THE CHINESE PETSAI AS 



A SALAD VEGETABLE 



David Fairchild 



Agricultural Explorer in Charge of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction. U. ^. 

 Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 



IN THE most remarkable book whicb 

 has been written on the agriculture 

 of the Chinese ("Farmers of Forty 

 Centuries"), Dr. King points out 

 that the farmers of China, through a 

 wide use of immature forms of vege- 

 tation as food, are able to produce an 

 immense amount of food that would 

 otherwise be impossible. These quick- 

 growing leafy vegetables produce a crop 

 of green leaves in a much shorter time 

 than the plants whose seeds are eaten 

 require to ripen a seed crop. This fact 

 allows of the production of more crops 

 and a larger amount of food, per year. 

 Leafy vegetables are furthermore sown 

 and matured in the early spring and 

 the late fall when the hours of sun- 

 shine are too few each day to permit 

 of the ripening of grain seed crops, 

 that require a long period for develop- 

 ment. 



The recent discoveries of Dr. Mc- 

 Collum, of the Rockefeller Foundation, 

 show that there is in the green leaves of 

 plants the same substance which is 

 found in butter and which he has desig- 

 nated "fat soluble A." This is one of 

 the so-called vitamines and is as essen- 

 tial to the growth of the animal body 

 as the carbohydrates, fats or proteins 

 of meats, cereals, eggs, and vegetables. 

 That animals cannot live and grow 

 without this substance has given a new 

 importance to the leaf vegetables in 

 our dietary. 



To Americans, lettuce has become 

 the great salad vegetable, and through- 

 out the year it is grown in some part 

 or other of the country, and in the win- 

 ter either shipped thousands of miles 

 to our tables or grown under glass near 



our great cities at a considerable ex- 

 pense of coal ; over 40,000 tons are so 

 grown. 



In the Chinese Petsai we have a rival 

 of the lettuce in so far as any vegetable 

 can rival another. It deserves at least to 

 be given the serious consideration of 

 Americans as a supplement of lettuce. 

 It can be produced for about half the 

 money. It can be grown everywhere 

 throughout the country. It is a better 

 keeper than lettuce and, pound for 

 pound, it probably contains as much of 

 the valuable substance for which we 

 eat lettuce — the "fat soluble A." Fur- 

 thermore, in appearance it is more at- 

 tractive. 



The question of a new vegetable is so 

 tied up with our taste, and our taste is 

 so dependent on the name, that the 

 term "Chinese cabbage" should never 

 have been given to this representative 

 of the mustard family. Technically, it 

 is not a cabbage, and why prejudice peo- 

 ple against it who do not care for cab- 

 bage. It is hard for the average mind 

 to believe that anything which has the 

 name of cabbage attached to it could by 

 any means possible be made into a rival 

 of the delicate lettuce when dressed 

 with a French salad dressing and eaten 

 in the same way. 



That petsai is a rival and that we 

 should take it into our menu and make 

 a place for it, there is no longer any 

 doubt in my mind. The testimony of 

 unprejudiced people who have tried it, 

 and the fact that there are areas of 

 the country where the same amount 

 of this rival can be produced easier and 

 more cheaply than can lettuce, are facts 



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