Fairchild: Testing New Foods 



19 



(lent with their arrival in America, Mr. 

 Morrow, a very unusual plant propaga- 

 tor, was stationed at our introduction 

 garden in West Florida. The im- 

 ported plants were potted and grew and 

 were sent to Mr. Morrow, and last 

 year he forwarded to Washington a 

 root of the Arracacha which, because it 

 was the only one, and a curiosity, never 

 got into the soup. It was only a few 

 weeks ago, after twenty years of wai'— 

 ing. that I had the pleasure of digging, 

 cooking and eating, under the circum- 

 stances of American life, the Vene- 

 zuelan Arracacha, and of demonstrat- 

 ing to the satisfaction of a number of 

 Americans that it is a desirable vege- 

 table. Ernst declares it is superior to 

 the best potato. Barrett says it always 

 sells for a good price in Porto Rico. 

 Schultz says it resembles a cross be- 

 tween potato, celery and asparagus and 

 is roasted, fried or baked in Panama. 

 Lara says it furnishes a nutritious flour 

 used for invalids in Venezuela. Masters 

 says its flavor is intermediate between 

 a chestnut and a parsnip. How de- 

 sirable the Arracacha is in comparison 

 with other vegetables will require years 

 of patient work to determine, for first 

 of all we must find out whether the va- 

 riety we have is the best there is when 

 grown in America, whether the char- 

 acteristics of season, hardiness, pro- 

 ductivity, keeping qualities and ship- 

 ping quality will give sufficient advan- 

 tage over other vegetables with which 

 it comes into comparison to make it 

 remain in our gardens. Into the prob- 

 lem now will enter such questions as 

 the following: Who is it that says the 

 vegetable is good to eat? Has he good 

 taste in vegetables? Where does the 

 matter of learning to like a new flavor 

 or texture come into the question? 

 What influence has the manner of pre- 

 paration of the vegetable on its palata- 

 bility? Has it a character wdiich will 

 make people crave it, or will they be 

 indifferent to it, confusing it with some- 

 thing else? Then there are the long 

 "waits between drinks," so to speak ; 

 periods between the seasons during 

 which one cannot have the vegetable 

 to taste — in most cases nine or ten 



months. But these are only the begin- 

 nings of the dil^culties, for there is an- 

 other whole set of them. 



To test a new food plant with the 

 object of getting your countrymen to 

 take up its culture means, as I have 

 said, that you must get the best of its 

 kind. But how can this be. done? If 

 you take the opinion of the foreign peo- 

 ple who grow the various varieties, how 

 do you know their taste is like that of 

 the American in the matter of foods? 

 The Chinese do not like soft berry 

 fruits, such as raspberries, and prefer 

 to eat their stone fruits while still hard ; 

 they eat their rice without salt ; they dO' 

 not like butter nor milk, because it 

 smells too strongly of the cow ; they are 

 not, as we are, absurdly fond of sweet 

 candy ( they find it too sweet) ; they 

 cannot understand how we can bear 

 the flavor of tomatoes, nor why we 

 don't all like the flavor of their soy 

 sauce instead of meat gravy. Evidently 

 their opinion of the best variety of soy 

 beans may not be ours, so the only thing 

 to do is to collect all its varieties which 

 can be secured and test them side by 

 side. We brought into America over a 

 thousand varieties of soy beans, and 

 Mr. Morse, the soy bean expert of the 

 Department of Agriculture, has selected 

 perhaps a dozen or so of these beans 

 which, in his opinion, are superior to the 

 others in flavor or in some characters of 

 earliness, productiveness, and useful- 

 ness for special purposes. Mr. Young, 

 the dasheen expert of the department, 

 grew over a hundred varieties of the 

 taro before he found the Trinidad 

 dasheen, the Pat Long Fu, the Yatsug- 

 ashira, the White Sprout, and the Bel- 

 embe — special varieties of a vegetable 

 which is grown and eaten in one form 

 or other by millions of people through- 

 out the tropics. Mr. Hume has in his 

 collection in Florida at least fifty varie- 

 ties of the Kaki (the Japanese and 

 the Chinese persimmon), but, I under- 

 stand, that he is enthusiastic over only 

 three or four. In the case of wild 

 fruits which have not been selected by 

 man, the problem is still further com- 

 plicated, because the mistake is so uni- 

 versally made of condemning a species 



