Changes which words underwent in meaning and pronunciation were very interesting to me. The fruit which hoarding houses have justly or unjustly made famous was usually pronounced pru-ins in two syllables, instead of prunes. The word “fresh” covered all degrees of misconduct and could be a slight rebuke or an insult. It was funny to hear of a “fresh baby” instead of a naughty one. The Chinese called it “flesh” but kept the same meaning. I wonder what Americans do to foreign words.
I enjoyed visiting the homes of the neighborhood. Now and then when I stayed to meals, some of the articles which long before I had tried in vain to make palatable appeared in delicious form to laugh at me. The Chinese method of cooking peas in the pods, for instance. Through experiences with different foods I came to the conclusion that one can learn to eat anything. The great explorer Stefansson recently told me he had proved that doing so was possible if a certain method was followed.
“On my expeditions to the North,” he said, “the rations had to include whalemeat, as that was one of the few kinds of fresh food available. It is usually not palatable at first. I asked several men to undertake an experiment and live exclusively on whale meat to see if they could learn to like it. Every time a similar test has been made the results have been the same. For the first few days,
