300 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



August, 1907 



the bamboo shoots (tasting something like the sweet turnip, 

 minus its slight sweetness) ; the fresh, also the dried pieces 

 of sorghum sugar cane, used as dessert; and a host of queer 

 fruits and vegetables. Among these are the bitter melons, 

 which are simply Chinese cucumbers, run to seed, and pickled 

 with the bitter rind left on — a disgusting tasting legume; the 

 China gutow — whatever that may mean — which is appa- 

 rently an Oriental brother of the American spring onion — • 

 and which I know from ample experience of the celestial 

 article, requires the "purifying" of one's breath after partak- 

 ing thereof. Then, again, among the fruits, there is the acid- 

 sweet carambola — not at all an estimable fruit; and still 

 another fruit which has an odor resembling a decaying egg. 

 This commands a high price. 



The yuenan is a cherry-like fruit with an abnormal stone; 

 the ypyk (pronounced uruk) is a sort of choice edible plum, 

 containing a stone and sweet-almond-like kernel — the only 

 known fruit on the globe the outside flesh and inside kernel 

 of which are both perfectly sweet and edible. The writer 

 is believed to be the first person to have brought this ypyk 

 fruit to the notice of civilization. It is unobtainable outside 

 of Asia. 



It should be stated that all these illustrations are from 

 the actual specimens selected from the writer's collection, 

 noted and procured during travels in the East and brought 

 to the office of American Homes and Gardens. 



The "ripened" eggs of the Chinese are found in commerce 

 in two varieties — first, coated with a thickish layer of solid 

 black earth; second, encrusted with a grayish-white substance 

 evidently produced from barnyard refuse. The contents of 

 the black covered eggs are snow-white; those of the whitish- 

 gray exterior are a glossy jet black inside. I hey are not 

 putrid eggs, as we know putrid eggs, albeit they are thor- 

 oughly "ripe" — there's no doubt about that! They are eaten 



cold or warm, with tea-leaf salad, and can be preserved half 

 a century or longer. 



The water-chestnut macaroni (it is called macaroni, from 

 Italian macaroni, by the Chinese themselves, who spell it 

 with a "k"), is a most nutritious food. It is usually served 

 with the boiled bow-wow (doggie flesh) or the stewed cat. 

 The decayed, mealy macaroni is remade into a kind of pan- 

 cake — a tolerably disgusting food, with a taste resembling 

 the odor of sulphureted hydrogen. 



The dried, salted rice-worms — more euphoniously but er- 

 roneously called by the Chinese "rice-fish" — are the annoying 

 centipede-like worms which infest the padi fields; but John 

 utilizes them, as he does almost everything, for food. A 

 bloating, wind-creating, unsatisfying food, yet much superior 

 to Boston pork and beans. 



The compressed seaweed mat is multiusable. Intended for 

 the table, in soups — it is also used as a family "barometer" 

 — varying its moisture as the temperature rises or falls; as 

 a cure for insomnia, if laid on the face, and its persistent 

 semiozonic odor inhaled through the nose; as a table mat, 

 when a couple of them will impart a seaside-like odor to a 

 room so long as they hold together. In any case, in China, 

 after these multifarious uses, they always wind up in the 

 soup pot. 



The "Bombay duck" is simply salted, decayed and thor- 

 oughly rotted fish, subsequently sun-dried, so that it crumbles 

 between the fingers. It is also thoroughly "ripened." 



The snow-white rice flour biscuits are a queer contrast to 

 the jet black crackers. The former are intensely sweet, and 

 kneeded with rice oil. They are the whitest biscuits known, 

 and are used as an emblem of purity at all the Chinese 

 "babies, ladies and hades"* ceremonies. 



*The Celestial equivalent for "cradle, altar and tomb." 



Effect of Bagging Upon the Quality of Fruit 



|OR se\'eral years the Ecole natiomile d'agri- 

 ciillure at Versailles has recommended in- 

 closing pears in paper bags as soon as the 

 fruit is formed. The latter is thus protected 

 from the worms and the various crypto- 

 gamic diseases, and develops more regu- 

 larly. It is uncovered at the time of 

 ripening, that it may become colored by the sun. Mons. 

 Riviere, director of the agronomic station at Versailles, with 

 the co-operation of Mons. Baillache, wished to determine 

 scientifically the effect of this course of procedure upon the 

 quality of the fruit, and therefore studies were made of 

 the Golden Chasselas and several varieties of table-pears. 

 On comparing bunches of grapes picked from the same 

 vine and at the same height, some of which had been bagged, 



while the rest had been developed in the open air, the fol- 

 lowing differences were found: 



Sugar Acidity 

 per Liter. of Juice 



Unbagged bunches 198.50 grammes 3.08 



205 grammes 2.c 



"The bagged grape, therefore, is sweeter and less acid 

 than the unbagged grape. As to pears, on the contrary, the 

 bagging increases both the quantity of sugar and of acid. 

 Thus, for 1,000 parts of fresh pulp the Beurre Diet con- 

 tained 82.20 grammes of sugar, when it had been bagged, 

 and but 78.10 grammes when it had not been. But the 

 acidity of the bagged fruit was expressed by the figures 2.40 

 as against 1.60 for the unbagged. It is for the epicures to 

 decide in which case the pear had the better taste." — From 

 L' Illustration. 



