by Barbara Rimkunas
This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, March 3, 2023.
If you wanted to bake a fruit pie during the waning days of winter in 1800, the first step would be soaking the dried fruit. Fresh fruits and vegetables were unavailable until the summer months. Local fruit in New England – apples, peaches, berries, plums, and grapes – were carefully dried during the summer months. Other methods of food preservation, salting, smoking, and pickling didn’t lend themselves well to fruit. A small amount of fruit was processed into jams and jellies, but sugar was expensive and there was no sterile canning yet. For practical purposes, dried fruit was the only game in town.
Things began to change by mid-century. Commercially canned foods, an industry nurtured by the military need for stable foods, began to turn up on store shelves after Napoleon marched across Europe, the British and Russians fought in the Crimea, and the United States fought the Civil War. Canned goods were a bit expensive and didn’t quite taste fresh, but at least there was some way to eat peaches in March.
But it was the expansion in transportation that really changed eating habits. Faster steamships and railroads were able to move goods quickly and efficiently. Refrigerated railcars made it possible to keep produce in good condition during transportation. As these industries expanded, a new local merchant emerged: the greengrocer.
At least in Exeter, it doesn’t appear to have been practical for the greengrocer to sell exclusively vegetables and fruits. As late as 1887, A.W. Pinkham, who had his store on Water Street, still advertised “fruit and vegetables in their season” along with his other grocery products. Non-native fruits took time to catch up with local palates. Most greengrocers combined their storefronts with other items – usually confectionary and tobacco. But exotic non-native fruits were making their way into town.
In 1883, the Exeter News-Letter, in its “Town Affairs” section noted, “the orange and banana trade continues quite lively in town.” Both fruits are staples in our diet today, but they were very unusual at the time. Oranges, lemons, and limes were cultivated in Florida, but bananas had to be imported from the tropics. Two years after noting the ‘lively’ trade in bananas, the News-Letter ran a lengthy article reprinted from the New York Evening Post to educate townsfolk about bananas. “Everybody knows,” it stated with confidence, “that there are two types of bananas – one red, the other yellow – and most everybody knows that the taste and texture of the two kinds are substantially the same. All the red ones that come to New York are gathered on the island of Baracoa, one of the West Indies. Yellow bananas that come to this market are raised in Central America, the West Indies and other countries.” If we were to travel back in time (and this is not advisable), these bananas would taste quite different from the modern bananas we buy at the supermarket. Limited varieties and disease have reduced the type available to us. Bananas arrived still attached in bunches with no special packing. Then, as now, it was harvested before ripening to extend transportation time. Citrus fruits from Florida were carefully wrapped individually in paper and packed in crates.
It's hard to fathom that people had to be taught to enjoy bananas, considering it’s one of the first fruits we spoon into our modern babies’ mouths. Under “Useful Recipes” the News-Letter ran the following: “Banana Pie – Slice raw bananas, add butter, sugar, allspice, and vinegar, or boiled cider, or diluted jelly; bake with two crusts.” Recipes were a bit vague in 1885, but the average home cook would get the basic idea. Banana peels were considered a hazard from the very beginning. As early as 1878 people were warned, “there is nothing that gives one so vivid an idea of chaos as to step on a banana skin, and to find his arms and legs, head and body all trying to fly in different directions." Apple cores never caused this kind of hazard and peach pits were treated like common stones.
By 1921, greengrocers were an everyday part of most New England towns. Exeter could boast three greengrocers on Water Street – Angelo Marelli, Poggio & Gaiero and James Risetty. Hampton similarly had three, including Luigi Marelli and Newmarket had two – Giacomo Marelli and Giuseppe Zocchi. The field was dominated by Italian immigrant families. Arriving from a part of the world with long growing seasons and a heritage of fresh produce, these families were willing to make the long daily trek to Boston markets.
Greengrocers flourished for decades. Even the rise of supermarkets in the 1950s, which often had anemic produce departments, didn’t dissuade most shoppers from seeking out fresher sources. The greengrocers plugged along for several decades more before neighborhood grocery stores faded from the landscape along with bakeries and dairies.
Barbara Rimkunas is curator of the Exeter Historical Society. Support the Exeter Historical Society by becoming a member! Join online at: www.exeterhistory.org
Image: An unnamed greengrocer in Exeter, c. 1904. Most Exeter greengrocers sold confections and tobacco products to stretch sales. Bananas and carefully wrapped oranges were sold along with seasonal local produce.