LEMONS.
Theophrastus, who studied under Plato and Aristotle, says of lemons, that they were cultivated for their fragrance, not for their taste; that the peel was laid up with garments, to preserve them from moths; and that the juice was administered by physicians medicinally.
Virgil in his second Georgic, describes agreeably the Lemon-tree. Pliny mentions the lemon-juice as an antidote; but says that the fruit, from its austere taste, was not eaten.
Plutarch, who nourished within a generation of Pliny, witnessed the introduction of lemons at the Roman tables. Juba, king of Mauritania, was the first who exhibited them at his dinners. And Athenæus introduces Democritus as not wondering that old people made wry mouths at the taste of lemons; for, adds he, in my grandfather’s time, they were never set upon the table. And to this day the Chinese, who grow the fruit, do not apply it to culinary purposes.
The great use of lemons began with the introduction of sugar, which is said to have resulted from the conquest of Sicily, by the Arabs, in the ninth century. Sestini, in his letters from Sicily and Turkey, thinks that the best sorts of lemons, and the best sorts of sherbet, were derived from Florence, by the Sicilians. Probably Rome continued, even in the dark ages, to be the chief seat of luxury and refinement; and had domesticated the art of making lemonade, before either Messina or Florence.
In Madagascar slices of lemon are boiled, and eaten with salt.
Pomet, in his History of Drugs, gives the preference over all others to the lemons of Madeira; but according to Ferrarius, there grows at the Cape a sweet lemon, to which he gives the name incomparabilis.