Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 2: Wilson. We haven't had an eponymous Foods episode in a minute,
Speaker 2: and I just felt like it. It's kind of like
Speaker 2: that thing that we've talked about before, where when I
Speaker 2: do really really dark stories, it's probably because I'm in
Speaker 2: such a good place mentally and emotionally that they're not
Speaker 2: a problem, and then when i do really late ones,
Speaker 2: it's because I'm overwhelmed with the world.
Speaker 1: So welcome to fruit time. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was talked to some friends of mine and I
Speaker 2: was like, if you look at our recent episodes, I
Speaker 2: feel like Holly's and my coping strategies are opposite, because
Speaker 2: Holly's episodes are like strawberries and my episodes are like
Speaker 2: we're pouring blood on the draft files.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, If I can spend some time in a more
Speaker 2: in a place of levity, sure, I mean, I'm not
Speaker 2: ignoring all the other stuff, No, but I can. If
Speaker 2: I wallow in it, I will. I don't know what
Speaker 2: will happen.
Speaker 1: It won't be good. So here we are talking about fruit.
Speaker 1: This eponymous foods episode kind of dovetails on that strawberry
Speaker 1: episode because it is all fruit. So we have a
Speaker 1: berry in this one, a poem, and a citrus. They
Speaker 1: all have varying degrees of documentation. One of them includes
Speaker 1: a naming Whoopsie Daisy, that I find oddly amusing and
Speaker 1: just hilarious. And we'll get to all of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I only knew one of these was an eponym,
Speaker 2: and it was not the first one. Charles Rudolph Boisen
Speaker 2: was born July fourteenth, eighteen ninety five, in Lagrange, California.
Speaker 2: That's a little more than thirty mins due east of Medesto.
Speaker 2: Some write ups indicate that he was an immigrant from Sweden,
Speaker 2: but that appears to be incorrect. His father was from Germany,
Speaker 2: which might be something that's been confused in the retelling
Speaker 2: of this story. In his early life, post school, Rudy
Speaker 2: as he was called, enlisted and served in World War One,
Speaker 2: and when he got home from the war, he moved
Speaker 2: to Coombsville, California in Napa and worked as a farm hand.
Speaker 2: And it's there that he started experimenting with cross pollinating berries.
Speaker 2: So the exact nature of how he got his original
Speaker 2: berry is a little bit lost because this story has
Speaker 2: been shared through oral history over the years, rather than
Speaker 2: through any notes or documentation on Boyson's part. It's been
Speaker 2: told in some different ways, so some suggest that he
Speaker 2: was purposely combining berries through cross pollination. Others suggest it
Speaker 2: may have been a happy accident of having just planted
Speaker 2: different berries near one another, and it is actually highly
Speaker 2: likely that there was something in between. Boison was a
Speaker 2: very good with plants, and he was also a hobbyist,
Speaker 2: so he may have just been trying things out without
Speaker 2: really having an idea of an end goal. His wife
Speaker 2: told reporters almost a decade after his death, quote, he
Speaker 2: did it just for fun. He sprinkled Himalaya BlackBerry bush
Speaker 2: with pollen from various related berries and got the boison berry.
Speaker 2: But what matters most is that when some of his
Speaker 2: berry vines cross pollinated in nineteen twenty three, he recognized
Speaker 2: that the resulting fruit was something unique and very delicious.
Speaker 2: Boison berries are considered to be a type of BlackBerry,
Speaker 2: and like the BlackBerry, it's a bramble fruit, which just
Speaker 2: means it comes from a shrub style plant that can
Speaker 2: be thorny or bristly, like our recent topic, the strawberry.
Speaker 2: It's part of the rose family, and it's a dark
Speaker 2: reddish black color and full of flavor. They're usually described
Speaker 2: as being juicier or sweeter than a BlackBerry, but with
Speaker 2: a tart note that shines through the sweet. Unfortunately, bois
Speaker 2: and berries don't have a very long shelf life once
Speaker 2: they have been picked, so you don't see them in
Speaker 2: grocery stores for very long. It's usually a very brief
Speaker 2: window when you can buy them fresh. But they're excellent
Speaker 2: for baking and for preserves. That's probably how most people
Speaker 2: first encounter them. It is definitely true that Holly had
Speaker 2: boisonberry preserves as a kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was like a big favorite in our house
Speaker 1: growing up. That's the only way I knew what they were.
Speaker 1: Numerous berries are often suggested as the likely or possible
Speaker 1: genetic donors to the hybrid that became the boison berry,
Speaker 1: including the loganberry, the European BlackBerry, European raspberry, and American dewberry,
Speaker 1: and of course, as we mentioned just a moment ago,
Speaker 1: his widow mentioned the Himalaya BlackBerry. Recent genetic comparisons have
Speaker 1: led to the theory that it's a cross of a
Speaker 1: Marion berry and Logan berry. The vine that produced the
Speaker 1: berries that Rudy Boysen recognized as new were very hardy.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about just how hardy in a bit, and
Speaker 1: the fruit itself was much larger than other berries. He
Speaker 1: touted it as being as big as a thumb, which
Speaker 1: was significantly larger than anything on the market in that
Speaker 1: type of berry. Boison contacted the USDA Bureau of Plant Industry,
Speaker 1: and specifically a man named George M. Darrow, who was
Speaker 1: in charge of the Small Fruit Division, about this newberry,
Speaker 1: but he never received a response, and so he just
Speaker 1: kind of went on with his life.
Speaker 2: Two years after the berry discovery, in nineteen twenty five,
Speaker 2: Boyson moved to Anaheim, California. There he worked on public
Speaker 2: park projects for the city, planting trees for a new
Speaker 2: twenty acre green space known simply as City Park. That
Speaker 2: park would later be renamed Pearson Park, which is the
Speaker 2: name it has today. Eventually, Poison was made superintendent of
Speaker 2: the park and was paid one hundred and seventy five
Speaker 2: dollars a month to care for the new space. Boysen
Speaker 2: married a woman named Peggy Bruton, and they had one son,
Speaker 2: After they got married, they moved to a property in Fullerton, California,
Speaker 2: that was owned by Peggy's mother, and Rudy brought the
Speaker 2: berry vines right along with him, planting them at their
Speaker 2: new place. Boyson became well known in Anaheim for his
Speaker 2: expertise in growing things, and even gave talks about plants
Speaker 2: to community groups, including one called Street Trees and their Stories,
Speaker 2: which he shared at the Anaheim Toastmasters Club in early
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty eight.
Speaker 1: Another city works project that Boyson was involved with in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty eight was the grenification of Anaheim. A write
Speaker 1: up in the Los Angeles Times from January twenty second
Speaker 1: of that year reads quote, Anaheim will plant forty four
Speaker 1: hundred trees in city. The planting of forty four hundred
Speaker 1: trees by the city within the next few months, in
Speaker 1: accordance with the program adopted by the city council to
Speaker 1: make Anaheim one of the most attractive of all Southern cities,
Speaker 1: has been announced. Rudolph Boysen, overseer of the City Park,
Speaker 1: is in charge of the planting. Early in February. Rudy
Speaker 1: also combined his plant knowledge with his involvement in the
Speaker 1: American Legion to initiate a program where he prepared floral
Speaker 1: arrangements each Memorial Day to be distributed to the grave
Speaker 1: sites of the city's veterans. While Boison remained an active
Speaker 1: plant enthusiast for his whole life, he had an injury
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty eight that slowed him down and likely
Speaker 1: contributed to his berry vines kind of falling by the
Speaker 1: wayside in terms of being actively cultivated. He had fallen
Speaker 1: down a fire pole while touring a fire station, and
Speaker 1: he injured his back. This was probably a factor in
Speaker 1: why he wasn't able to really cultivate his berries much
Speaker 1: beyond that initial planting. His back issues and other responsibilities
Speaker 1: might have just prevented it. He had given away a
Speaker 1: lot of his berry plants over the years to friends
Speaker 1: and neighbors, so there's no telling how many may have
Speaker 1: been producing fruit that were never documented. Yeah, but they
Speaker 1: all came out of this one vine which he had
Speaker 1: allegedly planted. It's often described as in a ditch on
Speaker 1: his mother in law's property. Years after Boyson had written
Speaker 1: to George Darrow at the USDA. Darrow found those letters
Speaker 1: and he became intrigued about this thumb sized berry that
Speaker 1: was described in them. So Barrow decided to find Rudy
Speaker 1: Boysen and his plants to assess them. But as Rudy
Speaker 1: had moved a couple of times, it just wasn't as
Speaker 1: simple as going to the return address on the letters,
Speaker 1: and eventually Barrow enlisted the help of another man with
Speaker 1: a name that is easily recognizable in the Barry game,
Speaker 1: that is, Walter Not. Not was able to locate Boyson's
Speaker 1: abandoned vines that had been planted in a ditch on
Speaker 1: the Fullerton property, and Not relocated the plants to his
Speaker 1: own property to try to get them back to a
Speaker 1: more robe state. Nott was able to propagate one hundred
Speaker 1: vines from the plans that he had collected in Fullerton.
Speaker 1: They became hearty producers of the berry boys and had cultivated.
Speaker 1: Nott was the one to give the fruit the name
Speaker 1: bois and Berry, but he didn't really cut the fruit's
Speaker 1: namesake in on the profits that he made from it.
Speaker 1: Knot's berry farm was made possible in part by the
Speaker 1: money that Walter Not made from Boison berry sales. Rudy
Speaker 1: continued to work for the Parks Department and per the
Speaker 1: accounts of family members. He did not harbor any resentment
Speaker 1: toward not He focused on his work in Anaheim, establishing
Speaker 1: new parks and keeping the existing green spaces filled with
Speaker 1: healthy flora. Over time, he aged and his health declined,
Speaker 1: and he eventually had mobility issues due to a health
Speaker 1: condition that led to the loss of one of his legs.
Speaker 1: He died at the age of fifty five on November
Speaker 1: twenty fifth of nineteen fifty but he had worked for
Speaker 1: the city right up until the end of his life.
Speaker 2: All indications are that Rudy was beloved by the city
Speaker 2: of Anaheim. His death was reported in the papers beyond
Speaker 2: merely an announcement or an obituary, with many noting that
Speaker 2: the chapel where his funeral was held was not big
Speaker 2: enough for all the people who came to pay their
Speaker 2: respects and say goodbye to him. Two years after he died,
Speaker 2: a rite up in the Anaheim Gazette noted that a
Speaker 2: victory garden he had planted at the beginning of World
Speaker 2: War II for the community and planned out with regular
Speaker 2: crop rotations to optimize output, was still going strong, including
Speaker 2: boison berries cultivated by Rudy at the start of the
Speaker 2: plot's life. Almost a decade after his death, the city
Speaker 2: started a week long festival in his name. And to
Speaker 2: be clear, that festival featured the berries, but it was
Speaker 2: about Rudy. The La Times reported on June fourteenth, nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty nine, quote week to honor creator of famed boisonberry.
Speaker 1: Rudy's legacy, Barry has continued to have a very busy life.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty five, one of Rudy's siblings got permission
Speaker 1: to remove the original vine and bring it back to
Speaker 1: their home in Merced, California. That plant was very hearty,
Speaker 1: and then in nineteen seventy six, that plant which continued
Speaker 1: to be very healthy. That's more than twenty years after
Speaker 1: that moving was propagated through root division and given from
Speaker 1: one family member to another in a shoebox. This transfer
Speaker 1: apparently took place at a wedding. Those shoots that were
Speaker 1: in the shoe box were planted in Castro Valley, California.
Speaker 1: They continue to be prosperous there.
Speaker 2: Then, in twenty seventeen, Rudy's granddaughter, Jeannette boys and Fitzgerald,
Speaker 2: was able to get access to her grandfather's original boisonberry plant,
Speaker 2: which continued to survive. And produce fruit nearly one hundred
Speaker 2: years after it originated. Jeannette and her husband were able
Speaker 2: to take clippings from the original plant and propagate them.
Speaker 2: Eventually the opening of vineyard Bois and Berry Farm in Orland, California,
Speaker 2: where the vines thrive today, and if you want to
Speaker 2: own a piece of berry history, you can purchase plants
Speaker 2: from them that are propagated from the original boisoberry stock.
Speaker 2: During the height of the pandemic, the farm opened up
Speaker 2: their property so people could come and pick berries and
Speaker 2: get some outside time, noting that their rows were planted
Speaker 2: eight feet apart, so it was a way to enjoy
Speaker 2: an outing while keeping a safe distance from others. That
Speaker 2: picking experience has continued in the years since then, lasting
Speaker 2: several weeks beginning in late May.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you only get a few weeks a year because
Speaker 1: of that very short time that they stay fresh. But
Speaker 1: coming up, we're going to talk about a fruit that
Speaker 1: had a bit of a naming accident that I reference
Speaker 1: at the top of the show. We'll explain after we
Speaker 1: first pause for a sponsor break. The Bartlet pear has
Speaker 1: long been a favorite in the United States. It's a
Speaker 1: good canning pair it's excellent for eating ripe, and it
Speaker 1: also bakes up beautifully. In nineteen twenty one, up Hendrick
Speaker 1: wrote of the Bartlet quote, Bartlett leads all other pairs
Speaker 1: in number of trees in New York, and vis with
Speaker 1: Kiefer for the greatest number in America. Its fruits are
Speaker 1: more common and more popular in American markets than those
Speaker 1: of any other pair when the characters of the variety
Speaker 1: are passed in review, although several poor ones of fruit
Speaker 1: and tree appear, the popularity of Bartlet with growers and sellers,
Speaker 1: if not with consumers, seems justified. But the story of.
Speaker 2: This particular fruits name is a little wonky, and it
Speaker 2: involves a case of mistaken originality and an entry in
Speaker 2: the eighteen ninety two book The Bartlet's Ancestral Genealogical Biographical Historical,
Speaker 2: comprising an account of the American progenitors of the Bartlett family,
Speaker 2: with special reference to the descendants of John Bartlett of
Speaker 2: Weymouth and Cumberland, there's an entry for Enoch Bartlett which
Speaker 2: reads quote. Enoch Bartlett, who died in eighteen sixty was
Speaker 2: born in haverl, Massachusetts, in seventeen seventy nine. He was
Speaker 2: a merchant in the truest meaning of the word, and
Speaker 2: was an extensive importer of foreign merchandise during the troublous
Speaker 2: eighteen twelve period when merchants suffered heavy losses by the
Speaker 2: depradations of the enemy on the seas.
Speaker 1: He it was.
Speaker 2: After whom the favorite Bartlet pear was named.
Speaker 1: Enoch did not cultivate that pear. He found it in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventeen. He had acquired an estate that had been
Speaker 1: previously owned by a man named Thomas Brewer. Brewer had
Speaker 1: a number of fruit bearing trees growing on the property,
Speaker 1: and Enoch Bartlett was very interested in them. One of
Speaker 1: the trees produced a pair unlike any that Bartlett had
Speaker 1: ever seen before, so he nurtured it and he started
Speaker 1: actively producing and cultivating the fruit. And because he didn't
Speaker 1: know anybody else who was growing that same pair, he
Speaker 1: named it after himself. An eighteen thirty two write up
Speaker 1: in the New England Farmer, which also appeared in numerous
Speaker 1: other places, describes a horticultural festival that was staged in
Speaker 1: honor of the anniversary of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. This
Speaker 1: event included a lecture on entomology, which talked about pests
Speaker 1: in the garden, and it also featured a fruit and
Speaker 1: flower display where members could share the literal fruits of
Speaker 1: their labors. Listed among them are Enoch Bartlett's Bartlet and
Speaker 1: Capumont pears, which are rated in the mention as very fine.
Speaker 1: Bartlett did not only cultivate pears. There are many mentions
Speaker 1: in local papers in the eighteen hundreds of the many
Speaker 1: varieties of apples he produced, which seemed to have been
Speaker 1: universally recognized for high quality, as well as nectarines and peaches.
Speaker 1: So he had a very good reputation. Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: a fruit man that people trusted. In eighteen forty eight,
Speaker 1: the newly formed American Pomological Society, which is now the
Speaker 1: oldest fruit organization in North America, included the Bartlet pear
Speaker 1: in its catalog of fruits available on the North American continent.
Speaker 1: It described the Bartlet tree this way quote tree medium
Speaker 1: in size, tall, puriform, upright, hardy, very productive, branches, stocky, smooth,
Speaker 1: reddish brown, overlaid with an ash gray scarf skin with
Speaker 1: few lentisoles. Branchlets short with short internodes, reddish brown, glossy, smooth,
Speaker 1: glabrous with conspicuous lenticles, and the fruit of the tree
Speaker 1: was written up as quote, skin thin, tender, smooth, often dull,
Speaker 1: the surface somewhat uneven color, clear yellow, with a faint
Speaker 1: blush on the exposed cheek, more or less dotted with russet,
Speaker 1: and often thinly rusted around the basin dots. Many small,
Speaker 1: conspicuous greenish russet flesh, fine grained, although slightly granular at
Speaker 1: the center, melting buttery, very juicy, venus aromatic quality, very good.
Speaker 1: But even before that eighteen forty eight write up, there
Speaker 1: had been a realization. In eighteen twenty eight, a fresh
Speaker 1: shipment of fruit trees from Europe arrived in New England,
Speaker 1: and among them was a pear tree that was just
Speaker 1: like the Bartlet in every respect, and it bore identical
Speaker 1: fruit to the Bartlet record scratch.
Speaker 2: The Bartlet pear was not a Bartlet at all, but
Speaker 2: a variety called a Williams Boncritienne or William's Good Christian.
Speaker 1: The Williams Good Christian was also not the first name
Speaker 1: that that pear tree had. It was first known in
Speaker 1: England as a stairs pair. That's because the first person
Speaker 1: who actually discovered it first at least to the best
Speaker 1: of our knowledge, was a school teacher by the name
Speaker 1: of Stair, and mister Stair found this pair seventeen sixty five.
Speaker 1: The Stair pair was acquired by a nurseryman named Williams,
Speaker 1: who distributed it in England as the Williams Pair or
Speaker 1: Williams bon Cretienne. In seventeen ninety nine, an importer in
Speaker 1: the US named James Carter had several of the Williams
Speaker 1: pears shipped across the Atlantic to be planted on the Roxbury,
Speaker 1: Massachusetts estate of Thomas Brewer. And it was that a
Speaker 1: state that Enoch Bartlett purchased in eighteen seventeen. I just
Speaker 1: want to say, in case other Massachusetts people, Roxbury is
Speaker 1: not next to haverl That's not really what that original
Speaker 1: biographical thing was said. So he was born right, That's
Speaker 1: not where the trees were, is what correct? Correct. But
Speaker 1: this is a case where that revelation of the paar's
Speaker 1: real name, which is funny because people knew initially when
Speaker 1: they brought the pair over that it was a Williams,
Speaker 1: but that information got lost. It had no impact on
Speaker 1: the pear's name in the US because by the time
Speaker 1: this mistake was uncovered, so many people had been growing
Speaker 1: and purchasing and eating Bartlet pears because of Enoch Bartlet's
Speaker 1: reputation that everybody just kind of stuck with it. But
Speaker 1: in Europe it is still called a Williams pear. So
Speaker 1: if you're from one place or the other and you're traveling,
Speaker 1: if you see a Williams or Bartlet pear on the
Speaker 1: menu in a market and it's not the one you
Speaker 1: call it, it's the same thing. It's the same pair.
Speaker 2: We are about to talk about our final eponymous fruit,
Speaker 2: but before we do, we will hear from some of
Speaker 2: the sponsors that keep our show going. Okay, our next
Speaker 2: food starts with a man whose name will in no
Speaker 2: way tip you off to the fruit that is named
Speaker 2: for him. Sometimes this is considered a technicality because he
Speaker 2: did go through a name change.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about it.
Speaker 2: Vittarrodier was born on May twenty fifth, eighteen thirty nine,
Speaker 2: in southern France in a town called Chambonco de la
Speaker 2: There isn't a lot of ready information about his early life,
Speaker 2: but we do know that as an adult he joined
Speaker 2: the Order of Brothers of the Annunciation, and when he
Speaker 2: joined the order, he took the name of Brother Marie Clement,
Speaker 2: sometimes just going by Clement. Brother Clement was sent to
Speaker 2: Algeria to work in the orphanage that his order ran
Speaker 2: there in the town of Messergan, that's in the Oran province,
Speaker 2: on the north coast of the country, just across the
Speaker 2: Alberon Sea from Spain. This was not long after France
Speaker 2: had colonized Algeria, which happened in eighteen thirty. At the
Speaker 2: beginning of eighteen thirty, Algeria was part of the Ottoman Empire,
Speaker 2: ruled by a sultan headquartered in Constantinople. Tunisia and Tripoli
Speaker 2: were also under the Sultan's umbrella of power, although the
Speaker 2: real day to day rule of each country was carried
Speaker 2: out by their own reass But several years earlier, in
Speaker 2: eighteen twenty seven, Algeria and France became embroiled in a
Speaker 2: feud after the Algerian regent, known as the Day, slapped
Speaker 2: a visiting French consul with a flyswatter. That slap did
Speaker 2: not come out of nowhere. France was deeply in debt
Speaker 2: to Algeria and had been really dragging on repayment, but
Speaker 2: that slap gave France the sense of outrage that made
Speaker 2: a conquest of this country seemed justified. The actual military
Speaker 2: conflict that took place after the French landed on July
Speaker 2: fifth of eighteen thirty was extremely short because Algeria really
Speaker 2: did not have the means to fight back, So the
Speaker 2: day cut a deal with the French to go into exile,
Speaker 2: and the Europeans immediately moved in, including setting up monasteries
Speaker 2: and religious centers to try to convert the Muslim population
Speaker 2: to Christianity, and that is how brother Marie Clement landed there.
Speaker 2: Clement's exact interaction with the citrus trees and their fruit
Speaker 2: that would eventually bear his name is largely a matter
Speaker 2: of lore. Did he discover the fruit, did he cultivate
Speaker 2: it through cross breeding? We really have no idea, although
Speaker 2: there are definitely versions of the story that paint a
Speaker 2: quaint picture of a French monk tending his grove of
Speaker 2: citrus on the northern coast of Africa. When did it happen?
Speaker 2: Also no clue, Well, some clue. We have a window.
Speaker 2: Clement got to Algeria in eighteen ninety two, and the
Speaker 2: fruit is a matter of record. Ten years later, in
Speaker 2: nineteen oh two, so somewhere during that decade.
Speaker 1: So a clementine, or clementine as it was surely called initially,
Speaker 1: and we will get to who named it that in
Speaker 1: just a moment, is a small citrus. It's like an orange,
Speaker 1: but it's a whole lot sweeter. The size and flavor
Speaker 1: make clementines very popular as snacks for kids. They're also
Speaker 1: really easy to peel, and they don't have seeds, so
Speaker 1: again kid friendly. They tend to be more oval shaped
Speaker 1: rather than spherical. That's probably also one of the things
Speaker 1: that makes them easy for little hands to handle and peel.
Speaker 1: And another big draw for them is that they generally
Speaker 1: harvest later than oranges, so they filled this gap where
Speaker 1: fresh citrus would normally not be available. They're sometimes called
Speaker 1: Christmas oranges for this reason, so you're looking at like
Speaker 1: an autumn into early winter harvest. There are actually dozens
Speaker 1: of clementine varieties, according to a two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: interview with Tracy Kahn, curator of the Citrus Variety Collection
Speaker 1: at the University of California, Riverside. That interview appeared in
Speaker 1: the Cape Cod Times.
Speaker 2: I had one with my breakfast delicious, although it did
Speaker 2: have a couple of seeds in it. Yeah, gsp. It
Speaker 2: was believed for a while that clementine's were across between
Speaker 2: a tangerine and an ornamental bitter orange known as citrus aurantium,
Speaker 2: but today they're considered to be a type of mandarin orange,
Speaker 2: usually a mandarin crossed with another sweet orange to create
Speaker 2: a fruit that's smaller than other mandarin oranges. Enter another
Speaker 2: kind of hazy bit of drama. There's a fairly high
Speaker 2: degree of probability that clementines actually originated in China and
Speaker 2: were hybridized there, and that likely happened hundreds of years
Speaker 2: before any involvement of any French monks in Northern Africa.
Speaker 2: But like the purported Algerian origins, there's not any solid information. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Algeria definitely claims to be the birthplace, but sody sub
Speaker 2: areas in China. The important thing is we all get
Speaker 2: delicious fruit and plenty of vitamin C. But the name
Speaker 2: clementine Clementine, which is based on clement which was not
Speaker 2: the monk's original name but was the one he took
Speaker 2: when he took orders, was bestowed on the fruit by
Speaker 2: a botanist that was a man named Luis Chaos Prabu,
Speaker 2: who is assigned to the French Agricultural Society in Algeria.
Speaker 2: He also was making a general study of plants in Algeria.
Speaker 2: But once again we are met with a mystery. Did
Speaker 2: Brother Clement bring this fruit to Trabeu's attention? The monk
Speaker 2: was clearly associated with it, but we don't know what
Speaker 2: transpired there and the Clementine, according to the two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven book Citrus, a History by Pierre Laslow, won
Speaker 2: a gold medal from the Agricultural Society right after Trebu
Speaker 2: mentions it, so that is yet another mystery. As for
Speaker 2: Brother Clement, he became a Spiritan in nineteen oh three.
Speaker 2: That's a religious order of the Catholic Church which was
Speaker 2: founded in seventeen o three. It focuses on working with
Speaker 2: the poor and with marginalized communities, and that may actually
Speaker 2: be the origin point of some of the Clementine War.
Speaker 2: It seems that a paper was published and a Spiritan periodical,
Speaker 2: and that may be where other biographies are getting their
Speaker 2: information regarding the story of Brother Clement and his Little Oranges.
Speaker 2: Holly was not able to get a copy of this
Speaker 2: to check. Clemal Rodier died in late nineteen oh four.
Speaker 2: That was, incidentally his death not long before. Clementines made
Speaker 2: their way to North America as a crop. They reportedly
Speaker 2: came to the US in nineteen oh nine, and they
Speaker 2: were imported initially to Florida and then also to California,
Speaker 2: so the two big citrus growers. A nineteen thirty seven
Speaker 2: newspaper article that ran in multiple papers claimed that the
Speaker 2: very first clementine planted in the US was in Brooksville, Florida.
Speaker 2: That write up read quote, the parent tree of all
Speaker 2: clementine orange trees in this country thrives in Chinzgate Hill, Brooksville,
Speaker 2: home of Colonel and Missus Raymond Robbins, at the approximate
Speaker 2: age of twenty years. That article goes on to explain
Speaker 2: that doctor Walter T. Swingle of the US Department of
Speaker 2: Agriculture received a gift of budwood from Louis Charles Trebou himself,
Speaker 2: and that the tree in the Robins's yard was that
Speaker 2: very gift. Clementines didn't exactly catch on in an especially
Speaker 2: big way in the US, and there weren't a lot
Speaker 2: of clementines grown in comparison to other citrus crops. For example,
Speaker 2: a newspaper out of Brian, Texas, reported in the autumn
Speaker 2: of nineteen thirty two that a new type of orange
Speaker 2: was being grown in the area, and that article had
Speaker 2: to explain what a clementine was, noting quote. The clementine orange,
Speaker 2: also known as an Algerian tangerine, is an early maturing
Speaker 2: kid glove orange of hybrid orange, supposedly across between a
Speaker 2: sour orange and a tangerine. The fruit becomes edible about
Speaker 2: the last week of October and has passed its prime
Speaker 2: by January first. The quality of the fruit is excellent,
Speaker 2: the strong flavor characteristic of the common tangerine being totally absent.
Speaker 2: The size is small one and a half to two inches,
Speaker 2: but the skin is very thin and the core inconspicuous.
Speaker 2: But even with a lot of writeups appearing telling consumers
Speaker 2: that clementines were delicious, We're all going to start growing them,
Speaker 2: they really didn't experience a surge in popularity in the
Speaker 2: US for decades, and the eventual surge was the result
Speaker 2: of an especially bad winter. In nineteen ninety seven, Florida
Speaker 2: had an unusually bad freeze that destroyed most of its
Speaker 2: citrus production for the year, and to fill the empty
Speaker 2: produce sections. Clementines were imported from Spain in Algeria, and
Speaker 2: from there clementines have had a steady increase in popularity here.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and seven, that was the first year
Speaker 2: the US government tracked clementines as a separate entity from
Speaker 2: other citrus. Before that, it had fallen under a blanket
Speaker 2: category that grouped the less popular citrus types together. But
Speaker 2: that year, an estimated one hundred and thirty five thousand
Speaker 2: tons of clementines were produced in the US, and according
Speaker 2: to the American Farm Bureau Federation report from twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: while citrus production overall in the US has faltered significantly
Speaker 2: in recent years, quote, the only citrus fruit category to
Speaker 2: show a clear increase in production is the tangerine category,
Speaker 2: which includes Tangelo's mandarins, clementines, and traditional tangerines. But they're
Speaker 2: clearly seen to a degree as a more luxury choice
Speaker 2: when it comes to the produce selection. According to the Packer,
Speaker 2: which is part of the Farm Journal Incorporated, clementines have
Speaker 2: primarily caught on with higher income households, with thirty two
Speaker 2: percent of households that bring in more than a six
Speaker 2: figure income eating Clementines and Mandarins, whereas only fifteen percent
Speaker 2: of consumers who are in less than twenty five thousand
Speaker 2: dollars are purchasing the tiny citrus. It's not exactly surprising,
Speaker 2: but it does put the status of Clementine's rising popularity
Speaker 2: in perspective.
Speaker 1: And perhaps all because of a monk question mark fruit man.
Speaker 1: I have a listener male yeah, which is a reference
Speaker 1: to our Gertrude Chandler Warner episode from our listener Susan,
Speaker 1: who writes, Hello, Tracy and Holly, I really enjoy listening
Speaker 1: to your podcast. I learned something new each time I listen,
Speaker 1: and I love the way you present history in such
Speaker 1: a lively manner. I was interested in your recent podcast
Speaker 1: about the author Gertrude Warner and the box Car children books.
Speaker 1: You discuss her use of a golliwog character in the
Speaker 1: children's books. By the way, that was only in one
Speaker 1: book that she wrote when she was nine years old,
Speaker 1: not other children's books. Susan writes, I wanted to let
Speaker 1: you know that the golliwog is a racist caricature of
Speaker 1: someone who is of African descent. And then they send
Speaker 1: the Wikipedia link. Susan says, I grew up in England
Speaker 1: as a child and there was a children's show called
Speaker 1: Naughty In it the golliwog was a characture of a
Speaker 1: black person that lived in the woods and often created mischief.
Speaker 1: Even as a child, I thought of it as racist
Speaker 1: and distasteful. Many Americans are not familiar with the golliwog,
Speaker 1: but I do think if you're gonna mention it in
Speaker 1: your podcast, you probably want to also let people know
Speaker 1: that this may have been used innocently by Warner, but
Speaker 1: is a racist caricature.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Susan. Thank you so much, Susan.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that, yeah, on following the link and
Speaker 2: all of that. I have seen that visual stereotypical image before.
Speaker 1: Exactly, but I didn't have that word attached to Yeah.
Speaker 2: I had never connected it with the word golliwog and
Speaker 2: just thought it was like a weird sing songy children
Speaker 2: fantasy name. Yeah, same same on now we know so Yeah,
Speaker 2: Just to be clear in case anybody hasn't read Box
Speaker 2: Car Children and doesn't know, it does not appear in
Speaker 2: those books. It's literally just that one story that she
Speaker 2: wrote when she was nine, kind of basing it off
Speaker 2: a different Yeah, there was a series of books that
Speaker 2: became popular in the US.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that Golliwog was part of. Remember, that was the
Speaker 1: book that she turned out really quick because she had
Speaker 1: lied to her mom that she was writing a book.
Speaker 2: She was writing a book when she was really spending
Speaker 2: too much time playing tea party. Yeah, and then she
Speaker 2: had to quickly produce results. Right, So there's probably a
Speaker 2: little plagiarism in the mix as well. It's a nine
Speaker 2: year old, so we cut her some slack. But I'm very,
Speaker 2: very glad to know that. So thank you for bringing
Speaker 2: it to our attention, Susan. If you would like to
Speaker 2: write to us, you can do so at History Podcast
Speaker 2: at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe to the
Speaker 2: show on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to
Speaker 2: your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is
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