More than three hundred years
before the invention of anything remotely resembling either modern refrigeration or miracle drugs, the humble fruit,
dried and grated, was prized (correctly) for
keeping meat
from rotting, and (wrongly but understandably) as a poultice for warding off the Plague, a.k.a. the Black Death, which had wiped
out a full third of Europe's population and was still at its deadly work.