Due South; or, Cuba Past and PresentBallou, Maturin M. (Maturin Murray)
History
Due South; or, Cuba Past and Present
Ballou, Maturin M. (Maturin Murray)
Cuba
Some of the other fruits are the mango, pomegranate, pineapple,
zapota, tamarind, citron, fig, cocoa, lemon, rose-apple, and
breadfruit. Japan, India, and Ceylon afford nothing more fascinating
or strange in their vegetable kingdoms than this favored isle. The
fruits are simply wonderful in variety and perfection. One eats eggs,
custard, and butter off the trees. Though all these fruits are
universally eaten, the orange seems to be the Creole's favorite, and
if he be a person of even ordinary means, he seldom rises in the
morning until he has drunk his cup of coffee and eaten a couple of
oranges, brought fresh and prepared for him by a servant. The practice
is one into which the visitor falls very pleasantly, and finds it no
less refreshing than agreeable. It seems to rain oranges in Havana.
They are scarcely less cheap than the luscious banana.
The rose-apple grows on one of the most symmetrical trees in Cuba,
with strong, oval, glossy leaves. The blossoms are large, white, and
of pleasant odor, followed by a round fruit about as large as a
well-developed California peach, with a smooth skin, cream-colored
within and without. The pulp is as firm as a ripe seckel pear, and the
taste is so strong of otto-of-rose that more than one at a time palls
upon the palate. It is much used among the Cubans as an agreeable
flavoring for soups and puddings. Of the fruit trees the lemon is
perhaps the most attractive to the eye; for though small and dwarfish,
yet it presents the flowers, small green lemons, and the ripe yellow
fruit all together, reminding one of the Eastern alma. The green
leaves when young are nearly as fragrant as the lemon verbena.
The mammee is a curious fruit growing on lofty, umbrageous trees,
appearing as musk-melons would look if seen hanging in elm-trees.
Large and high-flavored, the fruit is solid in texture like the
American quince. The flavor of the mammee resembles our peach, though
not quite so delicate. Its color when ripe is a light yellow.
The mango is nearly as abundant and prolific as the banana, and yet it
came originally from the far East. It grows upon a very handsome tree,
the leaves being long, lanceolate, polished, and hanging in dense
masses of dark-green foliage. In size it is like a full-grown New
England apple tree. The mango is about thrice the size of an egg plum,
and when ripe is yellow in color, and grows in long pendant bunches.
When this fruit is at its best it is very juicy, and may be sucked
away like a grape. The negroes are immoderately fond of it, and when
permitted to do so are apt to make themselves ill by their greediness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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