In 1774, the Scottish physician, James Lind, then an officer in the British navy, conducted the first systematic study that proved that vitamin C cures scurvy. The navy then made barrels of lemon juice a mandatory item on all ships. By 1880, they placed 1.6 billion barrels on board.
All of these lemons had to come from somewhere. Citrus is native to southeast Asia. It traveled trade routes, being cultivated in the Mediterranean climate. Lemons, which are a cultivar cross (citron x sour orange) were mostly grown on the island of Sicily in the late 1700's. Far enough from mainland Italy, Sicily was not directly affected by Italy's war with Napolean. Instead, they fell into political turmoil of their own, being mostly run by families in a feudal-type arrangement.
Lemon growers often fell victim to neighboring families, who would sneak into their orchards at night and strip the trees. Growers built walls around their trees. They increased the height of the walls. They added rocks or glass shards on top of the walls. They had guard dogs. Even if they got this far, shipments to the warehouses were often robbed. Guards were hired.
Then the family guards began to extort the farmers to provide lemon crop protection. If you didn't pay, your crop would disappear and you would be left with nothing. And *that* is where the Sicilian mafia began. Really.
When life gives you lemons, create your own mafia.
References
Dimico, Arcangelo, Alessia Isopi & Ola Olsson. (2017) Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons. Journal of Economic History, v.77(4).
Stone, Daniel. (2017) The Citrus Family Tree. National Geographic magazine, accessed online https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/02/explore-food-citrus-genetics/
No comments:
Post a Comment