Forbidden fruit

“ For this reason then we are forbidden to eat seeds and certain plants, but we are allowed to eat fruit and vegetables, only not those that creep on the ground, but those that are raised up from the earth and hang high in the air. ”

“ The craving for hot spices, for strong meats, and such abominations as fetid cheese and fermented cabbage have all to be artificially acquired; and in regard to the selection of our proper food the instincts of our young children could teach us more than a whole library of ascetic twaddle. Not for the sake of “mortifying the flesh,” but on the plain recommendation of the natural senses that prefer palatable to disgusting food, the progeny of Adam could be guided in the path of reform and learn to avoid forbidden fruit by the symptoms of its forbidding taste. ”

“ But if the dangers are known to the individual before he has tasted from the forbidden tree of knowledge, he will, in most cases, avoid tasting the fruit which may contain one of the deadliest poisons. ”

“ ==Epilogue to Book I.==
Alas! the forbidden fruits were eaten,
And thereby the warm life of reason was congealed.
A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun Of Adam, l
Like as the Dragon's tail 2 dulls the brightness of the moon.
Behold how delicate is the heart, that a morsel of dust
Clouded its moon with foul obscurity!
When bread is "substance," to eat it nourishes us;
When 'tis empty "form," it profits nothing.
Like as the green thorn which is cropped by the camel,
And then yields him pleasure and nutriment;
When its greenness has gone and it becomes dry,
If the camel crops that same thorn in the desert, ”

“ It means to say, 'This fruit or leaf, if you eat it in any quantities, will kill you.' That is the true explanation of capsicums, pimento, colocynth, croton oil, the upas tree, and the vast majority of bitter, acrid, or fiery fruits and leaves. If we had to pick up our own livelihood, as our naked ancestors had to do, from roots, seeds, and berries, we should far more readily appreciate this simple truth. We should know that a great many more plants than we now suspect are bitter or pungent, and therefore poisonous. ”

“ Thus, the innocent fruit gets the blame, and the fish, game, or meat go free. Another way in which fruits may prove indigestible, through no fault of their own, is because of the unsuitable combination in which they are eaten. ”

“ You will certainly ruin the flavor beyond repair if you wash them, and as certainly induce instant fermentation and endanger the coats of the eaters’ stomachs, if, after profaning the exquisite delicacy of the fruit to this extent, you complete the evil work by covering them with sugar, and leaving them to leak their lives sourly away for one or two hours. ”

“ As soon as this has been done, the people set to work and eat greedily of the various fruits which have been sprinkled, which they have not before ventured to touch, under the belief that till then they are unwholesome. In the more northern districts the fruit is very often far from ripe, but yet they eat away, under the belief that it can do them no harm. ”

“ They have poison from a certain tree the size of the apple. For effect no more is necessary than to pluck the fruit and moisten the arrow with it, or, if there be no fruit, to break a twig and with the milk do the like. ”

“ We accept the omen. Fruits and farinacea—the seed-bearing herb, the fruit-bearing tree—were the alpha of man's diet; they shall be the omega. From a garden to a garden, through slaughters and errors innumerable, winds the journey of the human race; through wars and bloodshed to perfect peace.
Were it not for gratitude due to past services, I should not notice Sir Henry Thompson's lack of Latin scholarship, or his travesty of Vegetarian profession and practice. ”

“ Strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, whortleberries, cherries, plums, grapes, figs, apples, pears, peaches, and melons are "food fit for gods." We pity those whose perverted taste or digestion leads to their rejection. But some are afraidto eat fruits and berries, particularly in midsummer, just the time when nature and common sense say they should be eaten most freely. They have the fear of cholera, dysentery, and similar diseases before their eyes, and have adopted the popular but absurd idea that fruit eating predisposes to disorders of the stomach and bowels. ”

“ And being a very frivolous old woman I find that a nibble or so of stolen fruit leavens the toast and tea. Innocent stolen fruit, mind you, for heaven forbid that I should prescribe a diet of dust and ashes. ”

“ When the old men are wicked there is some comfort in the thought that their day is nearly spent, and their worthless places may be soon filled with a nobler and a better stock, but a drunken and dissolute boy means just what it means for the fruit harvest when the blight gets into the blossom. The gathered apple that rots in the bin is bad enough, but the worm that destroys the fruit in the germ makes greater loss. ”

“ If one could sow his wild oats and then run away and leave them, it wouldn't so much matter; but alas! a reaping-time is sure to be treading on the heels of the sowing. And as no one ever yet gathered grapes of thorns or figs of thistles, it will not do for any of you young people to expect to gather fruit where you have only sown weeds. No, no, this is a kind of wildness which ought not to be tolerated. This is a piece of folly which must either be tamed or punished. ”

“ Man eats the pulp and throws away the seeds, the mice and squirrels waste the pericarp solely to gain the seeds. Perhaps in this case man would have thrown away both apple and seeds had he tasted the bitter, wild fruit. ”

“ But if we find the fruit injurious, to either the physical, mental or spiritual, to such a degree that its injurious effects are not overcome and destroyed by the benefits conferred upon us by the other two, it should be condemned by every friend of humanity.
Every tree should be cut down, and every dealer regarded as an enemy to his race. Some trees are very tall and graceful, and dressed in beautiful foliage, but the fruit is deadly poison. ”

“ The grape-vine in particular, the cherry, plum, and apple-trees, have annually suffered by their depredations; many other fruit-trees and shrubs, garden vegetables and corn, and even the trees of the forest, and the grass of the fields, have been laid under contribution by these indiscriminate feeders, by whom leaves, flowers, and fruits are alike consumed. ”

“ A fruit, on the other hand, lays itself open in every way to attract the attention of animals, and so to be dispersed by their aid, often amid the nourishing refuse of their meals. It is true that, with the fruit as with the nut, to digest the actual seed itself would be fatal to the life of the young plant. But fruits get over this difficulty by coating their seeds first with a hard, indigestible shell, and then with a soft, sweet, pulpy, and nutritious outer layer. ”

“ How oft it chances that the apparent fruit of a shrub, its apple, is merely a gall or blight! How many men, meeting with some blast in the moist, growing days of their youth, so that what should have been a sweet and palatable fruit in them becomes a mere puff and excrescence, say that they have experienced religion! Their fruit is a gall, a puff, an excrescence, for want of moderation and continence. So many plants never ripen their fruit. ”

“ Surprizing as it may appear to many of our readers, who are unacquainted with vegetable nature, we may positively atfirm, that a sufficient quantity of wild neglected fruit annually grows in this country, to produce an adequate supply of spirituous liquor, without using any bread-corn, for such wasteful purpose. ”

“ If a fruit be poisonous, then it is as unfit to eat it, as to commit self-murder. If eating of a fruit be prohibited by an express order of God, then it is as unfit to eat it, as to eat our own damnation. ”

“ Physicians, says Petrarch, regard fruit as almost equally poisonous with aconite and henbane; if this be true, surely Nature is a cruel step-mother to have given to fruits such beauty of colouring, such a delightful perfume, and so agreeable a taste, purposely to seduce and draw us into the snare. Would a good mother present poison to her children, covered with honey? ”

“ Orange peel and the skins and stones of cherries, plums and grapes are wholly indigestible, and often cause serious mischief when swallowed. Cucumbers, green potatoes, green fruit of all kinds should be wholly discarded from the diet. ”

“ A great many people regard growing fruit as lawful prey, who would not think of breaking into your cellar to take it. I found a man once in my raspberry-bushes, early in the season, when we were waiting for a dishful to ripen. Upon inquiring what he was about, he said he was only eating some; and the operation seemed to be so natural and simple, that I disliked to disturb him. And I am not very sure that one has a right to the whole of an abundant crop of fruit until he has gathered it. At least, in a city garden, one might as well conform his theory to the practice of the community. ”

“ Thus we may gather more than berries from our fruit-gardens. Nature hangs thoughts and suggestions on every spray, and blackberry bushes give many an impressive scratch to teach us that good and evil are very near together in this world, and that we must be careful, while seeking the one, to avoid the other. In every field of life those who seek the fruit too rashly are almost sure to have a thorny experience, and to learn that prickings are provided for those who have no consciences. ”

“ When they are to be eaten, the skin, or rather flesh, must be taken off, under which are found six or seven white kernels, placed in a circular order, and the pulp with which these are enveloped, is the fruit, than which nothing can be more delicious: It is a happy mixture of the tart and the sweet, which is no less wholesome than pleasant; and with the sweet orange, this fruit is allowed in any quantity to those who are afflicted with fevers, either of the putrid or inflammatory kind. ”

“ The superstition against eating fruit grown on the dead bodies of one’s friends is a good specimen of the wasteful and distracting kind of idolatry which keeps the world in bondage. What are fruit-trees for, if not to forge and transform cannibalistic selfishness into sacramental joy? While we eat meat, we are obliged to cut the lives of creatures short, because those which die a natural death are unsuitable for food. ”

“ But nothing can be so absurd and unnatural than the practice of some, who will take away the leaves from the fruit, to hasten its ripening. The leaves are the lungs of the plants; the conductors and elevators of sap; and nothing can be more injurious than to take them away from the fruit at the very time when they are most needed. The consequence of such an unwise course will be the wilting and withering of the bunches, and, should they ripen at all, they will be deficient in flavor. Good fruit must ripen in the shade, only thus will it attain its full perfection. ”

“ I sometimes think that the rise of the culinary arts is banishing this fine old appreciation of fruits in their natural forms. There are so many ways of canning and preserving and evaporating and extracting [Pg 106] the juices, so many disguises and so much fabrication, that the fruit is lost in the process. The tin-can and the bottle seem to have put an insuperable barrier between us and nature, and it is difficult for us to get back to a good munch of real apples under a tree or by the fireside. ”

“ The way in which the sugar is formed is not understood, but unripe fruits contain bitter, unwholesome acids and essences which may produce colic or very unpleasant effects if the fruits are eaten green. Thus the colour is a guide to the animal, who is not supposed to eat the fruit until it is ripe; if eaten green, the seeds inside the fruit are quite destroyed and cannot germinate. Yet animals are so greedy that young birds, young animals of all sorts (even girls and boys) will and do eat green or half-ripe fruit. ”

“ It is a common thing for us to send to the States for choice fruit, and the pomologist who receives our orders cuts off scions from the best fruit trees, and sends to us the summer, the fall and the winter apples, and we also get the pear, the plum, the cherry and the peach. We graft those various kinds of good fruit into our seedlings, and then the tree produces fruit according to the kind that was grafted into it, and in this way we procure good fruit. ”

“ Some fruits are often canned without sugar, as it is not the sugar that keeps the fruit, but the perfect sterilization of fruit and jars. Sterilizing, you remember, is the killing of all germs by boiling."
"Some fruits I much prefer canning without sugar, such as apples, peaches, blueberries and rhubarb. ”

“ Generally, every fruit, on ripening, and just before it falls, when it commences a more independent and individual existence, requiring less nourishment from any source, and that not so much from the earth through its stem as from the sun and air, acquires a bright tint. ”

“ The medical profession would be worked off its legs trying to cope with the natural results of over-indulgence in sour apples and unripe walnuts. Public opinion would demand that these fruit trees should be fenced about, and thus rendered harmless. Fruit growers, to save themselves the expense of walls and palings, would not be allowed in this manner to spread sickness and death throughout the community. ”

“ From this percentage of domestic fruit one might infer that the veery was, or might be, a serious menace to fruit growing, but no such complaints have been heard, and it is probable that the species is not numerous enough to damage cultivated crops. ”

“ It will soon be discovered—quite likely during the first summer—that fruit-trees have enemies, that they need not only cultivation and feeding, but also protection. The pear, apple, and quince are liable to one mysterious disease which it is almost impossible to guard against or cure—the fireblight. ”

“ Some varieties, that for many years yielded very fine crops of the most beautiful fruit, and of the highest character for flavor, have afterward ceased to furnish any perfect specimens—the whole crop being covered and deformed with the black scab or fungus, that prevents their development, or else ruined by the disagreeable bitter-rot which entirely spoils them for any use. ”