much the same. Use the finest fruit, ripe but not over-ripe. There is no
greater waste of strength, time, and sugar, than in preserving
tasteless, inferior fruit. Pare peaches and drop instantly in water to
save discoloration. Do the same with pears, pit cherries, saving the
juice. Wash and prick plums if large--if small, merely wash and drain.
Halve clear stone peaches but put in a few seeds for the flavor. Leave
clingstones on the seed, unless very large, else saw them in three,
across the stones. They make less handsome preserves thus sawn but of
finer flavor. Weigh, take pound for pound of sugar, with a pound over
for the kettle. Very acid fruit, cherries or gooseberries, will require
six pounds of sugar to four of fruit. Pack pears and peaches after
paring in the sugar over night. Drain off the syrup at morning, put the
fruit in the kettle, cover with strained ginger tea, and simmer for ten
minutes. Meantime cook the sugar and fruit juice in another kettle. Drop
the fruit hot in the boiling syrup, set the kettle in a hot oven, and
let it cook there until the preserves are done--the fruit clear, and the
syrup thick. If it is not rich enough, skim out the fruit, and reduce
the syrup by rapid boiling, then pour over the hot fruit in jars.
It is only by cooking thus in ginger tea, or plain water, pear and
quince preserves can be made soft. Quinces do not need to stand
overnight in sugar--rather heat the sugar, and put it in the liquid they
have been boiled in, after skimming out the fruit. It should be cooked
without sugar till a fork easily pierces it, but not until it begins to
rag.
Put cherry juice and sugar over the fire, adding a little water if juice
is scant, boil up, stirring well and skimming clean, then put in the
fruit, and let it simmer ten minutes, and finish by setting the kettle
in the oven till the preserves are rich and thick.
Fancy peach preserves require white, juicy fruit cut up, but not too
thin. Let it stand in sugar overnight--drain off syrup in morning, boil,
skim clean, then drop in fruit a handful at a time, and cook till clear.
Skim out, put in more, lay cooked fruit on platters, and set under glass
in sun. Sun all day. Next day boil syrup a little more, drop in fruit,
heat through, then put all in clear glass jars, and set for ten days in
hot sunshine, covered close. The fruit should be a rich translucent
pink, the syrup as rich as honey, and a little lighter pink. These are
much handsomer than the gingered peaches but not so good. Ginger tea in
syrup makes it always darker.
Plums require nothing extra in the way of flavoring. Make a very thick
syrup of the sugar and a little water, skim clean, drop in the pricked
plums, and cook gently till clear. Skim out, reduce the syrup by further
boiling and pour it over the fruit, packed in jars. By oven-cooking
after a good boil up, there is so little occasion for stirring, the
plums are left almost entirely whole.
_Ginger Pears_: (Leslie Fox.) Four pounds pears peeled and cut small,
four pounds granulated sugar, juice of four lemons, and the grated peel
of two, two ounces preserved ginger cut very fine. Cook all together
over a slow fire until thick and rich--it should make a firm jelly. Put
away in glass with brandy paper on top the same as other preserves.
_Tutti Frutti_: (Mrs. J. R. Oldham.) Begin by getting a big wide-mouthed
jar, either thoroughly glazed earthenware, or thick, dark glass. Wash
well, fill with hot water, add a half-pound washing soda, and let stand
a day. Empty, rinse three times, and wipe dry. Thus you make end to
potential molds and microbes. Do this in early spring. Put into the jar,
a quart of good brandy and a tablespoonful of mixed spices--any your
taste approves, also a little finely shredded yellow peel of lemons and
oranges. Wash well and hull a quart of fine ripe strawberries, add them
with their own weight in sugar to the brandy, let stand till raspberries
and cherries are ripe, then put in a quart of each, along with their
weight in sugar. Do this with all fruit as it comes in season--forced
fruit, or that shipped long distances has not enough flavor. Add grapes,
halved and seeded, gooseberries, nibbed and washed, blackberries,
peaches pared and quartered. Currants are best left out, but by no means
slight plums. The big meaty sorts are best. Add as much sugar as fruit,
and from time to time more brandy--there must be always enough to stand
well above the fruit. Add spices also as the jar grows, and if almond
flavor is approved, kernels of all the stone fruit, well blanched. Lay
on a saucer or small plate, when the jar is full, to hold the fruit well
under the liquor. Tie down, and leave standing for three months. Fine
for almost any use--especially to sauce mild puddings.
_Green Tomato Preserves_: Take medium size tomatoes, smooth, even,
meaty, just on the point of turning but still green. Pare very
carefully with a sharp knife. Cut out eyes, taking care not to cut into
a seed cavity. Weigh--to four pounds fruit take six of sugar. Lay the
peeled tomatoes in clear lime water for an hour, take out, rinse, and
simmer for ten minutes in strained ginger tea. Make a syrup in another
kettle, putting half a cup water to the pound of sugar. Skim clean, put
in the tomatoes, add the strained juice of lemons--three for a large
kettle full, and simmer for two hours, until the fruit is clear. Cut the
lemon rind in strips, boil tender in strong salt water, then boil fresh
in clear water, and add to the syrup. Simmer all together for another
hour, then skim out the fruit, boil the syrup to the thickness of honey,
and pour over the tomatoes after putting them in jars. It ought to be
very clear, and the tomatoes a pale, clear green. Among the handsomest
of all preserves, also the most delicious, once you get the hang of
making them. Ripe yellow tomatoes are preserved the same way, except
that they are scalded for peeling, and hardened by dropping in alum
water after their lime-water bath. The same process applied to
watermelon rind after it is freshened makes citron.
_Brandy Peaches and Pears_: These can be made without cooking. Choose
ripe, perfect fruit, pare, stick three cloves in each, weigh, take pound
for pound of sugar with one over for the jar. Pack down in a large jar,
putting spices between, and filling sugar into every crevice. Crowd in
every bit possible, then pour on enough whiskey to stand an inch above
the fruit. Let stand--in twenty-four hours more whiskey will be needed.
Fill up, sprinkle a few more whole cloves on top, also two small pods of
Cayenne pepper, and half a dozen pepper corns. Tie down and keep cool.
Fit for use in a fortnight, and of fine keeping quality. The same
treatment with vinegar in place of whiskey makes very good sweet pickle.
Another way, is to pack the fruit in sugar over night, drain off the
juice at morning, boil and skim it, and pour back upon the fruit. Repeat
twice--the third time put everything in the kettle, cook till a fork
will pierce the fruit, then pack in jars, adding spices to taste, and
one fourth as much whiskey as there is fruit and syrup. This likewise
can be turned into very rich sweet pickle, by using vinegar instead of
whiskey, putting it with the syrup at first boiling, sticking cloves in
the fruit, and adding spices to taste.
Throw stemmed and washed cherries, unpitted, into thick syrup made of
their weight in sugar with half a cup water to the pound. Let boil, set
in oven for half an hour, take up, add spices, and either brandy or
vinegar, in the proportion of one to three. Let stand uncovered to cool,
put in jars, cover with brandy paper, tie down and keep dark and cool.
_Tea: Coffee: Chocolate_: My tea-making is unorthodox, but people like
to drink the brew. Bring fresh water to a bubbling boil in a clean, wide
kettle, throw in the tea--a tablespoonful to the gallon of water, let
boil just one minute, then strain from the leaves into a pot that has
stood for five minutes full of freshly boiled water, and that is
instantly wrapped about with a thick napkin, so it shall not cool. Serve
in tall glasses with rum and lemon, or with sherry syrup, flavored with
lemon, add a Maraschino cherry or so, or a tiny bit of ginger-flavored
citron. This for the unorthodox. Those who are orthodox can have cream
either whipped or plain, with rock candy crystals instead of sugar.
Coffee to be absolutely perfect should never get cold betwixt the
beginning of roasting and the end of drinking. Since that is out of the
question save to Grand Turks and faddists, mere mortals must make shift
with coffee freshly ground, put in a very clean pot, with the least
suspicion of salt--about six fine grains to the cupful, fresh cold
water, in the proportion of three cupfuls to two heaping spoonfuls of
ground coffee, then the pot set where it will take twenty minutes to
boil, and so carefully watched it can not possibly boil over. Boiling
over ruins it--makes it flat, bitter, aroma-less. So does long
boiling--one minute, no more, is the longest boiling time. Quick boiling
is as bad--the water has not time to extract the real goodness of the
coffee. Let stand five minutes to clear, keeping hot. Those who drink
coffee half milk may like it stronger--a cupful of water to the heaping
spoonful of coffee. I do not thus abuse one of the crowning mercies, so
make my coffee the strength I like to drink it. Reducing with boiling
water spoils the taste for me. So does pouring into another pot--my
silver pot is used only upon occasions when ceremony must outweigh
hospitality. In very cold weather hot water may well warm cups both for
tea and coffee. Standing on the grounds does not spoil the flavor of
coffee as it does tea.
Coffee from the original pot is quite another affair from the same thing
shifted. I am firmly of opinion that many a patent coffee-maker has gone
on to success through the fact that cups were filled directly from the
urn. I always feel that I taste my coffee mostly with my nose--nothing
refreshes me like the clean, keen fragrance of it--especially after
broken rest. It is idle to talk as so many authorities do, of using
"Java and Mocha blended." All the real Java and Mocha in the world is
snapped up, long before it filters down to the average level. Back in
the Dark Ages of my childhood, I knew experimentally real Java--we got
it by the sack-full straight from New Orleans--and called the Rio coffee
used by many of our neighbors "Seed tick coffee," imagining its flavor
was like the smell of those pests. Nowadays, Rio coffee has pretty well
the whole world for its parish. Wherefore the best one can do, is to get
it sound, well roasted, and as fresh as may be. Much as I love and
practice home preparation, I am willing to let the Trust or who will,
roast my coffee. Roasting is parlous work, hot, tedious, and tiresome,
also mighty apt to result in scorching if not burning. One last
caution--never meddle with the salt unless sure your hand is light, your
memory so trustworthy you will not put it in twice.
Chocolate spells milk, and cream, and trouble, hence I make it only on
occasions of high state. Yet--I am said to make it well. Perhaps the
secret lies in the brandy--a scant teaspoonful for each cake of
chocolate grated. Put in a bowl after grating, add the brandy, stir
about, then add enough hot water to dissolve smoothly, and stir into a
quart of rich milk, just brought to a boil. Add six lumps of sugar, stir
till dissolved, pour into your pot, which must have held boiling water
for five minutes previously, and serve in heated cups, with or without
whipped cream on top. There is no taste of the brandy--it appears merely
to give a smoothness to the blending. If the chocolate is too rich,
half-fill cups with boiling water, then pour in the chocolate. There are
brands of chocolate which can be made wholly of water--they will serve
at a pinch, but are not to be named with the real thing. Cocoa I have
never made, therefore say nothing about its making. Like Harry Percy's
wife, in cooking at least, I "never tell that which I do not know."
[Illustration: _When the Orchards "Hit"_]
When the peach orchard "hit" it meant joy to the plantation. Peaches had
so many charms--and there were so many ways of stretching the charms on
through winter scarcity. Peach drying was in a sort, a festival,
especially if there were a kiln, which made one independent of the
weather. It took many hands wielding many sharp knives in fair fruit to
keep a kiln of fair size running regularly. This though it were no more
than a thing of flat stones and clean clay mud, with paper laid over the
mud, and renewed periodically. There was a shed roof, over the kiln,
which sat commonly in the edge of the orchard. Black Daddy tended the
firing--with a couple of active lads to cut and fetch wood, what time
they were not fetching in great baskets of peaches.
Yellow peaches, not too ripe but full flavored, made the lightest and
sweetest dried fruit. And clingstones were ever so much better for
drying than the clear-seed sorts. Some folk took off the peach fuzz with
lye--they did not, I think, save trouble thereby, and certainly lost
somewhat in the flavor of their fruit. Mammy was a past mistress of
cutting "cups." That is to say, half-peaches, with only the seed deftly
removed. She sat with the biggest bread tray upon her well cushioned
knees, in the midst of the peelers, who as they peeled, dropped their
peaches into the tray.
When it over-ran with cups, somebody slimmer and suppler, took it away,
and spread the cut fruit, just touching, all over the hot kiln. It must
not be too hot--just so you couldn't bear the back of your hand to it
was about right. Daddy kept the temperature even, by thrusting into the
flues underneath it, long sticks of green wood, kindled well at the
flue-mouths. Cups shrank mightily in a little while--you could push of
an early trayful till it would no more than cover space the size of a
big dish, long before dinner time--in other words twelve o'clock--drying
was in full blast by seven. With fruit in gluts, and dropping fast, the
kiln was supplemented by scaffolds. Clean planks laid upon trestles, and
set in full sunshine, gave excellent accounts of themselves. This of
course if the sun shone steadily--in showery weather scaffold-drying was
no end of trouble. Weather permitting, it made--it still makes--the
finest and most flavorous dried fruit ever eaten.
The black people chose clear-seed peaches for their individual drying.
They made merry over splitting the fruit, and placing it, sitting out in
front of their cabins in the moonshine, or by torch-light. Washing was
all they gave the peach outsides--a little thing like a fuzzy rind their
palates did not object to. It was just as well, since clear-seed fruit,
peeled, shrinks unconscionably--to small scrawny knots, inclined to be
sticky--though it is but just to add, that in cooking, it comes back to
almost its original succulence. When the peach-cutting was done, there
was commonly a watermelon feast. Especially at Mammy's house--Daddy's
watermelons were famed throughout the county. He gave seed of them
sparingly, and if the truth must be told, rather grudgingly--but nobody
ever brought melons to quite his pitch of perfection. Possibly because
he planted for the most part, beside rotting stumps in the new ground,
where the earth had to be kept light and clean for tobacco, and where
the vines got somewhat of shade, and the roots fed fat upon the richness
of virgin soil.
It took eight bushels of ripe fruit, to make one of dry--this when the
peaches were big and fleshy. Small, seedy sorts demanded ten bushels for
one. Unpeeled, the ratio fell to seven for one. But there was seldom any
lack of fruit--beside the orchard, there were trees up and down all the
static fence rows--the corner of a worm fence furnishing an ideal seat.
Further, every field boasted trees, self-planted, sprung from chance
seed vagrantly cast. These volunteer trees often had the very best
fruit--perhaps because only peaches of superior excellence had been
worth carrying a-field. Tilth also helped--the field trees bent and
often broke under their fruity burdens. It was only when late frosts
made half or three parts of the young fruit drop, that we knew how fine
and beautiful these field peaches could be. Our trees, being all
seedlings, were in a degree, immortelles. Branches, even trunks might
bend and break, but the seminal roots sent up new shoots next season,
which in another year, bore fruit scantily. Still, these renewals never
gave quite such perfect fruit as grew upon vigorous young trees, just
come to full bearing.
Here or there a plantation owner like my starch and stately grandfather,
turned surplus peaches into brandy. In that happy time excise was--only
a word in the dictionary, so the yield of certain trees, very
free-bearing, of small, deep, red, clear-seed fruit, was allowed to get
dead-ripe on the trees, then mashed to a pulp in the cider trough, and
put into stands to ferment, then duly distilled. Barrelled, after two
years in the lumber house, it was racked into clean barrels, and some
part of it converted into "peach and honey," the favorite gentleman's
tipple. Strained honey was mixed with the brandy in varying
proportions--the amount depending somewhat upon individual tastes. Some
used one measure of honey to three of brandy, others put one to two,
still others, half and half, qualifying the sweetness by adding neat
brandy at the time of drinking. Peach and honey was kept properly in
stone jugs or in demijohns, improved mightily with age, and was, at its
best, to the last degree insidious. Newly mixed it was heady, but after
a year or more, as smooth as oil, and as mellow. The honey had something
to do with final excellence. That which the bees gathered from wild
raspberries in flower, being very clear, light-colored and
fine-flavored, was in especial request.
I think these peaches of the brandy orchards traced back to those the
Indians, Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees, planted in the mountain
valleys of Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. They got
the seed from early Spaniard voyagers to Florida. There was indeed a
special Indian peach, as dark-skinned as its namesake, blood-red inside
and out, very sweet and full of juice, if permitted to ripen fully--but
as ill-tasting almost as a green persimmon, if unripe. There were
clearstone and clingstone sorts, and one tree differed from another in
glory of flavor, even as one star. That was the charm of our
seedlings--which had further a distinction of flavor no commercial fruit
ever yet owned.
August peaches were for drying--in September, early, came the Heaths,
for preserves, brandy fruit, and so on. October peaches, nearly all
clear-seed, made the finest peach butter. Understand, in those days,
canning, known as "hermetic sealing," was still a laboratory process. I
wonder if anybody else recalls, as I do, the first editions of fruit
cans? They were of tin, tall and straight, with a flaring upstanding
tin ruffle around the tops. The ruffle was for holding the sealing wax,
into which the edge of the tin top was thrust. They did not last
long--pretty soon, there were cans of the present shape--but sealing
them with wax was hard work, likewise uncertain. Women everywhere should
rise and call blessed he who invented the self-sealing jar.
Return we to our peach butter. It began in cider--the cider from fall
apples, very rich and sweet. To boil it down properly required a battery
of brass kettles swung over a log fire in the yard, the same as at
drying up lard time. Naturally brass kettles were at a premium--but
luckily everybody did not make peach butter, so it was no strain upon
neighborly comity to borrow of such. It took more than half a day to
boil down the cider properly--kettles were filled up constantly as there
was room. By and by, when the contents became almost syrup, peaches went
in--preferably the late, soft, white ones, dead ripe, very juicy, and
nearly as sweet as sugar. After the kettles were full of them, peeled
and halved, of course, the boiling went on until the fruit was mushy.
Constant stirring helped to make it so. Fresh peaches were added twice,
and cooked down until the paddle stood upright in the middle of the
kettle. Then came the spicing--putting in cloves, mace, bruised ginger,
and alspice--sparingly, but enough to flavor delicately. If the white
peaches ran short, there might be a supplemental butter-making when the
Red Octobers came in, at the very last of the month. They were big and
handsome, oval, with the richest crimson cheeks, but nothing like so
sweet as the white ones. So sugar, or honey, was added scantly, at the
end of the boiling down. If it had been put in earlier, it would have
added to the danger of burning.
A six-gallon crock of peach butter was no mean household asset--indeed
it ranked next to the crock of blackberry jam. It was good as a sauce,
or lightly sweetened, to spread on crust. As a filling for roly-polys it
had but one superior--namely dried peaches properly stewed.
Proper stewing meant washing a quart of dry fruit in two waters, soaking
overnight, then putting over the fire in the soaking water, covering
with a plate to hold the fruit down, and simmering at the least five
hours, filling up the kettle from time to time, and adding after the
fruit was soft a pound of sugar. Then at the very last spices to taste
went in. If the fruit were to be eaten along with meat, as a relish, a
cupful of vinegar was added after the sugar. This made it a near
approach to the finest sweet pickle. But as Mammy said often: "Dried
peaches wus good ernough fer anybody--dest by dee sefs, dry so."
Apple drying commonly came a little before peach. Horse apples, the best
and plentiest, ripened in the beginning of August. They were kiln-dried,
or scaffold-dried, and much less tedious than peaches since they were
sliced thin. When they got very mellow, drying ceased--commonly
everybody had plenty by that time--and the making of apple butter began.
It differed little from peach butter in the making, though mightily in
taste--being of a less piquant flavor. Cider, newly run was essential to
any sort of butter--hence the beating was done before breakfast. Cider
mills were not--but cider troughs abounded. They were dug from huge
poplar logs, squared outside with the broad axe, and adzed within to a
smooth finish. Apples well washed, were beaten in them with round headed
wooden pestles, and pressed in slat presses, the pomace laid on clean
straw, after the manner of cider pressing in English orchards. The first
runnings, somewhat muddy, were best for boiling down, but the clear last
runnings drank divinely--especially after keeping until there was just
the trace of sparkle to them.
Winter cider was commonly allowed to get hard. So was that meant for
distilling--apple brandy was only second to peach. But a barrel or keg,
would be kept sweet for women, children, and ministers--either by
smoking the inside of a clean barrel well with sulphur before putting in
the cider, or by hanging inside a barrel nearly full, a thin muslin bag
full of white mustard seed. Cider from russets and pear apples had a
peculiar excellence, so was kept for Christmas and other high days.
Pear cider--perry--we knew only in books. Not through lack of pears but
inclination to make it. Pears were dried the same as other fruit, but
commonly packed down after drying in sugar. Thus they were esteemed
nearly as good as peach chips, or even peach leather.
Peach chips were sliced thin, packed down in their own weight of sugar
and let stand twenty-four hours to toughen. Then the syrup was drained
from them, boiled, skimmed clean, spiced with mace and lemon peel, and
the slices dropped into it a few at a time and cooked until sweet
through. Then they were skimmed out, spread on dishes well sprinkled
with sugar, dredged with more sugar, set under glass in sunshine and
turned daily until dry. They were delicious, and served as other
confections--passed around with nuts and wine, or eaten instead of
candy.
So were cherries, dried in exactly the same manner, after pitting. When
dried without sugar they were used for cooking. So also were tomato
figs. Yellow tomatoes, smooth and even were best--but red ones
answered--the meatier the better. After scalding, peeling, soaking an
hour in clear lime-water to harden, they were rinsed clean, then dropped
in thick boiling syrup, a few at a time, simmered an hour, then skimmed
out, drained, sugared and dried under glass in the sun, or failing
sunshine, upon dishes in a very slow oven. Full-dry, they were packed
down in powdered sugar, in glass jars kept tightly closed. Unless thus
kept they had a knack of turning sticky--which defeated the purpose of
their creation.