“RAW” FOODS.
Reading edition
Foods that have ripened and been brought to a state of maturity by nature cannot consistently be called “raw.” The origin of this word was the effort to describe something that was unfinished, that was crude, that was rough, or in some way objectionable.
Think of applying this ugly word to a luscious bunch of purple grapes swinging to and fro in bowers of green. Or to a hickory nut that has ripened in the top of a mountain tree, whose life-giving properties have been filtered through a hundred feet of clean, white wood. Or to a delicious apple, or peach, reddened, ripened and finished,—nursed in the lap of nature, rocked in her ethereal cradle, and kissed from the odorous blossom of infancy on to maturity by the soft beams of the life-giving sun, the Parent of all light and life.
These things are finished, ready for use; they are perfect, they are not raw, they are done; and when they are cooked they are undone. They are as far removed from their finished and done condition as if they were green or but half grown.
In the true sense of the word, cooking that which nature has ripened in reality renders it raw—hopelessly raw. The Standard Dictionary says that raw means uncooked; but dictionaries are made by men. They record as true whatever becomes a custom, and if custom makes an error, then the dictionary makes an error. If custom were to make raw mean finished, the dictionary would accept it as true.
Language is a thing of growth and development. It is an oral effort to express our emotions, our hopes, fears, joys, sorrows and sympathies. Language is continually being born and continually being buried.
We cannot accept the sweeping statement that all things are raw that are not cooked, though a thousand dictionaries were to say so.
An uncooked beefsteak could, with much consistency, be called raw. It looks raw and tastes raw. In the sense that the skin worn from the shoulder of a horse by a rough collar makes a raw place, so is an uncooked beefsteak raw. But this word cannot be made to truthfully describe fruits, nuts and grains in a perfect state of maturity. They have been finished by nature, by some supreme intelligence, and sown with prodigal hand over the face of the earth, and man has become the beneficiary thereof. And none of his work and puny efforts can possibly improve them.