Rare treats

It struck me today, in a thought both ridiculously obscure and rather overwhelming all at once, that the average 19th-century European presumably never heard any of the symphonies of Beethoven, or Mozart, or, well, any composer. Before the advent of recorded music, everyday middle class Europeans could certainly play, or listen to a friend play, many of the solo pieces for keyboard that existed. And, if they lived in especially musical circles, perhaps they witnessed a family performance of a quartet, or a local rendering of a trio. But a symphony? You had to go to Vienna, or Paris, or Milan, for such a thing - and most peasants in Calabria, or potato farmers in County Galway, weren't making such trips very regularly. Perhaps they knew, by description or through a whistled rendering, the famous opening notes of Eroica. But that's rather like knowing a painting by Vermeer through a Xerox of a 3 by 3 inch photograph.

Or, you might say, like knowing a banana simply through a description of its taste. Which, by the way, is how most Europeans in the 19th century would have known the fruit. The banana was known in ancient Malaysia, and China, and Alexander the Great may have tasted one, but the modern West came to bananas rather late. It's generally agreed that the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia was a watershed moment, as bananas were sold to wary but curious customers for 10 cents a piece. And Britain? The poor folks living under the crown had to wait until 1902 for the first load of commercially refrigerated bananas. Thus, as a 2002 piece in The Observer noted, "a century ago hardly anyone in Britain had tasted or even seen a banana."

Which brings us to Cleo. Before today, she had tasted:
1. Her mother's milk, daily.
2. A range of objects not intended for consumption, including but not limited to: dozens of toys, most of the made in China; her car seat; the covers of several tiny books; the zippers on all of my zippered sweaters; her parents' index fingers; and numerous receipts from Whole Foods, never swallowed but often sucked with gusto.
3. Pear, with clear favor, and sometimes with an admixture of rice cereal.
4. Sweet potato: no dice.
5. Applesauce, made by a friend, with puckered lips, but apparent acceptance.
6. Avocado, with mixed results, and little hint of her father's genetic tilt towards all things Mexican.

And today, folks, I took a banana - a banana grown hundreds of miles away, and a novelty to any Victorian - pushed part of it into her mesh Munchkin Fresh Baby Food Feeder (ah, the names, folks, the names! Being a parent nowadays is like living in a David Foster Wallace novel), and watched her go. You can see the results in the video at the top of today's entry. And, for best results, turn up the Beethoven while watching, and enjoy living in the 21st century: