Our viands

How easy it is to laugh at the wisdom of the ancients ; yet in most things we have to come round to their opinions in the long run. Gardeners nowadays are quite alive to the affinities of plants, and their predilection for certain soils and situations ; and in planting onions, if they do not grow savory with them, care should be taken that they have good rich loamy soil, and are well weeded and watered. This was probably the secret of their successful cultivation among the Romans. We do not know when the onion and its allies were first introduced into this country, but probably it is one of the benefits we derive from the Roman occupa- tion of Britain. Garlic is first mentioned in 1548, and the leek in 1562. Shakespeare makes it the badge of the Welsh after the Battle of Crecy, and their fondness for the onion tribe is noticed by Worlidge, who says : * I have seen the greater part of a garden planted with leeks, and a part of the remainder with onions and garlic.' Perhaps it is to this diet that the Welshman owes his pugnacity. CHAPTER XVIII PULSE AND CABBAGE BEANS and peas are familiar to everybody as vegetables, and are in use all the year round, but few people are aware that they have been in cultivation perhaps longer than any other vegetable in Europe, and that many curious notions regarding both — especially beans — have been handed down to us from hoar antiquity. Beans are supposed to have been brought from Egypt; yet the Egyptian priests regarded it as a crime even to look at them. Pythagoras commanded his followers to abstain from them, professing to believe that man was formed from them; and Lucian introduces a philosopher in hell, saying that to eat beans and to eat our father's head were equal crimes. The Romans at one time believed that the souls of the dead resided in beans ; yet they had a solemn feast in which beans were offered in honour of Carna, the consort of Janus, who is said to have enjoyed a little bacon with them : hence our bean-feasts date from very remote times. The Athenians used sodden beans in their feasts to Apollo. Black and white beans were used to record the votes of the people in choosing their magistrates, etc. A white bean signified absolution ; a black, condemnation, which is apparently the origin of the custom of blackballing an opponent. Beans and peas are both found among the relics of the 228 PULSE AND CABBAGE 229 Swiss Lake dwellings, and are named among the provision conveyed to David when he was hiding from his son Absalom. The botanical name of the bean, Faba> is said to be derived from phago (to eat), or paba (to feed), and it has undoubtedly formed a favourite food from time imme- morial; but notwithstanding the many centuries during which it has been cultivated, only two species — the common garden or broad bean, and the horse bean — are known. The kidney bean (Phaseolus) — so named from phaselus (a little boat), because of the shape of the pods — seems to have come to us from two widely different sources. The dwarf kidney bean, commonly known as the French bean, is a native of India, but is mentioned as being generally culti- vated in England in 1597, whilst the scarlet runner was introduced from South America in 1633, and was first cultivated by the celebrated gardener Tradescant, at Lambeth ; but for nearly a century it was grown almost wholly for its flowers, which formed the