January 2012 NHC NEWS A Monthly Bulletin of the Northwest Horticultural Council A FEAST OF STOLEN FRUIT Honoré de Balzac, who lived between 1799 and 1850, authored The Human Comedy.  These combined short stories, novels, and other written works provide gifted insights by Balzac to turbulent times in French society. One thing though was constant in Paris: a love for food.  Anka Muhlstein has written a book, Balzac’s Omelette, which was translated into English last year and is a treasure house of information on the French food and culture of Balzac’s time.  No small part is given to the place of fresh fruit. Some excerpts: “The hapless Madame Grandet, crushed by her miserly husband, is like a mealy fruit that has lost all its flavor and juiciness. […]  And Delphine de Nucingen, such a washed-out creature with her white eyelashes, is compared to a Cox’s pippin, an apple with blotchy markings like a frog, while the wicked Marquise d’Espard is a delicious little apple that warrants biting into.” “… [Balzac’s] highly unusual diet—the dozens of pears eaten on a daily basis (he had fifteen hundred of them stored in his cellar in February he told Madame Hanska one year)….” “Balzac, a passionate lover of pears, must have known that Louis XIV’s horticulturalist, La Quintinie, succeeded in introducing forty-six varieties of pears: nine for the summer, ten for the autumn, and twenty-seven for the winter.” “When the eye dwells on a woman in full dress making exhibition of her magnificent white shoulders, do we not fancy that we see the elegant dessert of a grand dinner?  But the glance that glides through the disarray of muslins rumpled in sleep enjoys, as it were, a feast of stolen fruit glowing between the leaves of a garden wall.” ♦ FSMA Balzac’s Paris ate and drank profusely without the benefit of a governmental food safety system, or, for that matter, any useful scientific knowledge of human pathogenic disease.  While many had fun, a good number dropped dead from undefined maladies probably linked to polluted water and rotten food.  The average life expectancy during the era was 40 years. This month marks the first anniversary of the signing by President Obama of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).  We, and many others, are now faced with the task of reading and responding to proposed federal rules fleshing out FSMA, which are likely to be issued soon by the Food and Drug Administration. In the future, can an orchardist still use over tree sprinklers to irrigate?  Who will be the auditor enforcing any new federal rules?  Will FDA insist on each orchard being registered in Washington, D.C.?  How will food safety for foreign-sourced fruits and vegetables be handled?  What will it cost to comply? All questions, and more, unposed to an innocent 19th century French grower of apples for calvados. ♦ Travel Christian Schlect January 13 – Speaker at the Northwest Cherry Institute, Yakima, Washington. January 23-25 – United Fresh Produce Association’s Winter Leadership meeting/Government Relations Council, San Diego, California. January 27 – Public Affairs Committee meeting of the United States Apple Association, Washington, D.C. Mike Willett January 11-13 – Western Orchard Pest and Disease Management Conference 2011, Portland, Oregon. Deborah Carter January 13 – Speaker at the Northwest Cherry Institute, Yakima, Washington. January 17 – Speaker at Wilbur-Ellis’ Grower meeting, Yakima, Washington. January 23-25 – United Fresh Produce Association’s Winter Leadership meeting/Food Safety & Technology Council, San Diego, California. I’m sorry I’ve not even a sunny corner of an apple orchard which I might offer you in return for your kindness, but alas, such is fate! January 18, 1893 Remembered Yesterdays by Robert Underwood Johnson Northwest Horticultural Council 105 South 18th Street, Suite 105 Yakima, Washington 98901, USA Voice: (509) 453-3193, Fax: (509) 457-7615 E-mail general@nwhort.org