Rarely, in the field of law, has so much depended on one little red sphere.
The taxman, as we know, is always right. I know that, because here, he can make a mistake, and when he notifies me he has made an error I have to clear it up.
We have horror stories on this island, of our Inland Revenue accidentally paying citizens more than they should: and then simply turning up one day and demanding hundreds and hundreds of pounds with all speed.
But our tale concerns the New York tax man, a definite entity, and not one whom I imagine would suffer challenge lightly.
Edward L. Hedden, Collector of the Port of New York, was responsible for enforcing a Tariff Act, instigated in 1883.
This tightly woven piece of law required that a tax be paid on all imported vegetables.
Ten years after the tax’s introduction, a certain Nix family imported a shedload of tomatoes and paid their duties: but, they argued, they should not have to, because the tomato is not a vegetable at all. It is a fruit.
And they fought it out in a court of law in the infamous tomato-based case, Nix V Hedden.
Botanically, as it turns out, they were quite right. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a fruit as ‘a seed with its envelope, ‘ and other definitions include a ‘seed bearing structure’.
That’s a tomato all right.
But no New York official is about to let a botanical definition push him around. Tomato Schomato.
The court ruled that the botanical definition was a load of baloney. The law must stand by the ‘ordinary’ meaning of the word ‘fruit’ and ‘vegetable’.
That, in New York, constituted a legal argument, and if vegetable importers didn’t like it, they could import sprouts instead.
To me, a tomato will always be a fruit; but I have had my tastes irreparably ruined.
Because once, I tasted the nearest to a celestial tomato one could imagine. And now, I find it almost impossible to shake the memory.
Before children, Phil and I loved to travel with my parents to the south of France. we would take a villa, purchase all the cheese, pate, biftek and Chateau Plonk we could plunder from the local supermarket and spend a week in that sun, often deep in the lavender fields near Grasse.
The first time we ever tried it, we went to an extremely genteel town a stone’s throw from Cannes.
We had experienced a bit of a detour thanks to a set of Automobile Association instructions which took us, not along the autoroute, but up into the mountains on the Route Napoleon.
Hairy is the word for the ribbon of tarmac which teeters on the edge of the Alps. For a British first timer, some of the overtaking manoeuvres required are enough to turn one’s hair grey. By the time we arrived we were wild-eyed and ready to drop. It was pitch black in the village, and we had no matches to make a cup of tea. It was a rough introduction.
But the next morning dawned rosy as only a Mediterranean morning can. Proprietor, Madame Oliva, greeted us courteously and catered for our every need: and then, with that effortless culinary sophistication that is so essentially gallic, she presented us with a lavish gift : a huge bunch of home-grown fresh basil, and a basket of the reddest, ripest tomatoes I had ever seen.
Reader, they tasted of sunshine and sophistication, of scarlet and sun-kissed days. We ate them al fresco, which for us in Britain is a rare event. We sat there in the open air, at the French tiled table. I hope I do get to taste them again: but it has rather put the tomatoes which parade in our supermarkets here in the shade.
It reminded me of what I know of the latin word from which fruit gets its name: fructus: one shade of which means simply ‘enjoyment’. In its turn the latin has its roots in a latin verb, ‘frui’, which means ‘to have the benefit of; to enjoy’.
I am reminded of the pineapple craze which swept England in the 16th and 17th centuries. They were so rare, everyone in the smart set sported one. One of our Scottish stately homes has a giant pineapple sculpture as part of its glasshouse. While it is outlandish now, it was deeply de rigueur centuries ago.
Fruit is pure enjoyment. Laced with status.
We may need it to celebrate, because yesterday we looked 235 years back, over our shoulders.
On 16th December, 1775 at a rectory in Steventon, Jane Austen was born to a Rector of good family, and his equally well-connected wife. So yesterday would have been her birthday.
I would hazard a guess that Jane was not a food buff. When she mentions food, it is so often in passing and she shows scorn for those who over indulge.
But when Elizabeth Bennett finally realises what a prize Darcy might be: when she eventually glimpses his promise: it is telling indeed that Austen uses the fruit piled high on the table to express the piquant promise the man holds.
Social niceties dictate that after Miss Darcy pays a visit to her household, Elizabeth must reciprocate, visiting Darcy’s ancestral home.
Our taciturn hero is not home, but his sister and Miss Bingley are. The visitors are welcomed in: and presently it is time to dine. Yes, there is cold meat and cake: but the colour floods into the text with mention of the fruits from Darcy’s greenhouse: “There was now employment for the whole party—for though they could not all talk, they could all eat; and the beautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches soon collected them round the table.”
So we have no doubt what the birthday girl would have dined on, all those years ago. It was fruits which captured her palette, if we believe the evidence of one of her greatest texts. She has used it to symbolise promise, a tantalising taste of extravagance, a way of life not yet signed and sealed, but waiting in the wings.
The seed with its envelope is a parcel of promise. It might have exempted a whole shipment from New York taxes. When we remember times we tasted beautiful fruit, the quality of the memory stays crystal clear: sometimes, if one has the presence of mind to write it down, across centuries.
Every time we take a bite, we join a timeline which began with a forbidden fruit tree in a garden.
Fruit is the most elemental of pleasures.
Kate Shrewsday 
Oh dear, one of my favourite authors and now I learn that she would have scorned me. I’m gutted … but I was in a quandary over what to do for today’s dessert. *dashes off to buy pineapples*
LOL… I think she had precisely your attitude, Cindy: only the best food, and only the right amount at the right time. And, unlike me, I feel sure she must have sat down to eat it.
Oh – the Route Napoleon!
The thought still makes me shudder, Kate.
As you say lovely holiday, awful start. I can still see the lights of Grasse some thousands of feet below, knowing i was required to hairpin my way down there.
Love Dad
You brought us beautifully into harbour, Dad.
I could’ve murdered a cup of tea when I got there, though…
Here in the USA we have a tendency to send a great deal of fruit and vegetables to Washington, D.C. There they rename them and are then called senators and congressmen.
I laughed out loud, Carl. We have British vegetables like that too. They go all the way to the top.
I agree that fruit is the most elemental of pleasures. Though it has now been almost eight years since I lived there, I still remember the taste of fresh pineapple in Cameroon, Africa–and I have never been able to eat a U.S. pineapple. Loved the tie-in to the symbolism of fruit in Jane Austen.
Hi, Carla – wonderful to hear from you. And that is a tip so worth remembering. If I ever get to Cameroon I will put pineapple top of my list of things to experience 🙂
“Homegrown tomatoes homegrown tomatoes
What’d life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can’t buy
That’s true love & homegrown tomatoes.”
Guy Clark dedicates a song to that parcel of promise: http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/clark-guy/homegrown-tomatoes-12.html.
For Mark Twain (and me) it’s the watermelon: “It is the chief of this world’s luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took; we know it because she repented.”
If Jane Austen had put a melon on Darcy’s table, Twain might have said nicer things about her. (He was dead wrong about Jane, of course. I’m surprised his wife didn’t set him straight.)
Another wonderful post, from taxes and tomatoes to Jane Austen. I hope you’ll someday explain your method–do you start at the beginning and go forward, or at the end and work back?
And another wonderful comment too: you have found three different ways to research the splendour of fruit in just a few words. I have a feeling Mark and Jane were chalk and cheese, but it would take a whole post to research and underpin that wild hypothesis. And I might find I was wrong at the end….
Lovely to ‘hear’ your voice again, Kathy 🙂
You know, I never thought about it before, how little food is featured in any of Austen’s books. That’s interesting. There are many other authors, Dickens comes to mind, who perhaps talked about food a little too much in their novels. So much that I can’t read their books without feeling hungry.
I know, I know! I was just as surprised: but she is very reserved apart from this wonderful snatch. Mr Darcy’s assets were succulent indeed.
Strange as it may sound, one of my favourite memories of visiting London is walking through the streets while savouring a baguette with brie cheese and tomatoes. The gastronomical pleasure heightened the delight of exploring new surroundings.
PS- Enjoyed Carl’s comment 🙂
Glad to hear London came up with a tomato worth pairing with brie, Zoe 🙂 I suspect you may have much more first-hand experience of Carl’s vegetables than I…
“Knowledge is knowing the tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting in your fruit salad.”
— Miles Kington
I’ve never noticed the lack of food in Austen’s writing ~ something to look for the next time I journey into her wonderful world of words.
I echo Kathy’s last paragraph, Kate ~ beautiful flow from taxes to tomatoes to pineapple tophats for homes to Jane and the temptations of both our Mr. Darcy and the forbidden fruit. Well done!
Oh, and the Daily Thought (from Real Simple) today . . .
“There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.”
― Jane Austen
Lovely 🙂
Thanks Nancy 🙂 There’s a great New Statesman article by Michele Roberts which talks a bit more about food in Austen: http://www.newstatesman.com/200307210048 . Lovely reading.
Thanks for the link. Lovely article.
I love Jane . . . even if she doesn’t share my love of food. 😉
Every year the girls would put their stockings out and come morning they would be filled – with the biggest orange Santa’s helper could find to stuff the toes with. Oranges, you see, take up a lot of room for the penny pinching penny in days of yore.
LOL We use satsumas! There were days when an orange was one’s main present, I believe, Penny. What a wonderful smell to greet one of Christmas Day!
Loved this post, Kate. Fascinating about the tomato and its vacillating status.
I love the experience of taste buds glorying in fresh fruit – and vegetables for that matter – …this past October, I happened to eat a carrot straight from the earth and it was nearly as sweetly flavorful as a fruit – no seed and husk though to confuse me.
Again from Bill Bryson in his chapter called The Kitchen in his book titled- At Home:
Looking back now, it is nearly impossible to get a fix on Victorians and their diet. For a start, the range of foods was dazzling. People, it seems, ate practically anything that stirred in the undergrowth or could be hauled from water…Fruits and vegetables seemed almost infinite in number. Of apples alone there were, almost unbelievably, more than two thousand varieties to choose from – Worcester pearmain, Beauty of Bath, Cox’s orange pippin, and so on in long and poetic vein.
I wonder if some of those seed varieties remain in vaults somewhere…maybe time to sow a few!
There are some orchards here – I knew of some in Kent – which specialise in old varieties of apple. Makes you feel like starting one from scratch, doesn’t it? Thank you for that lovely Bryson quote, I love his gentle perceptive humour. Must re-read him soon 🙂