Fruit recipes

Have ready one cup of fresh, pounded cocoanut and add to it a pint of the richest cocoanut ‘“‘cream’’ and milk, or half a pint of cocoanut milk and a half pint of whipped cream (from cow’s milk). Add three-fourths cup of sugar and a tiny pinch of salt, then stir in a small tablespoon of gelatine which has been dissolved in two tablespoons of water and strained. Freeze. (For one quart.) * The cocoanut, particularly the fresh-picked fruit, lends itself or its milk to almost. every form of frozen dainty, making most attractive ices, ice-creams, etc., and in many forms supposedly adapted only to other (more strictly) fruit it is delightful as foundation or accessory. The palm-cabbage, or the stalk-ends, may be used, un- cooked, in salads, or delicately cooked (like cauliflower), or pickled. CHAPTER XXIII THE JAPANESE PERSIMMON (Diospyrus Kaki, Diospyrace@) HIS, the national fruit of Japan, is a giant compared with the persimmon of the North American woods as regards the size of its fruit; the tree is a comparative dwarf but makes up in beauty, symmetry, and convenience of size what it lacks in height. It does not need the frost to sweeten its fruit but neither does the frost-touch prove harmful as to other semi-tropical fruits. There is as end- less an array of varietv in this persimmon as the apple can present and it is used by the Japanese in as many different ways and as constantly. The Japan persimmon varies so in size, flavour, and shape, from the size of a base-ball to that of the largest orange; from those somewhat tasteless and dry to a ravishingly delicious and juicy type; and from the rounding, through all degrees, to the extremely elongated—that one can but generalise in dealing with it. It seems a great pity that it is not better known and ap- preciated in Northern markets, as it ships well, grows so readily and in such abundance that it is not the expensive fruit many of the semi-tropical products prove to be, and yet is one of the richest of fruits in food value. It can best perhaps be compared with the banana as to its type of riches and its practicability as ‘‘a whole meal’”’ in itself. It has wealth of carbohydrates, also fat and protein, (with more sugar however), and its energy-producing power is about the same as the forceful banana. It is susceptible of much more variation than is realised 283 284 FRUIT RECIPES yet in even Florida and California, and its prodigal abun- dance might be indulged in not only more freely, with better results because of its substance, but farther north than it has yet been grown or shipped. It should be mentioned, however, that only the “‘chocolate’’ or dark-meated vari- eties, of which there are a number, should be used in cookery. Even where the others are perfectly ripe the chemical action of the heat brings out the astringent quality so actively that it is impossible to eat the results. The chocolate varieties may be used without any danger of the development of unpleasant qualities. The thoroughly ripe Northern persimmon in its sweet, sugary state, may be also used with great success with most of the recipes or suggestions given for the Japanese. RECIPES TO SERVE OR COMBINE THE UNCOOKED PERSIMMON