Fruit recipes

Slice, pare, and dice three pounds of pineapple. Place in preserving kettle, add one quart of water and one pound of sugar. Cook till very soft, when the fruit should be mashed and strained. Replace in kettle and to each pint of juice add one pound of sugar and cook to a rich syrup. Bottle when hot and cork tightly and it will be ready for use at any time for sauces or drinks. PINEAPPLE PUNCH Grate one fresh pine or use a quart can of the preserved, grated apple, or chop fine one can of the sliced pineapple. Add to this at least one quart syrup from any preferred fruit, preserved or fresh (as canned raspberries, cherries, fresh strawberries, or oranges, etc.), also a half dozen each of lemons and oranges, unless the latter have been used with the pineapple, when substitute lime or grape-fruit in sufficient proportion. The citrus fruit juice prepared, may be squeezed out and the pulp allowed to remain in the fruit or may be sliced across very thin. Over this pour a hot syrup made as for ices (see Introductory Recipes) and let stand about three hours when strain and add a half gallon of ice water and shaved ice. (The preserved fruit added need not be strained out or, if preferred, fresh, diced, or sliced fruit may be substituted.) PINEAPPLE CHAMPAGNE For this the parings alone may be used or in conjunction with the chopped fruit, allowing to and pouring over the parings of one small pine a pint of boiling water. After letting it steep till cold sweeten to taste, then strain and bottle, fastening corks very tight. If kept in warm place (bottles on the side) it should be ready in twenty-four hours. When ripe cool the bottles in ice water. PINEAPPLE BEER This, while similar, is more simple than the “‘ champagne.” The parings must stand in a covered crock for three days— covered with cold water and sweetened to taste. At the end of this time the beer is ready to strain and use. PINEAPPLE VINEGAR Pineapple parings should never be thrown away as there is no finer vinegar in the world in flavour and colour than that made from pineapples. The fruit parings (fruit may also be added) should be placed in crocks and covered with water, sugar or syrup being added in quantity according to the condition of the fruit, and allowed to ferment thoroughly. When this has been accomplished—watched and skimmed meantime—-the vinegar must be strained from the fruit and placed in jars or bottles. CHAPTER XX THE BANANA, (Musa, Nat. Ord. Musacee) ERHAPS no form of plant-life, with the exception of the palm, is more typically tropical in appearance than the Musa (including both plantain and banana); none is more widely cultivated through the variations of the warmer climates, and nothing has ever been found in the vegetable kingdom which could with such entire satisfaction or in so wholesale a manner take its place in the countries where it grows. The names of the plantain (‘‘type of the species’), M. paradisiaca, and a variety of it, M. sapientum, or ‘‘horse banana,” indicate the esteem in which this fruit-food is held—its honour ‘in its own country.”” The former was so called by the early oriental Christians, it is said, who, venturing boldly to differ from those idealists mentioned in connection with other fruits, betrayed a certain materialistic tendency in imagining the banana to have been the cause of the dissension in the original garden. If it was there was indeed irony in the wisdom of the serpent’s choice (or must we credit him with kindly foresight?), as the plantain provides not only food and drink for man and beast but shelter, since the large leaves make an excellent thatch, and also, we are told, readily furnish ‘‘table covers and parasols!’’ ‘‘Sapientum” means ‘‘of the wise men,” in allusion to the choice of the banana as food by the wise men of India—this according to Theophrastus.