So far as fruits, at least in an uncooked state, have been used as food, they have chiefly been regarded as a dessert, or at most as a condiment. Until within a few years, few regarded them as a principal article—as standing next to bread in point of importance. In treating of these substances as food, I shall simply divide them into Domestic and Foreign.
DIVISION I.—DOMESTIC FRUITS.
Section A.—The large fruits—Apple, Pear, Peach, Quince, etc.
Receipt 1.—The apple. May be baked in tin pans, or in a common bake pan. The sweet apple requires a more intense heat than the sour. The skin may be removed before baking, but it is better to have it remain. The best apple pie in the world is a baked apple.
Receipt 2.—It may be roasted before the fire, by being buried in ashes, or by throwing it upon hot coals, and quickly turning it. The last process is sometimes called hunting it.
Receipt 3.—It may be boiled, either in water alone, or in water and sugar, or in water and molasses. In this case the skin is often removed, that the saccharine matter may the better penetrate the body of the apple.
Receipt 4.—It may also be pared and cored, and then stewed, either alone or with molasses, to form plain apple sauce—a comparatively healthy dish.
Receipt 5.—Lastly, it may be pared and cored, placed in a deep vessel, covered with a plain crust, as wheat meal formed into dough, and baked slowly. This forms a species of pie.
Receipt 6.—The pear is not, in every instance, improved by cookery. Several species, however, are fit for nothing, till mid-winter, when they are either boiled, baked, or stewed.
The peach can hardly be cooked to advantage. It is sometimes cut up, and sprinkled with sugar and other substances.