LIV.
VEGETABLES.
JUNE is the season when vegetables are most abundant and can be had in the greatest variety. Among the numberless articles of food there is nothing so conducive to health as good, fresh, and properly prepared vegetables, and nothing which so easily deranges the whole system if used stale, unripe, or badly cooked. Vegetables having so large a share in our comfort, it is essential that housekeepers should understand how to prepare every variety not only in the most attractive manner, but also in the most healthful way that can be devised.
In the city it is not easy, hardly possible, to procure fresh vegetables. Those only who have a private team, and can send to the adjacent market-gardens, can hope to have them; hence our city housekeepers, who have never had the good fortune to live in the country during the harvest season of vegetables, can hardly realize the difference between peas, beans, corn, etc., which can be gathered early, and eaten almost with the dew upon them, and such as are heaped into market-wagons and brought from a distance, and exposed for hours or days, if the sales are not rapid in our markets, to the air and sun; made to retain the semblance of fresh vegetables by frequent showers from the hose or watering-pot. Nothing so readily destroys all the sweetness and the richest flavors of such articles as these shower-baths; and although the purchaser may fully understand the whole art of cooking, no skill can bring to our city tables such flavors and richness as the farmers or the country gentleman should enjoy daily. It is through carelessness or ignorance if they do not feast luxuriously all summer. Of course, almost all kinds of vegetables can be cooked in a great variety of ways; and as tastes differ widely, and what would please one may be distasteful to another, by this variety every one may be suited; yet there are some general rules that must always remain fixed and immovable; and if not followed, no mode of cooking these viands will be fully satisfactory. Some few items from the history of some of our most common roots and vegetables may not be uninteresting, before giving a review of the mode of preparing and cooking them.
The Potato, now one of the most useful and nutritious of the esculent roots, is a native of South America, and first found wild in Chili and Peru, although it is often called Irish potato, and supposed by many to have been first found in Ireland. It was brought to England in 1586, and for a long time was eaten as a fruit, or made into pies or puddings, and eaten with sauces and wines. It was so used through the time of Queen Elizabeth. It was planted in Ireland by Sir Walter Raleigh, on one of his estates in that country. After being planted and partly grown, the little green balls, which follow the blossoms, were supposed to be the fruit. Sir Walter had them cooked, but finding them not at all palatable he concluded the crop was a failure, and, as might be supposed, was not very strongly tempted by his first experiment to try it again. But upon turning up the ground, to use for other purposes, to his great satisfaction he found the food he had looked for on the stalk hid in the earth, and of a most desirable character.
After many experiments it was proved that thrice as large a crop of potatoes as of any other root could be produced from an acre, and they soon became the chief food of the Irish peasantry, and remain so to this day.
There is no end to the varieties of the potato that are being brought before the public. New seedlings are announced every year; almost every section has its own special seedling or favorite, which seems excellent there, but deteriorates when planted in other parts; and many kinds which were the best known years ago are now lost sight of entirely. We have not since childhood been able to find the “rusty coats” or “lady’s fingers,” but have never seen a potato that equalled them; partly, no doubt, because one never carries the tastes of childhood into mature age to perfection, but this is not altogether the reason; they were, undoubtedly, very excellent potatoes. The “early rose” is nearer to our idea of the “rusty coats” in flavor, but is not like it in appearance, nor of so perfect a quality.
The potato can be satisfactorily used in more ways than any other edible root,—in bread, pastry, starch, puddings, pies, and salad; boiled, baked, roasted, stewed, fried. It is said “they furnish flour without a mill, and bread without an oven.”
After potatoes are taken from the ground, and have been exposed to the sun and air long enough to dry, the sooner they are placed in a cool, dry cellar the better they will keep. Mrs. Haskill, in her “Housekeeper’s Encyclopædia,” advises that all that are needed for winter use should be packed in barrels, and a little plaster scattered over each layer, to absorb the moisture; such as are to be kept for spring use she thinks should be buried in the ground, and a little plaster be sprinkled over them; also, Mrs. Haskill claims that this is a preventive against rot, but does not consider it sure. Whether this is good doctrine, we leave for our scientific farmers.
The Sweet Potato is a tuberous root, very different from our common potato. It is common in tropical climates, where it is much more perfect than in our colder States. There are seldom but two kinds brought to our markets, the red or purple rooted, and the white or yellow rooted. Far South, the red grows to a large size, and is sweeter and more nutritious than those raised at the North. The white or yellow rooted grows more perfectly with us than the red. In New Jersey they are largely raised, and of a good quality. Thirty years ago, sweet potatoes were a luxury on any Northern table: now they are in daily use when in season; but to find them in the greatest perfection we must still go South for them. The young leaves and tender shoots are sometimes boiled as greens, and are pronounced quite wholesome.
In California, sweet potatoes grow to an immense size, often weighing four or five pounds, and sometimes eight or ten.
The Jerusalem Artichoke grows in clusters of tubers, something like the potato. It is a native of Brazil. It was brought to England and was much in use there before it was superseded by the common potato. It was called the Canada potato, to distinguish it from the common kind, then known as the Virginia potato. It is wholesome and nutritious, but not dry and mealy. The plants are extremely productive and once started it is difficult to eradicate them from the soil; they are said to be an excellent food for horses and hogs. Girasole, not Jerusalem, should be the term. That is the Italian name for sunflower, which this artichoke resembles in many particulars, and to which it is in some degree akin, but not at all to the artichoke proper, which is a plant brought from the Mediterranean. The flower-head before blossoming is the part eaten, boiled plain and eaten with melted butter and pepper, like spinach and other greens. The bottoms are also sometimes boiled in milk and eaten, and sometimes pickled. The French fry them and use them in various ways, sometimes raw as salads.
The Yam also resembles the common potato. It is extensively grown in the East and West Indies, and in Africa and America. It is sweeter and firmer than the potato, grows flat, about a foot long, and sometimes divided like fingers. One variety, called the hinged yam, often grows three feet long and weighs twenty or thirty pounds. When raw, like the potato, the juice is acrid and not healthful, but boiling destroys all harmful properties. A favorite dish is prepared from it in the tropics, combined with grated cocoa-nut and the pulp of the banana.