FoodNetArchive

Fruit recipes

1907

Page 13 · 1 recipe record on this page

Presented as published in 1907. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Instead of using water, as above, use some tart fruit juiceClear Fruit Candy and let cook without stirring till it strings from the spoon. FROSTED FRUITS Frost as for Grapes (see Grape Snow). CHAPTER I THE APPLE (Malus malus: Malacee) HE apple is of all fruits the most entirely taken for granted. It has become as much a matter of ‘course as the universe itself and just as naturally stands at the head of the fruits as does the sun among the heavenly bodies (of familiar, ‘“‘speaking’’ aquaintance). And, as its first letter gives it front rank in the alphabet and primers so has the name of apple appealed first—foremost—to the imaginations of men and the fruit to their palates from the time of the earliest relation (not to say actual occur- rence!) of the story of Adam and Eve. Otherwise, why the apple instead of some one of the numerous delicious and more delicate southern fruits? It is substantial, firm, yet gracious and sunny; eminently practical; thus one may say, fitted in every way to stand the wear and tear of the ages. In poetry, folk-lore, and even history, no fruit has been more often referred to; its beauty and whole- someness more constantly eulogised; standing out as the type of pomological excellence. Men it is who chiefly have written poetry and history, however divided their responsibility in the creation of beauty and facts, and men, like the apple, are eminently practical. Yet are men’s hearts and minds not always won through the gastronomic channel or the appeal of the practical. The wild crab, supposed to be the earliest type of apple, lacked as a fruit some of the excellence of evolution, but there is yet, in these later ages, no flower, wild or cultivated, which can rival the wild crab-apple blossom in rare fragrance and 23 24 FRUIT RECIPES delicacy of beauty; none which even approaches its magi- cal perfume and charm save the sweet olive (Olea jrag- rans). It is sufficient in its marvellous witchery to cap- tivate and inspire rhapsody in the most practical—in even unimaginative, primeval man. And so, to its possession of unusual virtues and beauty has been added (happily, save in the instance of Adam) the appreciation of men; therefore the preéminence of the apple. This first of fruits is known in Arabia and other southern countries but is essentially a product of the colder, more bracing climes; one fitted by its combination of refreshing acids, substantial bulk and stimulating juice, its possi- bilities in natural or (whether cooked or dried) preserved state, as food or drink, to give in such latitudes just that degree of comfort to man’s physical organism, material for the playful exercise of the intellect and innocent revel of the esthetic senses which are required for complete human en- joyment. It is concentrated power which may be applied toward the establishment and preservation of health; a dynamo possessing and giving out in its flavour, texture, and its action upon the body that vigorous poise neces- sary to offset any possible ill effects from long continued seasons of cold, when the earth rests and humanity is prone to become careless and let the blood and liver grow sluggish. The juice of the apple combines extremes; the sparklé of sunshine and the sparkle of frost-time, the sun’s glow laughing out in the working warmth of winter cider, the frost-touch cooling the blood in the seasons of the sun. Joel Benton claimed that ‘‘the apple bears a very pertinent relation to the brain, stimulating life and activity, which it does by its immense endowment of phosphorus, in which element it is said to be richer than anything in the vege- table kingdom.” Even though the value or proportion THE APPLE 25