Pears.—Fine-flavored pears should be served whole; inferior pears, sliced and dredged with sugar; they are acceptable when mixed with other fruits.
Pineapples are best served as a salad. Pare and dig out the eyes; take hold of the crown of the pine with the left hand; take a fork in the right hand, and with it tear the pine into shreds, until the core is reached, which throw away. Arrange the shredded fruit lightly in a compote, add a liberal quantity of powdered sugar, a wine-glassful of Curaçoa, and half a wine-glassful of brandy.
Alternate layers of shredded pineapple and fresh cocoanut served with a sauce of orange juice, seasoned with sugar and liquors, is excellent.
Plums are too often picked before they are quite ripe, which prevents them from becoming popular as a breakfast fruit; this is true of Apricots also.
Strawberries are often objectionable, owing to grit; wash, or rather rinse them in water, drain on a napkin, and serve with vanilla-flavored whipped cream for a change.
Nearly all tropical fruits that are imported are excellent breakfast fruits, such as the alligator pear, Lechosa prickly pear, pomegranate, tropical mango, and many others.
BEVERAGES.
Coffee.—The coffee-tree is a much-branched tree of the cinchona family, not exceeding twenty feet in height, and much resembling a cherry-tree. Its pale green leaves are about six inches in length. The flowers are in clusters in the axils of the leaves, are white in color, resembling orange-tree flowers, and perfume the air. The fruit on ripening turns from green to red, and is about the size of a cherry or cranberry, each containing two seeds closely united by their flat sides. These being removed and separated, become the coffee of commerce.