Eponymous Foods: Fruits

of this story. In his early life, post school, Rudy as he was called, enlisted and served in World War One, and when he got home from the war, he moved to Coombsville, California in Napa and worked as a farm hand. And it's there that he started experimenting with cross pollinating berries. So the exact nature of how he got his original berry is a little bit lost because this story has been shared through oral history over the years, rather than

through any notes or documentation on Boyson's part. It's been told in some different ways, so some suggest that he was purposely combining berries through cross pollination. Others suggest it may have been a happy accident of having just planted different berries near one another, and it is actually highly likely that there was something in between. Boison was a very good with plants, and he was also a hobbyist, so he may have just been trying things out without

really having an idea of an end goal. His wife told reporters almost a decade after his death, quote, he did it just for fun. He sprinkled Himalaya BlackBerry bush with pollen from various related berries and got the boison berry. But what matters most is that when some of his berry vines cross pollinated in nineteen twenty three, he recognized that the resulting fruit was something unique and very delicious.

Boison berries are considered to be a type of BlackBerry, and like the BlackBerry, it's a bramble fruit, which just means it comes from a shrub style plant that can be thorny or bristly, like our recent topic, the strawberry. It's part of the rose family, and it's a dark reddish black color and full of flavor. They're usually described as being juicier or sweeter than a BlackBerry, but with

a tart note that shines through the sweet. Unfortunately, bois and berries don't have a very long shelf life once they have been picked, so you don't see them in grocery stores for very long. It's usually a very brief window when you can buy them fresh. But they're excellent for baking and for preserves. That's probably how most people first encounter them. It is definitely true that Holly had boisonberry preserves as a kid.

Marion berry and Logan berry. The vine that produced the berries that Rudy Boysen recognized as new were very hardy. We'll talk about just how hardy in a bit, and the fruit itself was much larger than other berries. He touted it as being as big as a thumb, which was significantly larger than anything on the market in that

type of berry. Boison contacted the USDA Bureau of Plant Industry, and specifically a man named George M. Darrow, who was in charge of the Small Fruit Division, about this newberry, but he never received a response, and so he just kind of went on with his life.

dollars a month to care for the new space. Boysen married a woman named Peggy Bruton, and they had one son, After they got married, they moved to a property in Fullerton, California, that was owned by Peggy's mother, and Rudy brought the berry vines right along with him, planting them at their

new place. Boyson became well known in Anaheim for his expertise in growing things, and even gave talks about plants to community groups, including one called Street Trees and their Stories, which he shared at the Anaheim Toastmasters Club in early nineteen twenty eight.

has been announced. Rudolph Boysen, overseer of the City Park, is in charge of the planting. Early in February. Rudy also combined his plant knowledge with his involvement in the American Legion to initiate a program where he prepared floral arrangements each Memorial Day to be distributed to the grave

sites of the city's veterans. While Boison remained an active plant enthusiast for his whole life, he had an injury in nineteen twenty eight that slowed him down and likely contributed to his berry vines kind of falling by the wayside in terms of being actively cultivated. He had fallen down a fire pole while touring a fire station, and he injured his back. This was probably a factor in why he wasn't able to really cultivate his berries much

beyond that initial planting. His back issues and other responsibilities might have just prevented it. He had given away a lot of his berry plants over the years to friends and neighbors, so there's no telling how many may have been producing fruit that were never documented. Yeah, but they all came out of this one vine which he had allegedly planted. It's often described as in a ditch on his mother in law's property. Years after Boyson had written

to George Darrow at the USDA. Darrow found those letters and he became intrigued about this thumb sized berry that was described in them. So Barrow decided to find Rudy Boysen and his plants to assess them. But as Rudy had moved a couple of times, it just wasn't as simple as going to the return address on the letters, and eventually Barrow enlisted the help of another man with a name that is easily recognizable in the Barry game,

that is, Walter Not. Not was able to locate Boyson's abandoned vines that had been planted in a ditch on the Fullerton property, and Not relocated the plants to his own property to try to get them back to a more robe state. Nott was able to propagate one hundred vines from the plans that he had collected in Fullerton. They became hearty producers of the berry boys and had cultivated.

Nott was the one to give the fruit the name bois and Berry, but he didn't really cut the fruit's namesake in on the profits that he made from it. Knot's berry farm was made possible in part by the money that Walter Not made from Boison berry sales. Rudy continued to work for the Parks Department and per the accounts of family members. He did not harbor any resentment toward not He focused on his work in Anaheim, establishing new parks and keeping the existing green spaces filled with

healthy flora. Over time, he aged and his health declined, and he eventually had mobility issues due to a health condition that led to the loss of one of his legs. He died at the age of fifty five on November twenty fifth of nineteen fifty but he had worked for the city right up until the end of his life.

respects and say goodbye to him. Two years after he died, a rite up in the Anaheim Gazette noted that a victory garden he had planted at the beginning of World War II for the community and planned out with regular crop rotations to optimize output, was still going strong, including boison berries cultivated by Rudy at the start of the plot's life. Almost a decade after his death, the city started a week long festival in his name. And to be clear, that festival featured the berries, but it was

about Rudy. The La Times reported on June fourteenth, nineteen fifty nine, quote week to honor creator of famed boisonberry.

apparently took place at a wedding. Those shoots that were in the shoe box were planted in Castro Valley, California. They continue to be prosperous there.

Eventually the opening of vineyard Bois and Berry Farm in Orland, California, where the vines thrive today, and if you want to own a piece of berry history, you can purchase plants from them that are propagated from the original boisoberry stock. During the height of the pandemic, the farm opened up their property so people could come and pick berries and get some outside time, noting that their rows were planted eight feet apart, so it was a way to enjoy

an outing while keeping a safe distance from others. That picking experience has continued in the years since then, lasting several weeks beginning in late May.

also bakes up beautifully. In nineteen twenty one, up Hendrick wrote of the Bartlet quote, Bartlett leads all other pairs in number of trees in New York, and vis with Kiefer for the greatest number in America. Its fruits are more common and more popular in American markets than those of any other pair when the characters of the variety are passed in review, although several poor ones of fruit and tree appear, the popularity of Bartlet with growers and sellers,

if not with consumers, seems justified. But the story of.

born in haverl, Massachusetts, in seventeen seventy nine. He was a merchant in the truest meaning of the word, and was an extensive importer of foreign merchandise during the troublous eighteen twelve period when merchants suffered heavy losses by the depradations of the enemy on the seas.

actively producing and cultivating the fruit. And because he didn't know anybody else who was growing that same pair, he named it after himself. An eighteen thirty two write up in the New England Farmer, which also appeared in numerous other places, describes a horticultural festival that was staged in

honor of the anniversary of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. This event included a lecture on entomology, which talked about pests in the garden, and it also featured a fruit and flower display where members could share the literal fruits of their labors. Listed among them are Enoch Bartlett's Bartlet and Capumont pears, which are rated in the mention as very fine.

Bartlett did not only cultivate pears. There are many mentions in local papers in the eighteen hundreds of the many varieties of apples he produced, which seemed to have been universally recognized for high quality, as well as nectarines and peaches. So he had a very good reputation. Yeah, he was

a fruit man that people trusted. In eighteen forty eight, the newly formed American Pomological Society, which is now the oldest fruit organization in North America, included the Bartlet pear in its catalog of fruits available on the North American continent. It described the Bartlet tree this way quote tree medium in size, tall, puriform, upright, hardy, very productive, branches, stocky, smooth, reddish brown, overlaid with an ash gray scarf skin with

few lentisoles. Branchlets short with short internodes, reddish brown, glossy, smooth, glabrous with conspicuous lenticles, and the fruit of the tree was written up as quote, skin thin, tender, smooth, often dull, the surface somewhat uneven color, clear yellow, with a faint blush on the exposed cheek, more or less dotted with russet,

and often thinly rusted around the basin dots. Many small, conspicuous greenish russet flesh, fine grained, although slightly granular at the center, melting buttery, very juicy, venus aromatic quality, very good. But even before that eighteen forty eight write up, there

had been a realization. In eighteen twenty eight, a fresh shipment of fruit trees from Europe arrived in New England, and among them was a pear tree that was just like the Bartlet in every respect, and it bore identical fruit to the Bartlet record scratch.

Williams bon Cretienne. In seventeen ninety nine, an importer in the US named James Carter had several of the Williams pears shipped across the Atlantic to be planted on the Roxbury, Massachusetts estate of Thomas Brewer. And it was that a state that Enoch Bartlett purchased in eighteen seventeen. I just want to say, in case other Massachusetts people, Roxbury is not next to haverl That's not really what that original biographical thing was said. So he was born right, That's

not where the trees were, is what correct? Correct. But this is a case where that revelation of the paar's real name, which is funny because people knew initially when they brought the pair over that it was a Williams, but that information got lost. It had no impact on the pear's name in the US because by the time this mistake was uncovered, so many people had been growing and purchasing and eating Bartlet pears because of Enoch Bartlet's reputation that everybody just kind of stuck with it. But

in Europe it is still called a Williams pear. So if you're from one place or the other and you're traveling, if you see a Williams or Bartlet pear on the menu in a market and it's not the one you call it, it's the same thing. It's the same pair.

sometimes just going by Clement. Brother Clement was sent to Algeria to work in the orphanage that his order ran there in the town of Messergan, that's in the Oran province, on the north coast of the country, just across the Alberon Sea from Spain. This was not long after France had colonized Algeria, which happened in eighteen thirty. At the beginning of eighteen thirty, Algeria was part of the Ottoman Empire,

ruled by a sultan headquartered in Constantinople. Tunisia and Tripoli were also under the Sultan's umbrella of power, although the real day to day rule of each country was carried out by their own reass But several years earlier, in eighteen twenty seven, Algeria and France became embroiled in a feud after the Algerian regent, known as the Day, slapped a visiting French consul with a flyswatter. That slap did

not come out of nowhere. France was deeply in debt to Algeria and had been really dragging on repayment, but that slap gave France the sense of outrage that made

a conquest of this country seemed justified. The actual military conflict that took place after the French landed on July fifth of eighteen thirty was extremely short because Algeria really did not have the means to fight back, So the day cut a deal with the French to go into exile, and the Europeans immediately moved in, including setting up monasteries and religious centers to try to convert the Muslim population to Christianity, and that is how brother Marie Clement landed there.

Clement's exact interaction with the citrus trees and their fruit that would eventually bear his name is largely a matter of lore. Did he discover the fruit, did he cultivate it through cross breeding? We really have no idea, although there are definitely versions of the story that paint a quaint picture of a French monk tending his grove of citrus on the northern coast of Africa. When did it happen? Also no clue, Well, some clue. We have a window.

Clement got to Algeria in eighteen ninety two, and the fruit is a matter of record. Ten years later, in nineteen oh two, so somewhere during that decade.

And another big draw for them is that they generally harvest later than oranges, so they filled this gap where fresh citrus would normally not be available. They're sometimes called Christmas oranges for this reason, so you're looking at like an autumn into early winter harvest. There are actually dozens of clementine varieties, according to a two thousand and seven interview with Tracy Kahn, curator of the Citrus Variety Collection

at the University of California, Riverside. That interview appeared in the Cape Cod Times.

kind of hazy bit of drama. There's a fairly high degree of probability that clementines actually originated in China and were hybridized there, and that likely happened hundreds of years before any involvement of any French monks in Northern Africa. But like the purported Algerian origins, there's not any solid information. Yeah, Algeria definitely claims to be the birthplace, but sody sub

areas in China. The important thing is we all get delicious fruit and plenty of vitamin C. But the name clementine Clementine, which is based on clement which was not the monk's original name but was the one he took when he took orders, was bestowed on the fruit by a botanist that was a man named Luis Chaos Prabu, who is assigned to the French Agricultural Society in Algeria. He also was making a general study of plants in Algeria. But once again we are met with a mystery. Did

Brother Clement bring this fruit to Trabeu's attention? The monk was clearly associated with it, but we don't know what transpired there and the Clementine, according to the two thousand and seven book Citrus, a History by Pierre Laslow, won a gold medal from the Agricultural Society right after Trebu mentions it, so that is yet another mystery. As for Brother Clement, he became a Spiritan in nineteen oh three. That's a religious order of the Catholic Church which was

founded in seventeen o three. It focuses on working with the poor and with marginalized communities, and that may actually be the origin point of some of the Clementine War. It seems that a paper was published and a Spiritan periodical, and that may be where other biographies are getting their information regarding the story of Brother Clement and his Little Oranges. Holly was not able to get a copy of this to check. Clemal Rodier died in late nineteen oh four.

That was, incidentally his death not long before. Clementines made their way to North America as a crop. They reportedly came to the US in nineteen oh nine, and they were imported initially to Florida and then also to California, so the two big citrus growers. A nineteen thirty seven newspaper article that ran in multiple papers claimed that the very first clementine planted in the US was in Brooksville, Florida.

That write up read quote, the parent tree of all clementine orange trees in this country thrives in Chinzgate Hill, Brooksville, home of Colonel and Missus Raymond Robbins, at the approximate age of twenty years. That article goes on to explain that doctor Walter T. Swingle of the US Department of Agriculture received a gift of budwood from Louis Charles Trebou himself, and that the tree in the Robins's yard was that

very gift. Clementines didn't exactly catch on in an especially big way in the US, and there weren't a lot of clementines grown in comparison to other citrus crops. For example, a newspaper out of Brian, Texas, reported in the autumn of nineteen thirty two that a new type of orange was being grown in the area, and that article had

to explain what a clementine was, noting quote. The clementine orange, also known as an Algerian tangerine, is an early maturing kid glove orange of hybrid orange, supposedly across between a sour orange and a tangerine. The fruit becomes edible about the last week of October and has passed its prime by January first. The quality of the fruit is excellent, the strong flavor characteristic of the common tangerine being totally absent.

The size is small one and a half to two inches, but the skin is very thin and the core inconspicuous. But even with a lot of writeups appearing telling consumers that clementines were delicious, We're all going to start growing them, they really didn't experience a surge in popularity in the US for decades, and the eventual surge was the result

of an especially bad winter. In nineteen ninety seven, Florida had an unusually bad freeze that destroyed most of its citrus production for the year, and to fill the empty produce sections. Clementines were imported from Spain in Algeria, and from there clementines have had a steady increase in popularity here. In two thousand and seven, that was the first year the US government tracked clementines as a separate entity from other citrus. Before that, it had fallen under a blanket

category that grouped the less popular citrus types together. But that year, an estimated one hundred and thirty five thousand tons of clementines were produced in the US, and according to the American Farm Bureau Federation report from twenty twenty three, while citrus production overall in the US has faltered significantly in recent years, quote, the only citrus fruit category to show a clear increase in production is the tangerine category,

which includes Tangelo's mandarins, clementines, and traditional tangerines. But they're clearly seen to a degree as a more luxury choice

when it comes to the produce selection. According to the Packer, which is part of the Farm Journal Incorporated, clementines have primarily caught on with higher income households, with thirty two percent of households that bring in more than a six figure income eating Clementines and Mandarins, whereas only fifteen percent of consumers who are in less than twenty five thousand

dollars are purchasing the tiny citrus. It's not exactly surprising, but it does put the status of Clementine's rising popularity in perspective.

You discuss her use of a golliwog character in the children's books. By the way, that was only in one book that she wrote when she was nine years old, not other children's books. Susan writes, I wanted to let you know that the golliwog is a racist caricature of someone who is of African descent. And then they send

the Wikipedia link. Susan says, I grew up in England as a child and there was a children's show called Naughty In it the golliwog was a characture of a black person that lived in the woods and often created mischief. Even as a child, I thought of it as racist

and distasteful. Many Americans are not familiar with the golliwog, but I do think if you're gonna mention it in your podcast, you probably want to also let people know that this may have been used innocently by Warner, but is a racist caricature.

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