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124 FRUITS" IN • THEIR SEASON.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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¦ - - A » Vi. Data. Respecting Dates. Th...
about two months the exhausted victim is dead and dry . The sap thus collected can be fermented into toddy or palm wine , and ,
distilled , becomes araky , the _g-eneral Arabic name for _sjDirituous liquor of any kind ; and as it was on the juice of the grape that the
prophet ' s stern interdict was laid ,, the JVIussulman Arab rejoices in a good conscience while partaking- of these palmy products , though
certainly finding them no bad substitute for the British Christian's logwood Eaten port in Europe or peppered only as brand a simp y . le fruitthe charms of the date ,
unheightened by any elaborate culinary processes , , have yet been fully appreciated . That they were so by the ancients is sufficiently seen
in the words of Pliny , who speaks of them indeed as though he had himself felt their fascination , and needed his philosophy to resist
being led astray by it , when he says that , in a fresh state , _" they are so remarkably luscious that there would be no end to eating them ,
were it not for fear of the dangerous consequences ; " dangers incident , however , only to excess , for partaken of in moderation they are
peculiarly wholesome . The application of the same epithet to them in the " Commedia Divina" shows that Italian taste had not altered
in later days in this respect , for an incidental mention of them occurs in the story of ManfredLord of Fuenziwhoafter a life of
feud and cruelty , turned friar , and , to celebrate his , reconciliation , with his former foes , invited them to a magnificent banquet . At the end
of the dinner a horn blew , as though to announce the _jLessert , but it was a fatal signal appointed by the dissembling conspiratorand the .
, only fruits served that day to his too confiding guests were a troop of armed men , who , rushing on the victims , suffered none to escape
alive . The memory of this incident is still preserved in the Italian proverbwhich concerning a person who has been treacherously
usedthat , he has says eaten , of " the fruit of Brother Alberigo ; " and Dante , makes the traitor use the same symbol to describe his fitting
punishment in another world : — " The Am Its fruitage I friar , who Alberi from and go the am , answered here evil garden repaid lie , p the lucked date
More luscious , , for my fig : " Considering the Italian fondness for figs , these words convey a
comp When liment they indeed were to first the intr date oduced . into England does not seem to
be on record , but it was _j > robably at a very early period , for they seem to have been tolerably common in Tudor days . Among
Strutt _' s collection of the bills for the preparations for the funeral of Sir J . Rudstone , who died in 1581 , after having been lately Lord
Mayor of London , a grocer ' s bill is included , wherein occurs the item of " six lb . dates 2 s . " a very moderate price for so far-travelled
a luxury , at a time too , when , raisins were being sold at 6 d . per pound and sugar at 2 s . QcL They are mentioned too as entering into the
composition of that most singular potation " Cock Ale , " the receipt
124 Fruits" In • Their Season.
124 _FRUITS" IN THEIR SEASON .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1861, page 124, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041861/page/52/
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