The Portland daily press., 1882-05-23
English and American Vegetables.

English and American Vegetables.
[Pall Mall Gazette.l
The temperance on our tables of seakale and
asparagus-our only two eatable greenstuffs-
naturally raj once more the Parental ques-
ton, Why have we in England no vegetables?
To doubt the far liz impossible-at least to any
body who know what real vegetables are like.
"Sir, "said merican stranger at restaurant
in the Strand one day, "Sir, this is the one
thing you can raise in your country and we can't
raise inc irs-a mutton chop; but then you new
er tasted gre peas in all your life." That an
tithesis puts the great ve setable question in a
nutshell. 1t is impossible in the same country
to have good eat and good vegetables. For
the best beef and mutton are a product of the
soft, tender English greensward, which only ex-
lists in a few countries along the Atlantic sea-
board of Europe, and ows its origin to the con
slant rainfall
The same causes which give us good meat,
however, deny us in England the possibility of
good fruit and vegetab les. For while the herb
age requires copious rain, the fruits, seeds,
pods, flowers, buds and other miscellaneous OBJ
jects which we class from the culinary point of
view as vegetables all require copious sunlight.
That is why we have none Of them. Our only
good vegetables are such US very young rhu-
barb, seakale, asparagus and celery, which are
blanched sprouting shoots of perennial plants.
These mostly come in spring time, and as they
are none the worse, or even all the better, for
little wholesome soaking, they manage to sur
vive our climate we'll enough in the long run.
But most other vegetables are more or less
fruity in their nature; and really to taste these
one must go to America or Italy-for choice the
first OF thoroughgoing fruity vegetables
such as the tomato-we in England know moth
ing We never have sun enough to ripen them
properly; and even with all the al planes of
modern gardeners, they never get thoroughly
red and soft throughout in our gardens as they
do in the open air under Canadian or italian
sky. They always have half-green taste, and
are wholly lacking in tho true rich tomato
flavor. Indeed, the tinted American specimens,
though tasting of the solder of course, are bet
ter savored after all than our poor starved sun
less English things. AS to purple egg fruit and
green chow-chows, we know them not at all;
while the profusion of rich red-faced watermel-
ons and primrose-skinned squashes and golden
pumpkins in Massachusetts market would as
tonish Covent Garden, and set some nascent
Turner to work with all the pigments on his
palate to try his hand at a new and many COL
ored subject. These things require the sun to
ripen them, and we see his face here as a rule
for some two and half hours weekly, as duly
registered at Glynde Place, Lewes Then, again.
LD6rC are JQ0 WlubcE Cu6rTl6S tu6 bW66U DOI2-
toes, and, best of all earthly vegetables, green
Indian corn, eaten off the cob with fresh butter,
and likest to nectar of all mortal delicacies. AS
for pulse generally, our beans are all stringy
we have neither the variety nor tenderness of
the American bean. Our peas have some good
points-for English peas; but they are not SO
large, or luscious, or melting, as American
peas. They take too long growing, and have
cot old and hard before they are big enough to
pick. The delicious crinkly eatable pod pea
ha hara If how
tough and sinewy month before it was ready
for cooking We grow buckwheat to feed our
pheasants, but it never ripens as it ought, ard
buckwheat pancakes for breakfast will doubt
less be an unknown luxury with us forever.
In the matter of leafy vegetables we can do
little better, but not enough to boast about.
We are strong in salads; our climate provides
us with plenty of fresh green lettuce, and plen-
ty of slugs too, to hide in its recesses. But en-
dive does not flourish; it is scrubby-looking
plant in England; though we make up for it in
crosses and the lesser salad stuffs. Our roots,
too, are good; who will deny the British farmer
the glory of his turnips, his beets and his man
gold-wurzel? When it comes to edible flowers
however, we are hopelessly left in the lurch.
Our top artichokes are the hardest and poorest
in the world they contain maximum of fibrous
unatable bract and minimum OF soft, starchy
pulp. In the south of France, Italy and Amer
lea you can often eat the whole flower-sead
choke and all; in England you can extract only
pitiful pittance of a soft mouthful off the base
of each great leathery scale. 1t would be i'm
possible to dress English artichokes in fried but
ter as they do so deliciousy at Florence; one
might as well eat fried boots. Our caulihowers
and broccoli are not nearly as good as the Amer
lean; they are neither SO white nor SO delicate
in flavor We can grow cucumbers (under
glass;, because cucumbers are eaten green; but
what miserable farce are our vegetable mar
rowsl What is true Of vegetables iseven more
true of fruits. To be sure our English dollhouse
cranes are the best in the world but for straw
berries, raspberries, currauts, gooseberries,
plums and cherries we must 60 to America.
Oar peaches are success; our apples are ma
tional failure; and our pears are standing in
suit to the human intelligence. But we may
at least congratulate ourselves that with the aid
of glass aud stoves we can obtain heat and light
enough to grow the best pineapples in the
world at the moderate price of one guinea
apiece. In Jamaica they usually sell at two for
three halfpence.