IMPACT ON HISTORY

It’s A Fact

THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT OF B’DOS — ONE OF SEVEN WONDERS

By JAMES SYDNEY

The Bible’s Genesis account of what took place in the Garden of Eden mentions the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but does not name its fruit. Scholars and speculators tried to identify the fruit involved in the fall of Adam and Eve, and over time claims were made that the forbidden fruit was the apple, the grape, the fig, the tomato, the grapefruit and several others.

Perhaps the most widespread belief is that the apple was the forbidden fruit. This fruit is the most commonly used illustration of the biblical story, at least in the West.

However, it was with the grapefruit that Barbados came into the story, and today the Barbados Tourism Encyclopedia lists the grapefruit as the legendary Forbidden Fruit and one of the Seven Wonders of Barbados.

The claim is that grapefruit was first developed in Barbados, "in the beautiful Welchman Hall Gully." Most botanists agree that the grapefruit is a cross between a pummelo (or pomelo) and an orange that took place in the Caribbean area.

The Dutch name for the pummelo is pompelmoose. Today, people in the Caribbean call it by the name shaddock, as the fruit was brought to the Caribbean from the East Indies in the late 17th Century by a Captain Shaddock of the East India Company.

The shaddock, still available in Caribbean markets, is a large citrus fruit, nearly round to oblate or pear-shaped, and may be about the size of a cantaloupe or a medium-sized watermelon. Native to southeastern Asia and Malaysia, it has a thick, soft green-to-yellow rind.

The first known documentation of the forbidden fruit of Barbados was done in 1750 by the Reverend Griffith Hughes in his book, "The Natural History of Barbados." John Lunan, in his 1814 botanical work about Jamaica, Hortus Jamaicensis, used the word "grapefruit" for the first time.

The unlikely name of grapefruit was given, it was believed, because the grapefruit grows in grapelike clusters on a tree. Imagine yellow grapes, or green unripe grapes. However, the citrus grapefruits never taste like grapes.

Before the 19th century, the grapefruit was grown as an ornamental plant. Only later did it become popular as a fruit to eat. Today, grapefruit trees are grown commercially, not only in the Caribbean, but in many other parts of the world, including the southern-most states of the United States: Florida, Arizona, Hawaii and California.

Unfortunately, for people taking certain drugs medicinally, grapefruit is genuinely a forbidden fruit. Chemicals in grapefruit interfere with the enzymes that break down certain drugs in people’s digestive systems. This can cause excessively high levels of these drugs to remain in the bloodstream and increase the possibility of serious side effects.

However, grapefruit provides many valuable nutrients, including vitamin C and lycopene, and is excellent for most people.

As if to lay full Caribbean claim to the fruit, it is said that grapefruit is particularly good when sprinkled with Trinidad’s Angostura Bitters.

This article will be posted on the wbsite silvertorch.com featuring facts of interest to people of the Caribbean – the serious, the fascinating, the funny.