The Food Explorer

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The Food Explorer Page 8

by Daniel Stone


  By this point in history, most cultures had moved on from the practice of eating other humans except in the most desperate of cases. But not in Fiji, a clear example of how culinary trends are intensely cultural and tied to morality. The running hypothesis at the time, which helped most of the world look at Fiji with resigned disapproval rather than moral outrage, was that cannibalism kept an island society stable. Problems created by a growing population with limited land required a drastic solution. Cannibalism, once a matter of food scarcity, became the culture’s way of quelling tension between senior and junior males, both in pursuit of the same few resources—or more pointedly, women.

  Alfred St. Johnston, an explorer who visited Fiji in 1883, reported to the world that Fijians really seemed to love the taste of human flesh. It tasted a bit like pork, but was more tender and flavorful, he was told. A man’s absolute authority over his wife meant that he could slay and eat her. For ceremonial events such as the christening of a new canoe, a body would be sacrificed for each new plank, and then more corpses would be needed to roll the canoe to water. It turned into entertainment, Johnston reported:

  There used to be a regular display of slaughter, in a sort of arena, round which were raised stone seats for the onlookers. In this space was placed a large braining stone, which was used thus: Two strong natives seized the victim, each taking hold of an arm and leg and lifting him from the ground they ran with him head foremost—at their utmost speed, against the stone—dashing out his brains, which was fine sport for the spectators.

  One run at the stone was usually enough, certainly for babies, although several dashes could be made for adults. After skinning the corpse, men filled it with hot stones to cook it evenly. The thumb and palm tended to be most sought-after.

  There was little risk that Fairchild or Lathrop would meet this fate. Cannibalism had begun to fade as a cultural practice once the British landed on Fiji’s shores, bringing with them Christian morality and cultural judgment, effectively introducing the notions of murder, shame, and repentance. By 1890, the practice was nearly wiped out, except for among a few elders who retained their taste for human flesh. But not for Fairchild’s. His skin was white and known to carry unsavory flavors and the chance of disease.

  Fairchild and Lathrop met the king of one of Fiji’s largest tribes on Bau, an island one thousand feet wide that legend held had been artificially expanded by Fijian women who dumped baskets of debris onto shallow coral for decades until the island was enlarged. In the confusion of translation, the king was led to believe Lathrop was the president of the United States and Fairchild his personal secretary. The king, whose exposed belly shook as he laughed, was so honored at the audience, he ordered several women to prepare a kava ceremony so that his guests could drink the drink that made the mouth tingly and numb.

  The women joined the circle, their breasts dangling as they chopped roots of the kava vine, and then chewed the roots into fibers. Fairchild’s fascination turned to revulsion. “One by one,” Fairchild recalled, the women “deposited their quids in the big bowl of water and walked out. The attendant then stirred the mess with his hands and dragged the coconut fibers through, partially straining the liquid.” Fairchild dutifully drank. Later he learned that Lathrop poured his ration in the dirt.

  As the two cruised the Fijian islands in a small launch, wild pigs regularly poached their supplies. Cuttings that Fairchild had taken of wild palms either decayed or disappeared in the blur of fast motion. The collecting part of the expedition had become an afterthought. Until there existed a place to plant them, Fairchild convinced himself that collecting plants didn’t need to start in earnest.

  * * *

  —

  It took more than ten days to reach Honolulu. Lathrop had been before, twice. For Fairchild, it was the farthest both east and west he had ever been.

  The first to discover Hawaii had been Chinese sailors, enchanted by the crisscrossing grain patterns of the islands’ sandalwood. But Americans and Europeans found a more practical benefit: agriculture, and mostly sugar. This discovery was the beginning of the end for the Hawaiian monarchy, which had lasted just shy of a full century.

  Queen Lili’uokalani, the woman who would be Hawaii’s last monarch, had reason not to like the Americans. She tried, with her limited military, to push them away, but the effort backfired. In 1893, a committee of thirteen men from America and Europe staged a coup to depose her. They argued that Hawaii wasn’t reaching its agricultural potential. But the real reason was that everything about Hawaii—its soil, its weather, its strategic location—would benefit the United States. And unlike the spear-pointing Malays or Filipinos, the Hawaiian people were docile enough for the Americans to overtake.

  As the rest of the world was fixated on the impending World’s Fair in Chicago, the men barricaded Lili’uokalani in the royal Iolani Palace. Not long after, the Kingdom of Hawaii became the Republic of Hawaii, and the first president was Sanford Dole, an American whose snowy beard parted evenly into two white curtains. Dole would govern for the next decade. His cousin James would go on to build the largest pineapple company in the world.

  Fairchild and Lathrop’s reception in Hawaii was largely seamless because of the United States’ incursion. Their goal in Hawaii wasn’t to collect, but to find land and a botanically minded baron to receive cuttings. In theory, Lathrop and Fairchild would check on the garden every so often. Or better, someone else from the Department of Agriculture would, someone who could judge the plants and disseminate workable crops to farmers, and by doing so, allow Fairchild and Lathrop to stay in motion.

  As the boat pulled into Honolulu, Lathrop explained their strategy. They’d visit all of his deep-pocketed friends, who, like Lathrop, might be compelled to participate less out of enthusiasm than boredom. If they demanded payment, Lathrop would oblige. But the cause would be more than a favor. They were asking on behalf of the United States.

  The first man they visited was William Brigham, whose bald head and white beard gave him the visage of Charles Darwin. Brigham was a geologist who collected Polynesian artifacts, and he happened to be an oracle of plants. Inside his house just to the east of Pearl Harbor, Fairchild explained his and Lathrop’s plan and fielded Brigham’s many questions. How would the seeds get to American farmers? Who would want them? Does the Department of Agriculture even know about this?

  Fairchild could offer little more than hypotheticals, and, once again, a retelling of his exciting work in Corsica.

  Brigham declined to participate due to his advanced age of fifty-six, but he recommended a friend. The friend Fairchild met later that day was Samuel Damon, a politician. Damon didn’t like the idea, either, or perhaps he couldn’t be bothered. During a meeting in which he hardly looked up, he explained to Fairchild that he was more interested in tending his orchids than opening up land for other people’s benefit.

  The final person for them to ask lived on a different island, the biggest one and the namesake of the chain, Hawaii. Fairchild took a lengthy ride on a small boat, and again crawled off dizzy and sick, and lay for hours moaning in the shade.

  He walked to the home of Claus Spreckels, a German horticulturist who had built great wealth and reputation growing sugar beets in California. He was also the chief force behind the downfall of Hawaii’s monarchy—he didn’t participate, but he owned enough Hawaiian debt to stretch its leaders impossibly thin.

  There were a thousand reasons why Spreckels should have said yes. He had personally benefited from tropical crops, especially sugar. He was eager to learn about new crops that were beginning to appear in Hawaii, rare fruits like avocados and mangoes. Coffee, too, had qualities that seemed to fit Hawaii’s climate. But he, like Damon, couldn’t be bothered. Other matters of botany interested him more than waiting by the mail for urgent missives from a pair of travelers he hardly knew.

  Before he left the island, Fairchild procrastinated boarding the sm
all boat to return to Oahu. He tried poi, the flavorless mashed stem of the taro plant. He talked with a man who managed a leper colony on the island of Molokai. He wandered around the beaches, staring toward the endless reach of the horizon. And finally, a small indulgence, Fairchild took a horse-drawn cab to see the volcano of Mauna Loa. It was the largest active volcano on earth, having erupted nearly every half decade for the past three thousand years. Under it bubbled the caldera of magma that built the Hawaiian Islands. While Fairchild stood and scanned the landscape of hardened lava, it struck him that, in comparison, Vesuvius hadn’t been that impressive after all.

  * * *

  —

  Lathrop didn’t speak. There was nothing to say. Securing land from one of several rich men was supposed to be easy, and yet Fairchild had failed. Lathrop’s illustrious idea had been crushed by Fairchild’s ineptitude, exposing lofty notions of plant exploration as little more than storybook fantasy.

  Fairchild and Lathrop were given a ceremonial exit from Hawaii, during which they wore shirts of floral patterns and women placed plumeria leis around their necks. An orchestra punctuated the melancholy departure, and as the boat left the harbor, the musicians played the soft, slow notes of “Aloha Oe,” the Hawaiian song of farewell.

  Lathrop was eager to get home. He was a man whose joys didn’t linger, and neither did his disappointments. He looked only forward, keen to return to the Bohemian Club, where his portrait hung on the wall. He would arrive in time to join the club’s summer encampment in its redwood grove north of San Francisco. He had a new batch of stories, all ripe for embellishment.

  Fairchild, however, saw his star fading. He had quit his job in Washington for Naples. He had left his work in Germany for the dream of Java. And he’d abandoned Java for a fanciful idea that materialized into a poof of air. Arriving in San Francisco, he spent several hapless days with Lathrop, distracted by the early-summer sundresses of the West (“I had never beheld so many beautiful and well-dressed girls in all my life as there were that day in San Francisco.”). Lathrop bid him farewell with the detachment of a father leaving his son for a single day at school. He never said it, but Lathrop’s demeanor betrayed his disappointment. “I felt that Mr. Lathrop was at times a bit doubtful about his ‘investment,’” Fairchild would write. The plan hadn’t failed for lack of money, but for lack of follow-through. That was a quality Lathrop never claimed to have, and all he required of his companion.

  His far-flung travels now over, his ambitions sunk, Fairchild boarded a cross-country train with the intention of stopping halfway, in Kansas. Three years had passed since he had last walked American soil, and twice as long since he had seen his parents. After receiving word from their son in faraway Java, they found it hard to imagine he’d ever return.

  His mother, Charlotte, at first didn’t recognize him. George Fairchild greeted his son with the handshake of a fellow man. Their lives had taken dark turns. A decade prior, George had been named president of Kansas State University. Now a political movement known as Populism that brought a fear of establishment and corporate power had not only ejected him from the job but had driven him and his wife from their house after someone set it on fire. George was stoic, unmoved by his misfortune. He and Charlotte were preparing to move to Kentucky, where George could find new work.

  After several dinners where Fairchild recalled stories of the Javanese durian fruit, the real-life cannibals of Fiji, and the idiosyncrasies of Barbour Lathrop, both George and Charlotte urged their son to return to Washington. Kansas wasn’t a place for a boy of worldly ambition. They believed if he tried, he could get his old job back and rise through the ranks of the government.

  As the train pulled away from the station, Fairchild smiled, seeing his parents wave at him for what would be the last time. As the steam locomotive picked up speed, he sulked in his seat, confronting the reality that awaited him in the capital. He would arrive in Washington, the city built between two rivers, at the height of humid August. He had only the money in his pocket, no place to live, and, most dismaying for an educated man of twenty-eight, no job.

  PART II

  CHAPTER SIX

  One Cause, One Country

  At the corner of Eleventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., was Harvey’s Ladies and Gentlemen’s Oyster Saloon. The capital city was known for its oysters, and Harvey’s was the church of the shellfish. The restaurant was named by a pair of brothers who, following the Civil War, had experimented with ways to cook oysters—steamed, roasted, grilled, or fried—and concluded that steaming in lightly salted water was the superior method. The layout of the joint was as deliberate as the source of the oysters, which arrived daily on overflowing carts from the Chesapeake. The first floor was for men, the second for women, and the third a series of private dining rooms for the well-heeled. The fourth floor wasn’t a floor but a facade, so the restaurant wouldn’t be shorter than the two adjacent buildings.

  Every president from Abraham Lincoln to Franklin Roosevelt ate at Harvey’s. When David Fairchild returned to Washington in the summer of 1897, it was William McKinley’s turn. Whispers that the major was in the building could travel from the third to the first floor faster than the plates of oyster shells down the dumbwaiter. McKinley, soft-spoken and reserved, had been president just six months, and his style appeared to be as a deal-making unifier, relenting to meet with anyone, even an enemy, who might be tomorrow’s ally. The mystique of the president eating oysters did not last long. People returned to loud conversation, the ambient hum of men in suits, their ties loosened, drowned out by a piano.

  Back in town, Fairchild spent his first few evenings at Harvey’s, regaling his friends with stories of the Pacific. None provoked more interest than his descriptions of the girls in San Francisco in waist-tight dresses.

  Fairchild’s return to Washington wasn’t as bleak as he’d expected. Despite being unemployed and homeless, he found the city relaxed and quiet. In less than a week he ran into an old friend, Walter Swingle, who had grown up on the same plains of Kansas. As boys, the two had been educated together, both taught by Swingle’s mother. In the afternoons, when Swingle would help his father, a farmer, cut wood or drive cattle home from pasture, Fairchild sometimes tagged along. Those dirty-fingernail afternoons were a respite from life with his strict, academic father. They were also his first introduction to the physical work—not just the theory—of farming.

  As they grew older, Swingle and Fairchild had followed nearly the same path. Both studied botany at agricultural universities before securing jobs at experiment stations for the Department of Agriculture. Fairchild, two years older than his friend, had recommended Swingle for the job, and Swingle’s parents, on account of their son being too young, had had to give special assurance that Walter could handle the work. The irony now was that Swingle still had a job and Fairchild did not.

  Swingle loved hearing Fairchild’s stories, particularly about Barbour Lathrop. He had never met the man, whose description defied belief, but he enjoyed the caricature Fairchild drew with quotes and impressions. Fairchild would critique Swingle’s mustache, clothes, and manners with Lathropian disdain. Twice in the past four years Lathrop had surprised Fairchild unannounced—once in Naples and the other time in Java—so one night at Harvey’s, Swingle, feeling prankish, paid a waiter to deliver three glasses to the table, one of them, he said, for “a Mr. Lathrop,” who would be joining them shortly. Swingle laughed as Fairchild fell pale.

  1893. Walter Swingle followed the same path as Fairchild, from the plains of Kansas to Washington, D.C. At the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he was given an office, a microscope, and the chemical elixirs to investigate how to keep crops free of pests.

  Fairchild and Swingle found a boardinghouse on California Street Northwest, each renting a room from an old man who let only to young men. In the late days of 1897, Fairchild and Swingle managed to occupy the top floor. They discussed
their travels and their futures late into the night. Swingle, who had studied in the classical laboratories of Bonn and Leipzig, was fascinated by the erstwhile plan Fairchild and Lathrop formulated in the Indian Ocean.

  It made sense: America needed new crops. Swingle had believed for years, even as a teenager, that agriculture was a potent source for economic growth. After an 1891 trip to Florida, Swingle developed what would become a lifelong obsession with citrus. That year, at just twenty, he told a roomful of Florida citrusmen that a young man traveling around the world, especially to Asia, could yield incredible new varieties. Hell, even he’d be willing, and on a shoestring, just with his expenses paid. But his proposal was roundly dismissed. Travel was expensive, inefficient, and uncomfortable. Anyone who would want the job wouldn’t be qualified. And all that time and energy, for what? The plan lacked guarantees that it would yield anything useful.

  But sitting in front of Swingle was his friend who had actually brought the ambition to life, or at least had come closer than anyone else. Fairchild had spent several months acting as the kind of explorer Swingle had once imagined. Fairchild, for his part, seemed to revel in this elevation of his expertise. Travel with Lathrop had given him confidence and poise. In America’s gilded capital, he found himself more knowledgeable about agriculture than anyone in town. If anyone was qualified for this type of work, he was.

 

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