36 BULLETIN 123, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
out with a spoon after cooking, but is not troublesome if left in the 
young heads. The individual “ leaves” are pulled off and eaten with 
a sauce or dressing. The bottoms may be dipped in batter and fried 
in deep fat or covered with force meat and then baked like stuffed 
tomatoes. Artichokes are interesting garden plants worth knowing. 
The canned French artichokes are fairly common in shops which 
cater to Italian trade. 
The cardoon is allied to the globe artichoke, but is little used in the 
United States. 
HONEY. 
Honey may be properly classed among the food products derived 
from flowers. In ancient times, before cane sugar was manufactured, 
it was the principal sweet, and to-day it is still much prized. A 
study of its history and folklore is interesting. 
The varying qualities of honey derived from different flowers are 
worthy of note. That obtained from white clover fields is of fine 
flavor and light color; raspberry plantations furnish a good quality, 
while buckwheat gives a dark color and a flavor which some do not 
relish; and certain wild plants, such as mountain laurel, may impart 
poisonous qualities to the honey made from them. Recipes which 
have been handed down for generations are still used for honey cakes 
and cookies. Strained or extracted honey may be substituted for 
molasses or other sirups or for sugar in many common recipes. 
(Ref. No. 8.) 
COLORS AND FLAVORING EXTRACTS. 
Flowers find a considerable use in cookery for coloring and flavor- 
ing purposes. _ Dried saffron flowers, as already mentioned, are em- 
ployed for coloring foods yellow. Violets are used in a similar way 
for imparting a purple color, while a number of other colors are 
made from blossoms or leaves. Some highly prized flavoring ex- 
tracts are made from flowers; for instance, rose extract, orange-flower 
water, and sirup of violets. Nasturtium flowers are used, lke tar- 
ragon, for flavoring vinegar, and other similar uses might be cited. 
FRUITS USED AS VEGETABLES. 
The fruit of a plant, botanically, is that portion in which the seed 
is perfected. In popular language, the distinction between a fruit 
and a vegetable is not easily made, and on the border line are several 
important food plants which have been called “vegetable fruits.” 
Such are tomato, eggplant, peppers, and many members of the gourd 
family (melons, cucumbers, squash, pumpkin, vegetable marrow, 
etc.). 
Some varieties of the gourd family were known in Egypt and 
Persia from the earliest times, and squashes or pumpkins, the “ pom- 
