On Food and Cooking

are always accustomed to associate the
hum of the bee-hive with the farm-house
and flower-garden, and to consider those
industrious little animals as connected with
the busy haunts of man, and I am told that
the wild bee is seldom to be met with at
any great distance from the frontier. They
have been the heralds of civilization,
steadfastly preceding it as it advanced
from the Atlantic borders, and some of the
ancient settlers of the West pretend to give
the very year when the honeybee first
crossed the Mississippi. The Indians with
surprise found the mouldering trees of
their forests suddenly teeming with
ambrosial sweets, and nothing, I am told,
can exceed the greedy relish with which
they banquet for the first time upon this
unbought luxury of the wilderness.
For those of us who buy our luxury in
jars, this initial sense of wonder is worth
reimagining.