Identifier: fieldgardenwoodl00lady (find matches)
Title: The field, the garden and the woodland, or, Interesting facts respecting flowers and plants in general
Year: 1838 (1830s)
Authors: Lady
Subjects:
Publisher: London : Charles Knight
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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fter toasting it at the fire, theygrind it, and steep the flour in warm water toremove its resinous taste. They then make itinto cakes and bake it. This bread can afford butlittle nourishment, and to those unused to itsflavour it is very unpalatable ; yet the poor Kam-schatkans become by use fond of it. In Norwayand Sweden the peasantry, some of whom arevery poor, live for half a year at a time almostentirely upon this bread. The wild tribes of South America scarcely seekany other food than that furnished them by the Ba-nana (Musa sapientum), a valuable tree peculiarto hot climates. A mealy substance is extractedfrom the ripe fruit by cutting it in slices, dryingit in the sun, and then pounding it; but theamount of nourishment contained in this sub-stance is far less than that yielded by an equalportion of wheat or even the potato. In the regions between Barbary and the Great DATE PALM. 63 Desert, the soil, ^vhich is of a sandy nature, isso much parched by the intense heat of the suns
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Bauana, cr Plantain, 64 DATE PALM. rays, that none of the corn plants will grow; andin this arid district, called the Land of Dates, thefew vegetables that can be found are of the mostdwarfish description. No plants arise to form thevariety of food to which we are accustomed, andthe natives of these districts live almost exclu-sively upon the fruit of the Date tree. A paste ismade of this fruit by pressing it in large baskets.This paste is not used for present supply, butis intended for a provision in case of a failureof the crops of dates, which sometimes occurs,owing to the ravages committed by locusts. The date, in its natural state, forms the usualfood; and the juice yielded by it when fresh con-tains so much nutriment as to render those wholive upon it extremely fat. As by the Moors,great corpulence is esteemed an indispensablerequisite of beauty, the ladies belonging to thefamilies of distinction among them nourish them-selves during the season solely with the fresh fruit,and by

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