Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1892 — A Vegetable Pepsin. [ARTICLE]

A Vegetable Pepsin.

The useful properties of the papaw plant have long been known to the various natives, and have been taken advantage of by them, as can be seen by reference to the works of travelers, who can themselves vouch for the accuracy of the accounts they narrate. Thus Drury, in “Tiie United Plants of India,” states that old hogs and poultry which are fed upon the leaves and fruit, however tough the meat they afford might otherwise be, are thus rendered perfectly tender and good, if eaten as soon as killed. Browne, too, in his “Natural History of Jamaica,” says that meat becomes tender after being washed with water to which the juice of the papaw tree has been added; and if left in such water ten minutes, it will fall ifrom the spit while roasting, or separate into shreds while boiling. In his “History of Barbados,” Griffith Hughes mentions thnt the juice of the 1 papiw tree is of so penetrating a nature that, if the unripe peeled fruit be boiled with the toughest old salt meat, it quickly makes it soft and tender. Kersten also tells us that boiling meat with the juice of the papaw is quite a common thing in Quito. Captain S. P. Oliver, writing in Hature, July 10,1879, says: “In Mauritius, where wc lived principally on ration beef cut from the tough flesh of the Malagasy oxen, we were m the habit of hanging the ration under the leaves themselves; and if we were in a hurry for a very tender piece of fillet, our cook wov-ld wrap up the undercut of the sirloin in the leaves, when’ the newly-killed meat would be as tender as if it had been hung for a considerable time.—[Chambers' Journal.