Our viands

fruit of a sweet taste resembling gingerbread. This last was probably the lotos of the Lotophagi, which is described by Polybius as a stiff, thorny shrub, with small green leaves. The fruit, when green, is said to resemble myrtle berries, but when ripe they are like round olives of a reddish colour, and, like olives, contain a hard nut The fruit is gathered, crushed, and kept in close vessels, and resembles figs or dates in flavour ; it is reckoned next to the date in value, and was said to have formed the chief food of man, being so delicious that whosoever tasted it ceased to desire any other food, and forgot everything in the pleasure of eating it. It grows in Egypt and Northern Africa. But although this was probably the lotos of the poets, it is certain that the Egyptians eat also the fruit and seeds of the lotos lily, as well as the root of the arum, which is eaten in many countries, either roasted or pounded, and precipitated as a starch, resembling manioc or tapioca. CHAPTER XVII ROOTS IT is hard to realise the fact that three hundred years ago the potato was unknown in Europe, and we wonder what our ancestors could have done without a vegetable which is now regarded as indispensable. Yet, at the date of its introduction, it was so little thought of, that it is still a disputed point as to whom belongs the honour of having brought it over, and whether it came from Chili or Peru, where it grows wild, or from Virginia. We used to believe that Sir Walter Raleigh was this benefactor, but Sir John Hawkins (1565), Sir Francis Drake (1586), and Thomas Herriott (1585) are also credited with its first introduction; at any rate, most people are agreed that Ireland was its first European home, and that the neighbourhood of Cork was the spot where the earliest potato crop was raised. Never- theless, a century after its first planting, Houghton, the botanist, writing in 1681, says : — * The potato is a bacciferous herb with esculent roots, bearing winged leaves and a bell flower This, I have been informed, was brought first out of Virginia by Sir Walter Raleigh, and he stopping at Ireland, some was planted there, where it thrived very well and to good purpose, for, in their succeeding wars, 215 216 OUR VIANDS when all the corn above ground was destroyed, this sup- ported them, for the soldiers, unless they had dug up all the ground where they grew and almost sifted it, could net extirpate them. From thence they were brought to Lancashire, where they are very numerous, and now they begin to spread all the kingdom over. They are a pleasant food, boiled or roasted, and eaten with butter and sugar' Fancy eating sugar with potatoes ! He then goes on to say, ' There is a sort brought from Spain that are of a longer form (Convolvulus Batatas), and are much more luscious tnan ours, for they are much set by, and sold for 6d. or 8d. a pound.' Sweet potatoes — which, by-the-by, are not potatoes at all — are now very little thought of in comparison with the commoner potato, and, although they are eaten and relished by the few, would certainly be rejected by the many, whilst the potato is cultivated everywhere, occupying 512,471 acres in Great Britain in 1877, and in the same year 7,964,840 cwt. were imported, valued at ^£2, 348, 749.