Bottles of cherries and berries, stored about 250 years ago at Mount Vernon, were preserved with care.
Archaeologists examining some of the newly-unearthed 250-year-old bottles containing cherries and other fruit that were buried in the basement of George Washington’s home in Mount Vernon, Va. Officials at Mount Vernon said Thursday that archaeologists have unearthed 27 more bottles containing the remnants of cherries and assorted berries
They also are exploring whether some of the seeds might grow after 250 years — though being waterlogged more than two centuries is proving to be an obstacle. “This is such a historic find,” said Benjamin Gutierrez, a plant geneticist at the USDA’s Plant Genetic Resources Unit, in Geneva, N.Y. “There are very few examples where you could look at fruit remains in this condition.”“We’re hoping to do more than just identify the cherry,” he said. “What other chemical qualities are in there? Can we look at sugars and how acidic were they?”“Cherries have a long stem, and you don’t want to fill a bottle of preserves with stem tissue,” he theorized.
They have now recovered a total of 12 bottles containing remnants of cherries, 16 bottles with remnants of unidentified berries, and one bottle with the remnants of cherries and berries, said Boroughs.The bottles also contained ground water or spring water, and, in some cases, pieces of the cork stoppers, he said. The ground water might have seeped in over time, or the berries might have been packed in spring water, as one recipe suggested.
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