak 1-19th of an inch in size.
In the vascular system of a plant we at once see the great analogy which it bears to the veins and arteries in the human system; but neither it, nor the cellular tissue combined, is all that is required to perfect the production of a vegetable. There is, besides, a tracheal system, which is composed of very minute elastic spiral tubes, designed for the purpose of conveying air both to and from the plant. There are also fibres, which consist of collections of these cells and vessels closely united together. These form the root and the stem. If we attempt to cut them transversely we meet with difficulty, because we have to force our way across the tubes, and break them; but if we slit the wood lengthwise the vessels are separated without breaking. The ​layers of wood which appear in the stem or branch of a tree cut transversely, consist of different zones of fibres, each the produce of one year's growth, and separated by a coat of cellular tissue, without which they could not be well distinguished. Besides all these, there is the cuticle, which extends over every part of the plant, and covers the bark with three distinct coats.
The root and the stem finally demand notice. The root is designed, not only to support the plant by fixing it in the soil, but also to fulfil the functions of a channel for the conveyance of nourishment; it is therefore furnished with pores, or spongioles, as they are called, from their resemblance to a sponge, to suck up whatever comes within its reach. It is found in a variety of forms, and hence its adaptation to a great diversity of soils and circumstances. We have heard of a willow-tree being dug up, and its head planted where its roots were, and these suffered to spread out in the air like naked branches. In course of time the roots became branches, and the branches roots, or rather roots rose from the branches beneath the ground, and the branches shot from the roots above. Some roots last one year, others two, and others, like the shrubs and trees which they produce, have an indefinite period of existence; but they all consist of a collection of fibres, composed of vascular and cellular tissues, without tracheæ, or breathing-vessels. The stem is the grand distributor of the nourishment taken by the roots to the various parts of the plant. The seat of its vitality is in the point or spot called the neck, which separates the stem from the root. If the root of a young plant be cut off, it will shoot afresh; if the stem be taken away it will be renewed.
Vegetables.—We here take the word "vegetable" in its usual acceptation, and not in its literal meaning. We will now more specially consider those vegetable foods that are eaten with, and to some extent supply the deficiences of, meat.
For convenience sake, these vegetables may be divided into four classes: 1, roots and tubers; 2, pulses; 3, leaves and salads; 4, fungi.
It is a rough classification, and some vegetables will not fall of themselves into either class, but it will serve for our present purpose.
Roots and Tubers.—Of roots and tubers the principal one is the potato. Brought from South America by Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh, it was a long time creeping into public favour, and even in the eighteenth century we find Bradley, a considerable authority on gardens, writing: "They are of less note than horseradish, radish, scorsonera, beets, skirret, but as they are not without admirers I will not pass them by in silence." In Mortimer's Garden Kalendar, written in the 18th century age, he tells how, when he had to feed the poor of Munich, the prejudice against potatoes was so strong that he was obliged to prepare them in secret, and to let none of the people know what thickened the soup they liked so well, but when once accustomed to the new food they preferred it to any other soup.
​Potato as Food.—No doubt much of its popularity is due to its cheapness, its good keeping power, and its unobtrusive flavour. Since the potato disease it has not always been as cheap as once it was, but it still remains one of the cheapest, if not the cheapest, of foods. We have cheap corn now, and if potatoes and corn were the same price per pound, corn would be the cheaper of the two. For potatoes are very watery. Three-quarters of the weight of every potato is water, and of the remaining quarter half is starch, there being much less of flesh-forming material than in many other cheap foods. If a man had to live on potatoes alone, he must eat many pounds weight daily in order to obtain flesh-formers enough to do even moderate work. The Irish, who do live on potatoes, add buttermilk to supply what is wanting, and even so consume immense quantities of vegetables. Potato, however, besides starch and water, contains much ash or salt, and is for that reason an excellent anti-scorbutic. It is a strange fact that many English people, from one week's end to another, eat no vegetable except potato, an exotic, acclimatised here at the cost of much pains and perseverance.
The potato belongs to the order Solanaceae, to which also belong some of the deadliest poisons we possess, and also contains a poisonous principle known as solanine. Potatoes that have been frozen rapidly decompose, because, owing to the freezing of the water that they contain, the cells are burst and broken. They also deteriorate if they are allowed to sprout. Some or all of the starch is changed to dextrine, a gummy substance with a sweetish taste, which no longer assumes a mealy appearance on boiling as does a starchy potato. The waste in boiling is much less if the tubers are boiled in their skins, which are of a cork-like substance impervious to water. There is also considerable waste in peeling potatoes, owing to the fact that the least watery and most albuminous part of the tubers lies immediately under the skin. It is said that one seventh of every potato is wasted by the common method of cooking.
Potato starch is largely used to adulterate other farinaceous preparations, as it is the cheapest form of starch. It is, however, stated that it turns watery sooner than other starches if allowed to stand after it is cooked.
Vegetables of the Olden Time.—Not only potatoes, but many other vegetables now common, were unknown to our forefathers even a few centuries back, and the fruits were very different to those at present produced in England. The following extract, from Professor Thorold Rogers' well-known work on the History of Prices, serves to show the then existing state of things.
"The manor house possessed a garden and orchard. But the former very deficient in vegetables. The householder of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries grew onions and leeks, mustard, and garden or green peas. He probably possessed cabbage, though I have never ​found either seed or plants quoted. Apples, and sometimes pears, are mentioned as part of the orchard produce, but we read of no plums except once of damsons. A regular part of the produce of the orchard was cider, and its low price seems to suggest that it was made in considerable quantities. Crabs were collected in order to manufacture verjuice—an important item in mediaeval cookery. Bees, though honey was dear, and wax very high priced, do not seem to have been commonly kept.
"Scurvy in its most violent forms, and leprosy, modified perhaps by the climate, were common disorders, for, as has often been said, the people lived on salt meat half the year, and not only were they without potatoes, but they do not appear to have had other roots now in common use, as carrots and parsnips. Onions and cabbage appear to have been the only esculent vegetables. It will be found that nettles (if we can identify those with urticae) were sold from the garden. Spices, the cheapest of which was pepper, were quite out of their reach. Sugar was a very costly luxury, and our forefathers do not appear, judging from the rarity of the notices, to have been skilful in their management of bees."
Value of Vegetable Food.—If potatoes are watery, most of the roots and tubers we have now to consider are even more so. Out of every 100 lbs. of potatoes, 75 lbs. are water; out of every 100 lbs. of carrot, 89 lbs.; of turnips, 92 lbs.; of the artichoke, 80 lbs.; of onion, 91 lbs.; of the 8 or 10 lb. that remain, there is sometimes starch, sometimes an analogous substance known as inulin, and there are 1 or 2 lbs. of albuminoids. In all, too, there is a considerable amount of cellulose and woody fibre, both of which are indigestible. We must ascribe their chief value to the salts they contain and to the value of variety in food. They also introduce into the system some water, necessary for digestion and assimilation. It is much to be regretted that, by the manner of cooking vegetables that prevails in this country, a great part of these salts is dissolved in water and thrown away, only the vegetable itself being eaten. All vegetables are best when they are grown quickly, in which case they have less woody fibre. Sometimes light is excluded, for light leads to the development of chlorophyll, and also of the characteristic principle of the plant, which is often unpleasantly pungent and occasionally unwholesome.
Fresh Vegetables.—All green vegetables should be as fresh as possible. A large number of those sold in towns are plucked days before, full of sap, and stacked in heaps under circumstances the most favourable to fermentation, and sufficiently accounts for the unpleasant results often experienced after eating cabbages, etc., in such a state.
VEGETABLES.
Shallots, Mushrooms, Leek, Parsnip, Horse-radish, Carrots, Sea-kale, Cucumber, Sorrel, Tarragon, Celery, Mustard, Cress.
DRESSED VEGETABLES.
1. Wafer Potatoes. 2. Spinach Soufflés. 3. Stuffed Tomatoes.
​but they are not as well flavoured as the fresh vegetable. Granulated potato, sold in packets, is a preparation that is useful in the same way. It only requires to have boiling water poured on it, and in ten minutes is ready to serve as mashed potato, or to be made into fritters, etc. Potatoes, like other vegetables, however, are now sliced, and "evaporated" or dried.
Pulses afford the most nourishing food that we know. Lentils, beans, and peas in point of nourishment stand in the order in which we have placed them, though very near together, lentils heading the list with 14 per cent. of water and 24 per cent. of casein. The well-known Ravelenta Arabica contains lentil flour, generally mixed with barley or other meal, and salt. But it is sold at many times the price of any of its ingredients. The celebrated sausage served out to the German troops during the war of 1870-71, was made of peas, bacon and onions. Each one weighed a pound, and could be made into soup or eaten in sausage form. They were easily carried and kept, and contained the requisite proportions of the various kinds of food, but we are told that the men tired of it in a few days. It appears to be the fact that the pulses cannot be used as the only flesh-forming food, and taken even in moderation they disagree with some persons. Generally, however, they are relished if so prepared that the tough skin is removed, and for this reason there is no way of cooking them more suitable than as purée soups, where they require for nourishment's sake no addition of meat, owing to the amount of albuminoid, which is far greater than in meat itself. They do require added fat. Green peas are more digestible, but less nourishing, than dried or full-grown peas, which require prolonged boiling to make them digestable. Bi-carbonate of soda, usually added to green vegetables to preserve the colour, at the same time softens the cellulose. Consequently it is a useful addition to old green peas, or to any of the dried pulses.
Many varieties of dried beans are sold, and all, considered as food, have much the same value. French beans are eaten in an unripe state, pod and young seeds together, in which state they more nearly approach to other green vegetables than to the dried pulses.
Lentils are of two kinds, the orange-coloured Egyptian and the browner German lentil. The former is cheaper, the latter better flavoured.
Pea and lentil flour is often adulterated with other flour, which diminishes it's food value.
Salads generally contain no flesh-forming or heat-giving material, but they are valuable because they introduce into the system large quantities of saline matter, which is generally removed from vegetables in the process of cooking. Their value in this way to the poorer inhabitants of our towns is scarcely to be over-rated. Sufficient care is not, however, always bestowed upon cleansing them, and there is ​no doubt that parasitic animals are sometimes introduced into the human body through such negligence. They need to be freshly gathered in order to be wholesome, although they may regain some of their crispness if the stalks are freshly cut and placed under water. Many salad plants contain some essential oil, to which their characteristic flavour and odour are due. Lettuce has, besides, a small quantity of mild narcotic, the effects of which may occasionally be observed.
Fungi are comparatively little used in this country, although they are plentiful and highly nutritious. Only three kinds are commonly considered as good for food, and of these only one can be said to be usually eaten. These are the mushroom, agaricus campestris; the morel, morchella esculenta; and the truffle, tuber cibarium. No doubt there are many other edible kinds, but the prejudice against them is strong, and the difficulty of distinguishing between edible and poisonous kinds prevents these foods from being more generally utilized. It seems, too, as if even the edible kinds might become poisonous under certain special conditions. Mushrooms contain much nitrogen and also much fat, and they are less watery than most of the vegetables of which we have spoken.
Lichens have not often been used as food. Iceland moss is used as a food for invalids, and is nourishing. It grows where nothing else will grow, on barren rocks in northern latitudes.
Seaweeds are occasionally employed as food in England. Irish moss, or carra geen, is given in the form of soups and jellies to consumptive patients, and is also used commonly as a food in some places. In 100 lbs. of the moss there are only 19lbs. of water and 9 lbs. of albuminoids, so that it is among the most nourishing vegetable foods we have. Laver, tangle, or red ware, and pulse, are also collected and eaten in pickle, or as a substitute for other boiled vegetables.
LITTLE KNOWN VEGETABLES
There are many delicious vegetables which may be procured without much difficulty, and yet hardly seem to be known to the average housewife. Notwithstanding this, we so often hear the cry for greater variety. To those really anxious to extend their list of nourishing and appetising viands we can recommend sorrel, scorzonera, sweet potato, and maize (all of which may be grown in England), yams, egg-plants, and custard apples. Sorrel is not much used except as a flavouring herb for soups, but if carefully picked, washed, thoroughly boiled, then beaten and passed through a sieve, and served whipped with butter or cream, it rivals spinach, especially as an accompaniment to veal or poached eggs. It is a most wholesome vegetable, and can be grown easily. Scorzonera is a long black root, with a white interior; boiled and served with melted butter, it possesses a pleasant mucilaginous flavour. It is an Italian root, but flourishes here.
Sweet potatoes deserve to receive more intelligent attention in ​the kitchen. They can be served up like Jerusalem artichokes. Maize, although it will hardly ripen in these islands, except in an exceptionally hot summer, can be cultivated in the southern counties and in sunny sheltered spots. It is a very graceful plant, and the cobs reach sufficient maturity to furnish the "green-pea" maize. Riper cobs are imported from the Continent and the Canaries. There are many hundred varieties of maize, the grains ranging from soft pulp of almost pure white, through different stages of yellow, to a blood red and a purple black. The most useful kinds are the sweet yellow. The grains when full-sized and just turning yellowish-green, may be removed from the cobs and treated like green peas, or the cobs may be stewed; when the grains have turned yellow and begin to harden, the cobs may be roasted, sprinkled with pepper and salt, and basted with oiled butter. Yams are very delicious; they grow to a large size, and are now imported from the West Indies. They may be roasted, or treated like artichokes. Custard apples also us in fine condition from the West Indies, and should be served in the same way as vegetable marrows. Egg plants (the much-prized bringauls of India) are imported from the Continent and the Canaries. They possess a delicate flavour, a large amount of nourishing substances, and may be cooked in many ways. Pumpkins might also be used more often by town dwellers, both for making purée soups on damp and bleak autumn days, and pies. In certain country districts the young shoots of hops are treated like asparagus with very satisfactory results. In Provence the midribs of beet leaves are peeled, dipped in egg batter, and fried. They make a dainty dish. So do the male flowers of the vegetable-marrows, stuffed with parboiled rice, mixed with a little cheese and shredded meat, and then stewed gently in gravy.