FoodNet

Hilda's diary of a Cape housekeeper

1902

Page 71 · 2 recipe records on this page

Presented as published in 1902. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
To Preserve Pineapples (Miss Frances Cloete’s recipe).— Meiely peel and slice them and let them preserve in very thin syrup ^ for several hours. A lemon or twoTo Preserve Pineapples squeezed into the preserve shortly before it zs done improves it very much. August 3. — Green Grenadilla Preserve. — Green grenadillas (a species of passion-flower well known in Natal, the Eastern Piovince, the Paarl, etc.) make a very good preserve as follows. Take about fifty grenadillas when the peel is still soft, cut a cross at one end, and scrape or peel very thinly. Take about a tablespoonful of lime and mix with cold water; lay the fruit in a deep bowl, cover with this lime water for one night ; then for a night in fresh water. The third day boil in fresh water, to which a tablespoon ful of salt has been added to make it rather brackish — boiling for ^ Syrup made of sugar the same weight as fruit, as for all preserves. 176 FISH. GARDENING. PORK A?/ir. o about ten minutes till you can easily pierce the fruit with a reed or straw. When the grenadillas have thus been parboiled, and are quite soft, put them for a few minutes in very cold water while preparing the syrup, which is made as follows. To 6 lbs. sugar for every 50 grenadillas, put 6 cups of waterGreen Grenadilla Preserve ; boil up and skim. When the syrup is clear let it cool ; then take the grenadillas (having first well drained them) and lay them in this syrup for the night. Next day boil gently till the syrup thickens, taking care not to let the fruit boil to a pulp. The fruit should be thinly pared before preserving them. N.B. — All preserves shotdd be boiled very gently. Fish in season in August are galjeon, “ Roman,” stock- fish, and mackerel. Gardening. — It is impossible in this little book to go into detail about gardening, though I hope some day to put together some consecutive notes of my own experience ; but any one who loves flowers will find a means of growing them, even if they have to use half paraffin tins, painted, and with holes for draining. The loveliest plants have been grown in such makeshift gardens. “ Love is the best compost for flowers,” as Elizabeth says in her German Garden ; and one’s own instinct leads one to put a plant in the aspect it likes best to grow in. Miss Jekyll’s books will give many suggestions, though the conditions of gardening are so different here ( Wall and Water Gardens, etc.). Pork is very good now, and veal ; poultry is very scarce in winter; but we hope that soon the much- neglected poultry farming will become a very thriving industry. Mutton and beef fairly good all the year round, 177 N A COOKING BEE Jug. but much fatter during the months of September, October, November, and December, as the pasturage is much more luxuriant then in the Western Province.