Tom Knecht, age 12, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, for his question:
What is Saint John's bread?
Saint John's bread is a lovely tree that takes us back to the Bible story of John the Baptist. We are told that he lived in the deserts, depending for his food on locusts and wild honey. Of course honey is a delicious and nutritious item to add to anyone's menu and many wild honey bees live in the desert. But locusts are insects and nobody would fancy them on a menu. However; those particular Bible locusts were not insects. They were donated by that lovely tree.
The carob tree is a tall and handsome evergreen that seems to thrive on hardship. It lives in poor soils where water is scarce. Its coppery green foliage survives hot desert sunshine and dry desert winds. For ages the hardy carob tree has grown wild on the bare slopes in many lands around the Mediterranean. In Bible days, it grew in the desert regions of Palestine. Specimens were taken to our warm, dry southwestern regions. There they grow as handsome ornamental trees in desert gardens and along the sides of many desert streets.
Long ago, people started calling the carob a locust because it resembles the various locust trees that adorn our native forests. Both yield tough, durable wood and bear foliage, like clusters of large rose leaves. The carob and all the locusts welcome the spring with dainty sprigs of fragrant blossoms that turn to bean type pods in the fall. But the carob is an evergreen and the locusts are not. Its blossoms are deep red and locust blossoms range from creamy white to rusty pink. Locust beans come in fragile, greenish yellow pods. The carob bears a large thick pod of chocolate brown. It is said that its beans were used to estimate the carat unit for measuring precious gems.
Long before Bible days, somebody sampled a chocolaty brown carob bean and discovered its chocolaty flavor. Much later, people who wandered the deserts of Palestine often found and ate pods from the carob, alias the locust tree. Words, as we know, tend to change their meanings and often get translated into other languages. Carob beans became known as locusts the same desert locusts that John the Baptist ate with wild honey.
The next linguistic adjustment is easy to understand. Saint John the Baptist found no bread in the desert so instead he ate locusts, alias pods of the carob tree.
It seemed only fair to reward this friendly tree with a worthy name and the carob was called Saint John's bread.
The pods of the carob tree are still as delicious and nutritious as they were in Bible days. Many animals enjoy them and thrive on them. We import sacks of them from Mediterranean countries as fodder for our cattle. Also, we sensibly pound some of the pods into powder and serve it to ourselves. Carob powder with hot milk makes a tasty chocolatey drink and adds a chocolate flavor to cakes and cookies. It is less fatty and easier to digest than real chocolate.