Part 37 (1/2)

”Daniel ate pulse by choice: example rare!

Heaven blest the youth, and made him fresh and fair.”

Grey Peas were provided in the pits of the Greek and Roman theatres, as we supply oranges and a bill of the Play.

[417] ”Hot Grey Pease and a suck of bacon” (tied to a string of which the stall-keeper held the other end), was a popular street cry in the London of James the First.

Peas and Beans contain sulphur, and are richer in mineral salts, such as potash and lime, than wheat, barley, or oats; but their const.i.tuents are apt to provoke indigestion, whilst engendering flatulence through sulphuretted hydrogen. They best suit persons who take plenty of out-door exercise, but not those of sedentary habits. The skins of parched Peas remain undigested when eaten cooked, and are found in the excrements. These leguminous plants are less easily a.s.similated than light animal food by persons who are not robust, or laboriously employed, though vegetarians a.s.sert to the contrary.

Lord Tennyson wrote to such effect as the result of his personal experience (in his dedication of _Tiresias_ to E. Fitzgerald):--

”Who live on meal, and milk, and gra.s.s:-- And once for ten long weeks I tried Your table of Pythagoras, And seem'd at first 'a thing enskied'

(As Shakespeare has it)--airylight, To float above the ways of men: Then fell from that half spiritual height, Until I tasted flesh again.

One night when earth was winter black, And all the heavens were flashed in frost, And on me--half asleep--came back That wholesome heat the blood had lost.”

But none the less does a simple diet foster spirituality of mind. ”In milk”--says one of the oldest Vedas--”the finer part of the curds, when shaken, rises and becomes b.u.t.ter. Just so, my child, the finer part of food rises when it is eaten, and becomes mind.”

Old Fuller relates ”In a general dearth all over [418] England (1555), plenty of Pease did grow on the seash.o.r.e, near Dunwich (Suffolk), never set or sown by human industry; which being gathered in full ripeness much abated the high prices in the markets, and preserved many hungry families from famis.h.i.+ng.” ”They do not grow”, says he, ”among the bare stones, neither did they owe their original to s.h.i.+pwrecks, or Pease cast out of s.h.i.+ps.” The Sea-side Pea (_pisum maritimum_) is a rare plant.

PEACH.

The Peach (_Amygdabus Persica_), the apple of Persia, began to be cultivated in England about 1562, or perhaps before then. Columella tells of this fatal gift conveyed treacherously to Egypt in the first century:--

”Apples, which most barbarous Persia sent, With native poison armed.”

The Peach tree is so well known by its general characteristics as not to need any particular description. Its young branches, flowers, and seeds, after maceration in water, yield a volatile oil which is chemically identical with that of the bitter almond. The flowers are laxative, and have been used instead of manna. When distilled, they furnish a white liquor which communicates a flavour resembling the kernels of fruits. An infusion made from one drachm of the dried flowers, or from half an ounce of the fresh flowers, has a purgative effect. The fruit is wholesome, and seldom disagrees if eaten when ripe and sound. Its quant.i.ty of sugar is only small, but the skin is indigestible.

The leaves possess the power of expelling worms if applied outside a child's belly as a poultice, but in any medicinal form they must be used with caution, as they contain some of the properties of prussic acid, as found [419] also in the leaves of the laurel. A syrup of Peach flowers was formerly a preparation recognised by apothecaries. The leaves infused in white brandy, sweetened with barley sugar, make a fine cordial similar to noyeau. Soyer says the old Romans gave as much for their peaches as eighteen or nineteen s.h.i.+llings each.

Peach pie, owing to the abundance of the fruit, is as common fare in an American farm-house, as apple pie in an English homestead. Our English King John died at Swinestead Abbey from a surfeit of peaches, and new ale.

A tincture made from the flowers will allay the pain of colic caused by gravel; but the kernels of the fruit, which yield an oil identical with that of bitter almonds, have produced poisonous effects with children.

Gerard teaches ”that a syrup or strong infusion of Peach flowers doth singularly well purge the belly, and yet without grief or trouble.” Two tablespoonfuls of the infusion for a dose.

In Sicily there is a belief that anyone afflicted with goitre, who eats a Peach on the night of St. John, or the Ascension, will be cured, provided only that the Peach tree dies at the same time. In Italy Peach leaves are applied to a wart, and then buried, so that they and the wart may perish simultaneously.

Thackeray one day at dessert was taken to task by his colleague on the _Punch_ staff, Angus B. Reach, whom he addressed as Mr.

Reach, instead of as Mr. (_Scottice_) Reach. With ready prompt.i.tude, Thackeray replied: ”Be good enough Mr. Re-ack to pa.s.s me a pe-ack.”

PEAR.

The Pear, also called Pyrrie, belongs to the same natural order of plants (the _Rosacoe_) as the Apple. It is [420] sometimes called the Pyerie, and when wild is so hard and austere as to bear the name of Choke-pear. It grows wild in Britain, and abundantly in France and Germany. The Barland Pear, which was chiefly cultivated in the seventeenth century, still retains its health and vigour, ”the identical trees in Herefords.h.i.+re which then supplied excellent liquor, continuing to do so in this, the nineteenth century.”

This fruit caused the death of Drusus, a son of the Roman Emperor Claudius, who caught in his mouth a Pear thrown into the air, and by mischance attempted to swallow it, but the Pear was so extremely hard that it stuck in his throat, and choked him.

Pears gathered from gardens near old monasteries were formerly held in the highest repute for flavour, and it was noted that the trees which bore them continued fruitful for a great number of years. The secret cause seems to have been, not the holy water with which the trees were formally christened, but the fact that the sagacious monks had planted them upon a layer of stones so as to prevent the roots from penetrating deep into the ground, and so as thus to ensure their proper drainage.