The reign of Acetaria. Why do we eat salads?
An admission: I do not fancy leafy salads, despite the chorus of medical opinion telling me how wonderfully healthy and refreshing these herbs are supposed to be. As my wife stands firmly by their beneficial effects, I cannot escape their attractions, and many a dinner has been ruined by this unwelcome presence. For whose sins am I suffering?
Salads belong to the general superstition, which is as old as the humanity itself, that a particular food (properly prepared and applied) can make one healthy, smart, and long living. Medical history teaches that every panacea has always been rediscovered as pure poison in another age, and vice versa. In the early 17th century, salads were considered to be gastronomical dead ends, more fit for rabbits than civilized men, - and extremely bad for one's digestion. This was the medical consensus for more than 1,500 years; and then it was discovered that salads are wonderful to one’s digestion. Almost overnight, eating salads attained the highest degree of civilized refinement. Now we are in the middle of the millennial reign of the salads. Let’s take a look at this transformation.
It was brought by Sir John Evelyn. The book that changed the minds of pre-revolutionary Britons was called “Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets” (1699) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15517/15517-h/15517-h.htm
Observe that Evelyn preached his salads unto the brethren that refused to touch a cucumber (aka cowcumber) considering it to be poisonous even for their cows... How did he manage to make them to eat leaves? What kind of an argument can do that?
Evelyn was a universally learned man: a historian, a diarist, a botanist, an architect, and much more. He was also one of the first vegetarians; actually, the ideology of vegetarianism was largely his invention. Acetria was a treatise of considerable tedium (even by the standards of his age) that listed 73 edible plants and combinations of these plants, blanched and raw, that are good in “Sallets.” The truly interesting part is at end of the book (“Defence and Vindication of our Sallet, against all Attacks and Opposers whoever”), where Evelyn elaborates his argument for salad eating, which his peers rightly considered to occupy the grounds between the eccentric and the diabolical.
The chief of these arguments was that, as Adam and Eve ate nothing but “Sallets" before the Fall, these salads are primordial foods designated for consumption of the blessed. Every time we eat a salad we spiritually cleanse ourselves of the sinful natures that were obtained after the Fall.
...Adam, and his yet innocent Spouse, fed on Vegetables and other Hortulan Productions before the fatal Lapse; which, by the way, many Learned Men will hardly allow to have fallen out so soon as those imagine who scarcely grant them a single Day; nay, nor half a one, for their Continuance in the State of Original Perfection; whilst the sending him into the Garden; Instructions how he should keep and cultivate it; Edict, and Prohibition concerning the Sacramental Trees; the Imposition of Names, so apposite to the Nature of such an Infinity of Living Creatures (requiring deep Inspection) the Formation of Eve, a meet Companion to relieve his Solitude; the Solemnity of their Marriage; the Dialogues and Success of the crafty Tempter, whom we cannot reasonably think made but one Assault: And that they should so quickly forget the Injunction of their Maker and Benefactor; break their Faith and Fast, and all other their Obligations in so few Moments.
That, by the way, is one of the shortest sentences in the book. Evelyn readily admits that our plants, being contaminated by “putrid Carcasses of Dead Animals, perishing in the Flood,” became “Rheumatick.” However - and that is the punch line - if one treats these Fallen Plants with plenty of Oyl and Vinegar - they become almost as good as the wholesome herbs that Mr. and Mrs. First Humans enjoyed in the Garden of Eden. The so-called civilized plants (like corn) are fertilized with animal dung, thus becoming unwholesome; in contrast, salads sprout from untainted soils composed of “Marle, Chalck, and Lime” [86].
The Nations that live on salads “arrive to incredible Age, in constant Health and Vigour.” The others are not doing too well:
...Whole Nations, Flesh-Devourers (such as the farthest Northern) becoming Heavy, Dull, Unactive, and much more Stupid than the Southern; and such as feed much on Plants, are more Acute, Subtil, and of deeper Penetration: Witness the Chaldæans, Assyrians, Ægyptians, &c. And further argues from the short Lives of most Carnivorous Animals, compared with Grass Feeders, and the Ruminating kind; as the Hart, Camel, and the longævous Elephant, and other Feeders on Roots and Vegetables.
The first humans in the Bible lived enormously long lives because their salads were still delightfully fresh and nutritious, but with the passage of time the plants themselves became compromised. Then eating of animal flesh had began, and the hell broke loose. It is too late to remedy this situation:
...I am sufficiently sensible how far, and to how little purpose I am gone on this Topic: The Ply is long since taken, and our raw Sallet deckt in its best Trim, is never like to invite Men who once have tasted Flesh to quit and abdicate a Custom which has now so long obtain'd. [99]
The question is, can we return to the prelapsarian state by consuming the post-lapsarian plants? Evelyn swears this is still the case.
...it has often been objected, that Fruit, and Plants, and all other things, may since the Beginning, and as the World grows older, have universally become Effœte, impair'd and diverted of those Nutritious and transcendent Vertues they were at first endow'd withal: But as this is begging the Question, and to which we have already spoken; so all are not agreed that there is any, the least Decay in Nature, where equal Industry and Skill's apply'd. 'Tis true indeed, that the Ordo Foliatorum, Feuillantines (a late Order of Ascetic Nuns) amongst other Mortifications, made Trial upon the Leaves of Plants alone, to which they would needs confine themselves; but were not able to go through that thin and meagre Diet: But then it would be enquir'd whether they had not first, and from their very Childhood, been fed and brought up with Flesh, and better Sustenance till they enter'd the Cloyster; and what the Vegetables and the Preparation of them were allow'd by their Institution? Wherefore this is nothing to our Modern Use of Sallets, or its Disparagement...
Evelyn’s words were sown on the fertile ground: before the revolution the British were preoccupied with the millennial fervor of great intensity. The vision of redemption through Sallets was contageous. Interestingly, the formula developed in year 1699 AD still works. The argument about long & healthy lives, the prelapsarian-vegetarian state of the early humans-hominids, the miracles occurring to those who consume raw vegetables, and the anathema to those who don’t - it is all still with us.
Why do we eat salads? Because of people like Sir John Evelyn. You should be grateful that it was green salads. This remarkable man combined the prophetic vision of Milton, the eloquence of Marlow, the force of conviction of Cromwell, and the determination of Calvin. That he focused on salads (?!), of all things possible, is great blessing for which it is not improper to thank Providence every other night.
I wish that other great benefactors of the mankind would limit their ambitions to things botanical...
That is the only consolation that I have at the dinner table.
So I know why it is salads. But why it has to be me?
Salads belong to the general superstition, which is as old as the humanity itself, that a particular food (properly prepared and applied) can make one healthy, smart, and long living. Medical history teaches that every panacea has always been rediscovered as pure poison in another age, and vice versa. In the early 17th century, salads were considered to be gastronomical dead ends, more fit for rabbits than civilized men, - and extremely bad for one's digestion. This was the medical consensus for more than 1,500 years; and then it was discovered that salads are wonderful to one’s digestion. Almost overnight, eating salads attained the highest degree of civilized refinement. Now we are in the middle of the millennial reign of the salads. Let’s take a look at this transformation.
It was brought by Sir John Evelyn. The book that changed the minds of pre-revolutionary Britons was called “Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets” (1699) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15517/15517-h/15517-h.htm
Observe that Evelyn preached his salads unto the brethren that refused to touch a cucumber (aka cowcumber) considering it to be poisonous even for their cows... How did he manage to make them to eat leaves? What kind of an argument can do that?
Evelyn was a universally learned man: a historian, a diarist, a botanist, an architect, and much more. He was also one of the first vegetarians; actually, the ideology of vegetarianism was largely his invention. Acetria was a treatise of considerable tedium (even by the standards of his age) that listed 73 edible plants and combinations of these plants, blanched and raw, that are good in “Sallets.” The truly interesting part is at end of the book (“Defence and Vindication of our Sallet, against all Attacks and Opposers whoever”), where Evelyn elaborates his argument for salad eating, which his peers rightly considered to occupy the grounds between the eccentric and the diabolical.
The chief of these arguments was that, as Adam and Eve ate nothing but “Sallets" before the Fall, these salads are primordial foods designated for consumption of the blessed. Every time we eat a salad we spiritually cleanse ourselves of the sinful natures that were obtained after the Fall.
...Adam, and his yet innocent Spouse, fed on Vegetables and other Hortulan Productions before the fatal Lapse; which, by the way, many Learned Men will hardly allow to have fallen out so soon as those imagine who scarcely grant them a single Day; nay, nor half a one, for their Continuance in the State of Original Perfection; whilst the sending him into the Garden; Instructions how he should keep and cultivate it; Edict, and Prohibition concerning the Sacramental Trees; the Imposition of Names, so apposite to the Nature of such an Infinity of Living Creatures (requiring deep Inspection) the Formation of Eve, a meet Companion to relieve his Solitude; the Solemnity of their Marriage; the Dialogues and Success of the crafty Tempter, whom we cannot reasonably think made but one Assault: And that they should so quickly forget the Injunction of their Maker and Benefactor; break their Faith and Fast, and all other their Obligations in so few Moments.
That, by the way, is one of the shortest sentences in the book. Evelyn readily admits that our plants, being contaminated by “putrid Carcasses of Dead Animals, perishing in the Flood,” became “Rheumatick.” However - and that is the punch line - if one treats these Fallen Plants with plenty of Oyl and Vinegar - they become almost as good as the wholesome herbs that Mr. and Mrs. First Humans enjoyed in the Garden of Eden. The so-called civilized plants (like corn) are fertilized with animal dung, thus becoming unwholesome; in contrast, salads sprout from untainted soils composed of “Marle, Chalck, and Lime” [86].
The Nations that live on salads “arrive to incredible Age, in constant Health and Vigour.” The others are not doing too well:
...Whole Nations, Flesh-Devourers (such as the farthest Northern) becoming Heavy, Dull, Unactive, and much more Stupid than the Southern; and such as feed much on Plants, are more Acute, Subtil, and of deeper Penetration: Witness the Chaldæans, Assyrians, Ægyptians, &c. And further argues from the short Lives of most Carnivorous Animals, compared with Grass Feeders, and the Ruminating kind; as the Hart, Camel, and the longævous Elephant, and other Feeders on Roots and Vegetables.
The first humans in the Bible lived enormously long lives because their salads were still delightfully fresh and nutritious, but with the passage of time the plants themselves became compromised. Then eating of animal flesh had began, and the hell broke loose. It is too late to remedy this situation:
...I am sufficiently sensible how far, and to how little purpose I am gone on this Topic: The Ply is long since taken, and our raw Sallet deckt in its best Trim, is never like to invite Men who once have tasted Flesh to quit and abdicate a Custom which has now so long obtain'd. [99]
The question is, can we return to the prelapsarian state by consuming the post-lapsarian plants? Evelyn swears this is still the case.
...it has often been objected, that Fruit, and Plants, and all other things, may since the Beginning, and as the World grows older, have universally become Effœte, impair'd and diverted of those Nutritious and transcendent Vertues they were at first endow'd withal: But as this is begging the Question, and to which we have already spoken; so all are not agreed that there is any, the least Decay in Nature, where equal Industry and Skill's apply'd. 'Tis true indeed, that the Ordo Foliatorum, Feuillantines (a late Order of Ascetic Nuns) amongst other Mortifications, made Trial upon the Leaves of Plants alone, to which they would needs confine themselves; but were not able to go through that thin and meagre Diet: But then it would be enquir'd whether they had not first, and from their very Childhood, been fed and brought up with Flesh, and better Sustenance till they enter'd the Cloyster; and what the Vegetables and the Preparation of them were allow'd by their Institution? Wherefore this is nothing to our Modern Use of Sallets, or its Disparagement...
Evelyn’s words were sown on the fertile ground: before the revolution the British were preoccupied with the millennial fervor of great intensity. The vision of redemption through Sallets was contageous. Interestingly, the formula developed in year 1699 AD still works. The argument about long & healthy lives, the prelapsarian-vegetarian state of the early humans-hominids, the miracles occurring to those who consume raw vegetables, and the anathema to those who don’t - it is all still with us.
Why do we eat salads? Because of people like Sir John Evelyn. You should be grateful that it was green salads. This remarkable man combined the prophetic vision of Milton, the eloquence of Marlow, the force of conviction of Cromwell, and the determination of Calvin. That he focused on salads (?!), of all things possible, is great blessing for which it is not improper to thank Providence every other night.
I wish that other great benefactors of the mankind would limit their ambitions to things botanical...
That is the only consolation that I have at the dinner table.
So I know why it is salads. But why it has to be me?