Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
PART V Fruits Although the Incas feasted on roots such as potatoes, oca, and ulluco; grains such as quinoa and kiwicha; and legumes such as tarwi and nunas, they also had a wealth of fruits and nuts. This section describes Andean berries, capuli cherry, cherimoya, goldenberry, highland papayas, lucuma, naranjilla (lulo), pacay (ice-cream beans), passionfruits, pepino, and tamarillo (tree tomato). Many of these fruits exist exactly as they were at the time of discovery by the Spanish. Few are cultivated anywhere on a large commercial scale as yet. Most are dooryard plants, whose cultivation is primitive by modern standards: varieties are unselected, soil re- quirements are unknown, propagation techniques have not been per- fected. Despite this, the native Andean fruits are not inferior to those of other areas. Each is prized in one part of the Andes or another. They have limited use only because of lack of awareness of their possibilities, not because they taste bad. They are a unique and very diverse set of resources for the future. It is important to develop these crops. Fruits in general are good sources of vitamins and are probably a dietary necessity. Vitamin A and vitamin C content can be notably high. In addition, the high contents of calcium, phosphorus, and iron in some varieties are of special value to growing children. These qualities make them excep- tionally valuable for daily use in tropical villages and towns. Specimens of any undeveloped fruit tend to vary greatly in taste, size, appearance, and texture, but careful selection, clonal propagation, and appropriate horticultural manipulations can bring huge improve- ments almost overnight. One of the most vital and rewarding activities is to collect and sort through such varieties, seeking the individual specimen with outstanding qualities.) ' In this, they are no different from more conventional fruits. For instance, all named apples (Golden Delicious, for example) as well as all seedless oranges, come from single mutant trees (sometimes only a branch) that someone noticed and propagated vegeta- tively. 210
FRUITS 211 DOMESTICATION OF THE STRAWBERRY To see what might happen in the future with the little-known fruits described in the following chapters, consider the case of the strawberry. All the cultivated strawberries we enjoy today are at least partly Andean. They are the offspring of a union between two American species brought independently to Europe: Fragaria chiloensis (native to Chile)* and F. virginiana (native to eastern North America). The first hybrid seems to have been an accident, arising in a garden near Amsterdam around 1750. The way it occurred has been described by Ruth Epstein, editor of The American Festival: In 1712 a French naval captain named Andre Frezier was sent to South America to report Chilean coastal defenses, and when he came home, he bore armloads of the big-berried, pineapple-flavored Chilean strawberry plants. In his enthusiasm, he had selected only the most beautiful, the most vigorous, the most power-filled plants to transport back to France. He had unwittingly selected only females. The plants transplanted happily enough they bloomed profusely but for 30 years they bore no fruit. And then, by chance and by mistake, some foundlings of the Virginia variety were set in amongst them. The South American spinsters mixed and mingled with Virginia's dandies and a union was consummated in the beds of France. * Sadly, this species, which gave us the modern strawberry, is now becoming rare, dying out because farmers would rather plant its more vigorous hybrid 'ichild." Fruits have particular merits for peasants and small farmers because they can be homegrown and provide both food and a cash crop. However, with today's transportation, refrigeration, and food proc- essing, industries based on rare fruit are also becoming increasingly important. Exotic Andean fruits, for instance, are potentially profitable exports to affluent buyers in wealthy countries. Diets in North America and Europe are becoming extremely cosmopolitan, with increasing demand for exotic foods. Indeed, for two decades New Zealand has been sending its fruits to North America, Japan, and Europe, where they sell briskly at premium prices. Some such as goldenberry,2 cherimoya, naranjilla, pepino, passionfruit, and tamarilloare Andean natives described below. It is a measure of their delicious taste that consumers pay the enormous costs of fresh fruit that have been airfreighted from the other side of the globe. 2 Cape gooseberry.