Our viands

The apricot belongs to the plum tribe (Prunus Armeniaca), a tribe very widely distributed, and including the cherry, the laurel, the sloe, and a vast number of cultivated species of plum, chief among which is the delicious greengage, the Reine Claude of the French. Some naturalists believe that the apricot has been developed from the wild African species; but it is generally supposed to be a native of the East, where it grows in great abundance, from China and Japan to the Caucasus. It is perhaps a greater favourite than the peach in cookery, making a most excellent jam, apropos of which I may say that the pulp, now imported in tins, is almost equal to the fresh fruit for this delicate preserve; but it requires its full weight of sugar and a few bitter almonds as a substitute for the kernels. Apricots crystallised and in syrup are also much esteemed, and in all these forms our colonies might supply the English market quite as well as the French do now. There is also another mode of utilising these abundant gifts of Nature to sunny climes, which is in the making of noyau, or ratafia, from the kernels. Years ago we used to collect the kernels of all the apricots and peaches consumed in the house, putting them into a bottle filled up with brandy, and this home-made ratafia was the very best flavouring we could ever obtain for custards, puddings, etc. Surely, in countries where these fruits are so superabundant as in South Africa, and where brandy is also largely manufactured, something might be made both of the fruit and its kernels. The most singular of the peach family is the flat peach of China, which somewhat resembles a Normandy pippin with STONE FRUITS AND BERRIES 197 a stone in the centre, of which the flavour is said to be excellent. Of the plum there are more than three hundred varieties, so that we cannot attempt to enumerate them, but must mention two or three of the principal. Two wild plums grow in Britain, the bullace and the sloe — the one white or yellow, the other black. They are not eatable in the raw state, but the former is used for making tarts and puddings — very highly esteemed by many — and the sloe is, or was, used in making an excellent cordial known as sloe-gin. Of the cultivated sorts the palm is given to the greengage — so named after the first English cultivator. The Orleans, which came to us from France, is the best for puddings and pies, but for table fruit the many varieties of the egg plum are preferable, whilst that known as the London plum is capital for preserves. We do not know the species of plum which, under the name of prunes, or French plums, forms such a splendid addition to desserts at Christmas, but believe it to be the Imperial. It appears to be a very rich fruit, and one which might be cultivated and preserved in the same manner in our southern colonies. A very delicious variety, about the size of the bullace, known as the golden drop, seems to have ceased to be cultivated in this country. And now we must hark back to the cherry, which is perhaps the most interesting and highly-esteemed of all stone fruits, because the most easily obtained, for two hun- dred and fifty varieties are said to be cultivated in England, and the little black cherry grows wild even in Scotland.