Dear Readers,
Rome was liberated by the Allies in June 1944. Although cheering crowds, throwing flowers and handing round bottles of wine celebrated the arrival of American and British troops as they marched into Rome, it had been a grim struggle for the Allied victors since they had landed troops at Anzio in January. Faced with crack German troops commanding the road to Rome from the fortress of Monte Cassino, they had suffered heavy losses before Monte Cassino fell, thereby enabling the Allied forces in Anzio to link with the Fifth Army advancing from the south, just ten days before* the Fifth army Jeeps, lead by U.S. General Mark Clark, rolled into Rome on June 4, 1944.
*Prior to this, the king fearful of antagonizing the Germans had not provided any leadership.
The next day, King Victor Emmanuel III resigned and his son Crown Prince Umberto became the acting head of state. In June 1946, King Umberto II abdicated in favor of a Republic after only 35 days on the throne when Italians voted to abolish the Monarchy.
King Victor Emmanuel's contribution to California agriculture, the artichoke, has rarely been acknowledged, however, "Grazie" to L'Italo-Americano subscriber Dorothy Capurro, who several years ago visited the Luther Burbank Home and Gardens (located at the corner of Santa Rosa and Sonoma Avenues, Santa Rosa, CA 95404, telephone (707) 524-5445, www.lutherburbank.org), and sent me some very informative literature on "Plant Wizard" Luther Burbank and my own visit to the Luther Burbank Home and Gardens in Santa Rosa, California, I can share this information with you.
What Thomas Edison was to electricity and Henry Ford to automobiles, Luther Burbank (1849-1926) was to plants. As early as 1875 he made his first discovery, the Burbank potato. In his youth, he earned his living raising fruits and vegetables to sell. One day, he found some potato's seeds in a ball on one of his potato plants. Usually, these plants did not produce seeds because people made new plants by cutting out the "eyes" of the potato and planting them.
With these seeds, Luther was able to develop a fine-grained long potato, the predecessor of one of the most popular potatoes currently growing in America. Today, it is used as a Baking potato and McDonald's Restaurants use it to make French Fries.
But back in 1875, Luther sold the Burbank potato seedlings for the then respectable sum of $150.00 and bought a train ticket from his Lancaster Massachusetts home to Santa Rosa California. He wrote to his mother that "this is the chosen spot of all the Earth as far as nature is concerned".
Luther was 26 years old when he arrived in Santa Rosa in 1875 and because he felt the surrounding countryside offered the botanical paradise he sought, he rented some land and started a nursery. His early success with potatoes made Luther decide to spend his life working to create new plants.
In March 1881, Warren Dutton, a wealthy Petaluma banker, ordered 20,000 prune trees for fall planting. Burbank accepted the challenge that other nurserymen said was impossible. Using a new technique to California called "June budding" (grafting prune buds onto early budding almond trees), Burbank delivered 19,500 prune trees to Dutton. The influential Dutton spread the news, proclaiming Burbank a "Plant Wizard".
With the commercial success of his nursery, Burbank could devote his full time to plant experimentation. His work sprouted in an era which saw the introduction of the refrigerated railway car, large scale fruit production, preservation methods and cooperative fruit handling.
In 1893, Burbank's new catalog launched his world-wide fame. Mailed from Santa Rosa to a few hundred prominent American and foreign nurseries, his "New creations in Fruit and Flowers" handsomely photographed catalogue offered 250 brand-new fruit varieties alone. And the prices weren't cheap! A hybrid plum cost $3,000 and a calla lily $2,000. But orders flooded Burbank's office. Stark Brothers Nursery bought $7,000 in plants. The Burpee Seed Company placed a large order as well. The San Francisco Call hailed Burbank as "the Edison of horticultural mysteries". By 1901 his plums were sold around the world, the Burbank potatoes were eaten coast-to-coast, and he had produced his famous, brilliantly white Shasta daisy after 17 years of development.
Burbank sought support for plant patent laws throughout his lifetime as many of his discoveries were marketed by other nurseries (Ironically after Burbank's death in 1926, Federal legislation finally was passed to allow plant breeders to patent their new creations).
As Burbank's new plant creation made the "Plant Wizard" famous, important people came to visit him, including Helen Keller and Jack London. In 1915 a special train carried the King and Queen of Belgium, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone from the Panama-Pacific International exposition in San Francisco to Burbank's home in Santa Rosa. Many other important people "visited" with Luther Burbank via the mail on a regular basis, among them was King Victor Emmanuel of Italy who often sent him seeds from his Roman garden.
In 1911, Burbank introduced a noteworthy artichoke, which although named for his adopted home town, the "Santa Rosa" artichoke had a root in the Italian boot. Burbank described this artichoke as producing the largest heads he had ever seen (reportedly as much as 12 inches in diameter), and credited King Victor Emmanuel of Italy for sending the seeds from his private garden, thereby launching the cultivation of artichokes in California. In reference books, the Mediterranean origins of artichokes and the large artichoke industry in California is usually noted.
"Artichokes are native of the Mediterranean; have composite globular flower which when immature are eaten as a salad or vegetables; only center and lower parts of scales are eaten. They are cultivated in America, especially in California, where their cultivation is a large industry; much of it canned for exportation."
Artichokes originated in the Mediterranean area and were cultivated first in Southern Italy and Sicily. The ancient Romans considered them a delicacy and devised ways to preserve artichokes in vinegar or brine. They were served at the banquets of wealthy Romans throughout the year. Centuries later, when Catherine de Medici left Florence to become Queen of France, she took her own cooks and artichokes along. The start of the French "haute cuisine" was due to the Queen's Italian cooks.
This is a good place as any to say that the Jerusalem Artichoke isn't a variety of artichoke at all and it was not from Jerusalem, either. It was originally called girasole, the Italian word for sunflower, because it belongs to that species. That was misheard as Jerusalem and the artichoke was added because it was thought to resemble one in taste. This tuberous vegetable is not often found in produce departments today.
Artichokes are on the market almost all year round but the supply peaks between March and May. Artichokes are always referred to as "chokes" by farmers, wholesalers and retailers.
