Jungle Foods

Search in N. Guinea

AS long ago as last December, the “PIM” reported that two US Army officers had been detailed to search the New Guinea jungles for “new foods that would have an important bearing on the diet of troops in that area.” We found the idea rather funny. But the Americans are nothing if not persistent, and they heeded not our warning.

The following published in the “Fiji Times” of June 16, gives late news from the New Guinea food-front.

“Wandering in the jungles of New Guinea there is an officer of a US Fighter unit, Captain Chester E. Grigsby He has been assigned to find plants that can be used as food in emergencies by American flyers forced down in the jungle.

“Captain Grigsby tests the plants by eating them. He has discovered six new varieties of edible jungle fruits and will test 24 other plants. On one occasion he was seriously ill for 12 days as a result of experimenting. On another occasion he had picked a berry from a plant by the side of a jungle track and was about to eat it when a native snatched it from him, exclaiming “Big sick, you die.”

He has spotted many likely looking plants growing on the branches of trees.

To obtain samples he often has to shoot down the fruit with his service revolver.

He discovered wild cherries and rasp berries growing abundantly in many parts of the jungle.”