The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom Part 62

The "wort" or Cayenne pottage may be termed the national dish of the Abyssinians, as that, or its basis "dillock," is invariably eaten with their ordinary diet, the thin crumpet-like bread of teff or wheat flour. Equal parts of salt and the red cayenne pods are well powdered and mixed together with a little pea or bean meal to make a paste.

This is called "dillock," and is made in quant.i.ties at a time, being preserved in a large gourd-sh.e.l.l, generally suspended from the roof.

The "wort" is merely a little water added to this paste, which is then boiled over the fire, with the addition of a little fat meat and more meal to make a kind of porridge, to which sometimes is also added several warm seeds, such as the common cress or black mustard, both of which are indigenous in Abyssinia.--("Johnston's Abyssinia.")

A great quant.i.ty of Agi or Guinea pepper is grown in Peru, the natives being very fond of this condiment. It is not uncommon for an American Indian to make a meal of twenty or thirty pods of capsic.u.m, a little salt, and a piece of bread, washed down by two or three quarts of chica, the popular beverage.

PIMENTO.

The pimento, _Eugenia Pimento_ (_Myrtus Pimenta_), is a native of Mexico, and the West Indies. It flourishes spontaneously and in great abundance on the north side of the island of Jamaica; its numerous white blossoms mixing with the dark green foliage, and with the slightest breeze diffusing around the most delicious fragrance, give a beauty and a charm to nature rarely equalled, and of which he who has not visited the shady arbors and perfumed groves of the tropics can have little conception. This lovely tree, the very leaf of which when bruised emits a fine aromatic odor, nearly as powerful as that of the spice itself, has been known to grow to the height of from 30 to 40 feet, exceedingly straight, and having for its base the spinous ridge of a rock, eight or ten feet above the surface of the hill or mountain. A single tree has frequently produced 150 lbs. of the raw, or 100 lbs. of the dried fruit.

The fruit has an aromatic odor, and its taste combines that of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves; hence its common name of allspice. The fruit of _Eugenia acris_ is used for pimento.

The trunk is of a grey color, smooth and s.h.i.+ning, and altogether dest.i.tute of bark. It is luxuriantly clothed with leaves of a deep green, somewhat like those of the bay tree, and these leaves are, in the months of July and August, beautifully contrasted and relieved by an exuberance of white flowers. The leaves yield by distillation a delicate odoriferous oil, which is said to be sometimes pa.s.sed off for oil of cloves.

The berries are gathered before they are ripe, and spread on a terrace, exposed to the sun for about a week, during which time they lose their green color, and acquire that reddish brown tint which renders them marketable. Some planters kiln-dry them. Like many of the minor productions of the tropics, pimento is exceedingly uncertain, and perhaps a very plenteous crop occurs but once in five years.

In 1800 there were 12,759 bags and 610 casks of pimento imported from Jamaica; in 1824 there were 33,308 bags and 599 casks s.h.i.+pped from the island; in 1829 the quant.i.ty exported was 6,069,127 lbs.

In the year ending October 1843, the export of pimento from Jamaica was 29,322 bags and 156 casks; in the year ending October 1844, 12,055 bags and 88 casks; in the year ending October 1845, 233 casks, valued at 30s. each, and 59,494 bags, valued at 20s.

From 1st January to 1st August, 1851, 128,277 lbs. pimento were s.h.i.+pped from the port of Montego Bay, Jamaica.

There was a very considerable pimento plantation made in Tobago, some years ago, by a Mr. Franklin, but it was abandoned by his sons, that they might attend the more exclusively to sugar culture.

Jamaica exported nearly two millions of pounds of pimento less, in the three years ending 1848, than she did in the three previous to the emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves. The number of pounds s.h.i.+pped annually, in these periods, is shown by the following figures:--

Year. lbs.

1830 5,560,620 1831 3,172,320 1832 4,024,800 1846 2,997,060 1847 2,800,140 1848 5,231,908

Pimento is imported into this country in bags of about 100 lbs. each.

The imports have been:--

Year. Imports. Home consumption.

cwts. cwts.

1848 20,773 4,230 1849 24,994 3,419 1850 20,448 3,467 1851 14,840 3,935 1852 22,708 3,872

The following is a statement of the imports from the West Indies, and the consumption of the United Kingdom, in pounds:--

Entries for Year. Imports. home consumption.

lbs. lbs.

1831 1,801,355 305,739 1832 1,366,183 296,197 1833 4,770,255 330,890 1834 1,389,402 320,719 1835 2,536,353 343,942 1836 3,230,978 400,941 1837 2,026,128 383,401 1838 892,974 383,997 1839 1,071,511 309,078 1840 999,068 338,969 1841 797,757 297,201 1842 1,643,318 450,683 1843 2,028,658 378,096

The imports have been, in--

bags.

1843 18,649 1844 2,408 1845 21,092 1847 9,649 1848 18,196 1849 14,108

Pimento is worth in the London market 6d. to 7d. per lb. The duty is 5s. per cwt.

VANILLA.

The fleshy, pod-like, odoriferous fruit of different species of _Epidendrum_ const.i.tute the substance called vanilla, which is used in confectionery for giving a delicious perfume to chocolate, liqueurs, &c. As an aromatic it is much sought after by confectioners, for flavoring ices and creams; and also by perfumers, liqueurists, and distillers. The best comes from the forests round the village of Zurtila, in the intendancy of Oaxaca, on the eastern slopes of the Cordillera of Anahuac, between the parallels of 19 deg. and 20 deg. N.

All the vanilla which is used in Europe is imported from Mexico, Venezuela, and Vera Cruz.

It is a native of tropical America, and grows wild in Brazil, Peru, the banks of the Orinoco, and all places where heat, shade, and moisture prevail. There are many species indigenous to the Bahamas, Trinidad, Jamaica, Cuba, Dominica, Martinique and St. Vincent, which would produce considerable gain to the inhabitants if they would give themselves the trouble of cultivating or collecting its fruit.

This parasitical plant has a trailing stem, not unlike the common ivy, but not so woody, by which it attaches itself to the trunks of trees, and sucks the moisture which their bark derives from the lichens and other cryptogamia, but without drawing nourishment from the tree itself, like the misletoe and loranthus. The Indians in Mexico propagate it by planting cuttings at the foot of trees selected for that purpose. It rises to the height of 18 or 20 feet; the flowers are of a greenish yellow, mixed with white. The plant is subcylindrical about eight or ten inches long, of a yellow color when gathered, but dark brown or black when imported into Europe. It is one-celled siliquose, and pulpy within, wrinkled on the outside, and full of a vast number of seeds like grains of sand, having when properly prepared, a peculiar and delicious fragrance. It should be gathered before it is fully ripe.

Different species of vanilla are natives of Guiana, and it is found in large quant.i.ties along the banks of its rivers, and in the wooded districts which intersperse the savannahs. The oily and balsamic substance which the minute seeds possess, may be found to have medicinal qualities. Its cultivation can be connected with no difficulties; it needs only to plant the slips among trees, and to keep them clear of weeds. It would prove therefore a great addition to a cocoa plantation. In 1825 the price was, in Germany, sixty-six dollars (equal to 9) per pound, and twenty-five to thirty dollars are paid for it in Martinique.

Humboldt states that the annual value of vanilla exported from the state of Vera Cruz was 40,000 dollars, 8,000 sterling. Some vanilla is exported from Maranham. The cultivation of vanilla, which was introduced into Java in the year 1847, is said to have made considerable progress, there being now no fewer than thirty plantations.

The fruit of this orchideous plant is entirely neglected in the province of Caracas, though abundant crops of it might be gathered on the humid coast between Porto Cabello and Oc.u.mare, especially at Turiamo, where the pods attain the length of nearly a foot. The English and American merchants often seek to make purchases at the port of La Guayra, but with difficulty procure it in small quant.i.ties.

In the valleys that descend from the chain of coast towards the Caribbean sea, in the province of Truxillo, as well as in the mission of Guiana, near the cataracts of the Orinoco, a great quant.i.ty of the vanilla pods might be collected, the produce of which would be still more abundant, if, according to the practice of the Mexicans, the plant were disentangled from time to time from the other creepers, with which it is intertwined and stifled.

When collected to prepare it for the market, about 12,000 of the pods are strung like a garland by their lower end, as near as possible to their foot-stalk; the whole are plunged for an instant into boiling water to blanch them; they are then hung up in the open air and exposed to the sun for a few hours. By some they are wrapped in woollen cloths to sweat. Next day they are lightly smeared with oil, by means of a feather or the fingers, and are surrounded with oiled cotton to prevent the valves from opening. As they become dry, on inverting their upper end they discharge a viscid liquor from it, and they are pressed several times with oiled fingers to promote its flow.

The dried pods, like the berries of pepper, change color under the drying operation, grow brown, wrinkled, soft, and shrink to one-fourth of their original size. In this state they are touched a second time with oil, but very sparingly, because with too much oil they would lose some of their delicious perfume.

They are then packed for the market in small bundles of 50 or 100 in each, enclosed in lead foil, or tight metallic cases.

There are four local varieties, all differing in price and excellence; viz., the vanilla _fina_, the _zacate_, the _rezacate_, and the _vasura_.

One pod of vanilla is sufficient to perfume a pound and a half of cacao. It is with difficulty reduced to fine particles, but it may be sufficiently attenuated by cutting it into small bits, and grinding these along with sugar.

As it comes to us, vanilla is a capsular fruit, of the thickness of a swan's quill; straight, cylindrical, but somewhat flattened, truncated at the top, thinned off at the ends, glistening, wrinkled, furrowed lengthwise, flexible, from five to ten inches long, and of a reddish brown color. It contains a pulpy parenchyma, soft, unctuous, very brown, in which are embedded black, brilliant, very small seeds.

The kind most esteemed in France is called _leq_ vanilla; it is about six inches long, from one-fourth to one-third of an inch broad, narrowed at the two ends and curved at the base; somewhat soft and viscid, of a dark reddish color, and of a most delicious flavor, like that of balsam of Peru. It is called vanilla _giorees_, when it is covered with efflorescences of benzcoin acid, after having been kept in a dry place, and in vessels not hermetically closed.

The second sort, called _vanilla simarona_, or b.a.s.t.a.r.d, is a little smaller than the preceding, of a less deep brown hue, drier, less aromatic, dest.i.tute of efflorescence. It is said to be the produce of the wild plant, and is brought from St. Domingo.

A third sort, which comes from Brazil, is the _vanillon_, or large vanilla of the French market; the _vanilla pamp.r.o.na_ or _bova_ of the Spaniards. Its length is from five to six inches, its breadth from one-half to three-fourths of an inch. It is brown, soft, viscid, almost always open, of a strong smell, but less agreeable than the _leq_. It is sometimes a little spoiled by an incipient fermentation.

It is cured with sugar, and enclosed in tin plate boxes, which contain from 20 to 60 pods[52]. The average annual import of vanilla into Havre, in the five years ending 1841, was about 16 boxes; in 1842 it was 30 packages.

TONQUIN BEANS.--The seeds of the Tongo tree (_Dipterix odorata_), a native of Guiana, are the well-known tonquin beans used to give a pleasant flavor to snuff.

TURMERIC.

This article of commerce is furnished by the branches of the rhizome or root-stock of the _Curc.u.ma longa_, and _C. rotunda_, plants which are natives of Eastern Asia, but have been grown in England and the West Indies. They thrive well in a rich light soil, and are readily increased by offsets from the roots.

In the East Indies, where it is known as Huldee, turmeric is much employed in dyeing yellow, princ.i.p.ally silks, but the color is very fugitive. It is also used medicinally as an aromatic carminative, and as a condiment; it enters into the composition of curry sauce or powder, and many other articles of Indian cookery. It is cordial and stomachic, and considered by the native doctors of India an excellent application in powder for cleansing foul ulcers.

It is grown in, and exported chiefly from, Bengal and Malabar, Madras, Java, and China. The turmeric of Java is in high estimation in the European markets, ranking next to that of China, and being much superior to that of Bengal. The seeds of _Anethum Sowa_, from their carminative properties, form an ingredient in curry powder.

The price of turmeric in London is from 12s. to 20s. per cwt., according to quality. The entries for home consumption are about 4,000 to 5,000 cwts. annually. It is better s.h.i.+pped in casks or cases than in bags.