A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery. With a Short Explanation of Some of the Principal Natural Phenomena. For the Use of Schools and Families. Enlarged and Revised Edition.

CHAPTER II.

CORN, BAR­LEY, PEARL BAR­LEY, OATS, RYE, POTA­TOES, TEA, COF­FEE, AND CHOCO­LATE.

What is Corn?

Corn sig­ni­fies a race of plants which pro­duce grain in an ear or head, fit for bread, the food of man; or the grain or seed of the plant, sep­arat­ed from the ear.

What is gen­er­al­ly meant by Corn?

In this coun­try, maize, or In­di­an corn, is gen­er­al­ly meant; but, in a more com­pre­hen­sive sense, the term is ap­plied to sev­er­al oth­er kinds of grain, such as wheat, rye, bar­ley, oats, &c.

Where was Corn first used?

It is un­cer­tain. The Athe­ni­ans pre­tend that it was amongst them it was first used; the Cre­tans, Si­cil­ians, and Egyp­tians al­so lay claim to the same. From the ac­counts in the Bible, we find that its cul­ture en­gaged a large share of the at­ten­tion of the an­cient He­brews.

_Cul­ture_, growth, cul­ti­va­tion. _He­brews_, the chil­dren of Is­rael, the Jews

Who were the Athe­ni­ans?

In­hab­itants of Athens, the cap­ital city of Greece.

Who were the Cre­tans?

The in­hab­itants of Crete, an is­land of the Archipela­go.

Who were the Si­cil­ians?

In­hab­itants of Sici­ly, the largest is­land of the Mediter­ranean Sea, now a part of Italy, and sep­arat­ed from the main­land by the Strait of Messi­na.

Where do the Egyp­tians dwell?

In Egypt, a coun­try of Africa. It is ex­treme­ly fer­tile, pro­duc­ing great quan­ti­ties of corn. In an­cient times it was called the dry nurse of Rome and Italy, from its fur­nish­ing with corn a con­sid­er­able part of the Ro­man Em­pire; and we are in­formed, both from sa­cred and pro­fane his­to­ry, that it was an­cient­ly the most fer­tile in corn of all coun­tries of the world. The corn of Syr­ia has al­ways been very su­pe­ri­or, and by many classed above that of Egypt.

For what is Bar­ley gen­er­al­ly used?

It is very ex­ten­sive­ly used for mak­ing malt, from which are pre­pared beer, ale, porter, &c.; in Scot­land it is a com­mon in­gre­di­ent in broths, for which rea­son its con­sump­tion is very con­sid­er­able, bar­ley broth be­ing a dish very fre­quent there.

_In­gre­di­ent_, a sep­arate part of a body con­sist­ing of dif­fer­ent ma­te­ri­als.

What is Pearl Bar­ley?

Bar­ley freed from the husk by a mill.

What are Oats?

A valu­able grain, serv­ing as food for hors­es. Oats are al­so eat­en by the in­hab­itants of many coun­tries, af­ter be­ing ground in­to meal and made in­to oat cakes. Oat­meal al­so forms a whole­some drink for in­valids, by steep­ing it in boil­ing wa­ter.

What are the us­es of Rye?

In this and some oth­er coun­tries it is much used for bread, ei­ther alone or mixed with wheat; in Eng­land prin­ci­pal­ly as food for cat­tle, es­pe­cial­ly for sheep and lambs, when oth­er food is scarce in win­ter. Rye yields a strong spir­it when dis­tilled.

_Dis­tilled_, sub­ject­ed to dis­til­la­tion--the op­er­ation of ex­tract­ing spir­it from a sub­stance by evap­ora­tion and con­den­sa­tion.

Of what coun­try is the Pota­to a na­tive?

Pota­toes grew wild in Pe­ru, a coun­try of South Amer­ica; whence they were trans­plant­ed to oth­er parts of the Amer­ican con­ti­nent, and af­ter­wards to Eu­rope. The hon­or of in­tro­duc­ing this use­ful veg­etable in­to Eng­land is di­vid­ed be­tween Sir Fran­cis Drake, in 1580, and Sir Wal­ter Raleigh, in 1586, some as­crib­ing it to the for­mer, and oth­ers to the lat­ter. It is cer­tain they were ob­tained from Vir­ginia in the time of Raleigh; they were cul­ti­vat­ed on­ly in the gar­dens of the no­bil­ity, and were reck­oned a great del­ica­cy. They now con­sti­tute a prin­ci­pal ar­ti­cle of food in most of the coun­tries of Eu­rope and Amer­ica; in Ire­land, they have long fur­nished near­ly four-​fifths of the en­tire food of the peo­ple.

What part of the plant is eat­en?

The root, which, when roast­ed or boiled, af­fords a whole­some and agree­able meal.

What is Tea?

The leaves of an ev­er­green shrub, a na­tive of Chi­na and Japan, in which coun­tries alone it is ex­ten­sive­ly cul­ti­vat­ed for use. The tea-​plant was at one time in­tro­duced in­to South Car­oli­na, where its cul­ture ap­pears to have been at­tend­ed with but lit­tle suc­cess. It may yet be­come a sta­ple pro­duc­tion of some por­tions of the Unit­ed States.

_Ev­er­green_, re­tain­ing its leaves fresh and green through all sea­sons.

How is it pre­pared for use?

By care­ful­ly gath­er­ing the leaves, one by one, while they are yet small, young, and juicy. They are then spread on large flat iron pans, and placed over small fur­naces, when they are con­stant­ly shift­ed by the hand till they be­come too hot to be borne.

What is next done?

They are then re­moved with a kind of shov­el re­sem­bling a fan, and poured on mats, whence they are tak­en in small quan­ti­ties, and rolled in the palm of the hand al­ways in one di­rec­tion, un­til they cool and re­tain the curl.

How of­ten is this op­er­ation re­peat­ed?

Two or three times, the fur­nace each time be­ing made less hot. The tea is then placed in the store-​hous­es, or packed in chests, and sent to most of the coun­tries in Eu­rope and Amer­ica.

De­scribe the ap­pear­ance of the Tea-​tree.

The Tea-​tree when ar­rived at its full growth, which it does in about sev­en years, is about a man's height; the green leaves are nar­row, and jagged all round; the flow­er re­sem­bles that of the wild rose, but is small­er. The shrub loves to grow in val­leys, at the foot of moun­tains, and on the banks of rivers where it en­joys a south­ern ex­po­sure to the sun; though it en­dures con­sid­er­able vari­ation of heat and cold, as it flour­ish­es in the north­ern clime of Pekin, where the win­ter is of­ten se­vere; and al­so about Can­ton, where the heat is some­times very great. The best tea, how­ev­er, grows in a tem­per­ate cli­mate, the coun­try about Nankin pro­duc­ing bet­ter tea than ei­ther Pekin or Can­ton, be­tween which two places it is sit­uat­ed.

What pro­duces the dif­fer­ence be­tween Green and Bo­hea, or Black?

There are va­ri­eties of the plant, and the dif­fer­ence of the tea aris­es from the mode of prepa­ra­tion.

What na­tion first in­tro­duced it in­to Eu­rope?

The Dutch in 1610; it was in­tro­duced in­to Eng­land in 1650

What is Cof­fee?

The berry of the cof­fee-​tree, a na­tive of Ara­bia. The cof­fee-​tree is an ev­er­green, and makes a beau­ti­ful ap­pear­ance at all times of the year, but es­pe­cial­ly when in flow­er, and when the berries are red, which is usu­al­ly dur­ing the win­ter. It is al­so cul­ti­vat­ed in Per­sia, the East In­dies, Liberia on the coast of Africa, the West In­dies, Brazil and oth­er parts of South Amer­ica, as well as in most trop­ical cli­mates.

_Trop­ical_, be­ing with­in the trop­ics, that is, in the Tor­rid Zone.

Who was the orig­inal dis­cov­er­er of Cof­fee, for the drink of man?

It is not ex­act­ly known: the ear­li­est writ­ten ac­counts of the use of Cof­fee are by Ara­bi­an writ­ers in the 15th cen­tu­ry; it ap­pears that in the city of Aden it be­came, in the lat­ter half of that cen­tu­ry, a very pop­ular drink, first with lawyers, stu­dious per­sons, and those whose oc­cu­pa­tion re­quired wake­ful­ness at night, and soon af­ter, with all class­es. Its use grad­ual­ly ex­tend­ed to oth­er cities, and to those on the east­ern shores of the Mediter­ranean. To­wards the end of the sev­en­teenth cen­tu­ry, it was car­ried to Batavia where it was soon ex­ten­sive­ly plant­ed, and at last young trees were sent to the botan­ical gar­den at Am­ster­dam.

Who in­tro­duced it in­to France and Eng­land?

Thevenot, the trav­eller, brought it in­to France, and a Greek ser­vant named Pasqua (tak­en to Eng­land by Mr. Daniel Ed­wards, a Turkey mer­chant, in 1652, to make his cof­fee,) first set up the pro­fes­sion of cof­fee-​man, and in­tro­duced the drink among the En­glish.

How is it pre­pared?

The berries are roast­ed in a re­volv­ing metal­lic cylin­der, till they are of a deep brown col­or, and then ground to pow­der, and boiled.

_Metal­lic_, con­sist­ing of met­al.

What is Choco­late?

A kind of cake or paste, made of the ker­nel of the ca­cao-​nut.

De­scribe the Ca­cao-​nut Tree.

It re­sem­bles the cher­ry tree, and grows to the height of fif­teen or six­teen feet. The ca­cao-​nut tree bears leaves, flow­ers, and fruit, all the year through.

Where does it grow?

In trop­ical re­gions, where it is large­ly cul­ti­vat­ed.

Of what form is the fruit?

It is some­what like a cu­cum­ber, about three inch­es round, and of a yel­low­ish red col­or. It con­tains from ten to forty seeds, each cov­ered with a lit­tle rind, of a vi­olet col­or; when this is stripped off, the ker­nel, of which they make the choco­late, is vis­ible.

How do they make it in­to a drink?

By boil­ing it with wa­ter or milk. There are var­ious new­ly-​in­vent­ed ways of prepar­ing choco­late, so that it may be made in a few min­utes, by on­ly pour­ing boil­ing wa­ter up­on it.