202 FRUIT RECIPES 



Chinese pomology) are parvenues beside the sour or Seville 

 orange. Even the Oriental varieties just mentioned and the 

 sweet orange trees which for centuries have been found grow- 

 ing on the Himalayas probably came from the sour stock origi- 

 nally, so evidence and opinion seem to emphatically indicate. 



The Moors took this orange to Spain. From just what 

 particular spot they may first have imported it, it is difficult 

 to say at this distance of time, but from that period (the be- 

 ginning of the eighth century, A. D.) until into the fifteenth 

 century, the sweet orange was not known or cultivated in 

 Europe while the sour orange was greatly cultivated. The 

 Greeks and Romans seem to have known nothing of any 

 variety of orange and so, although biographical sketches 

 of Adam, Eve, and the Grecian and Roman gods may by 

 scoffers be classed irreverently as equally and only alle- 

 gorical, one fact may be depended upon (!) that, as compared 

 with their first parents, the Europeans were hopelessly 

 matter-of-fact, since the apple of Paris was literally an 

 apple, while botanists declare the forbidden fruit of the 

 Garden to have been undoubtedly an orange or other mem- 

 ber of the citrus family — ^whether true or typical. (The 

 admirers of the chiramoya claim that fruit as Eden's temp- 

 tation, but neither this fact nor those people who would 

 decry the Seville as sufficient to drive anyone from Paradise 

 need be considered.) 



The imported Moorish orange was planted in great num- 

 ber in and about the city of Seville, singly and in groves, 

 and immediately so flourished and grew in favour that it 

 became widely known as the "Seville" orange and by this 

 name is still recognised throughout Europe where — in Italy 

 and other countries, as well as Spain — it is a commercial 

 crop of importance, whether exported in natural form or 

 otherwise (the peel, dried or candied, or having undergone 

 distillation for flavouring or medicinal purposes). 



