Peel 1 dozen bananas and cut them in halves. Then cook ½ cup of water with ½ pound of sugar; let boil ten minutes; then add the juice of a lemon; let cook. Add the sliced bananas to the hot syrup and stew slowly until done. Remove the bananas to a dish and pour over the syrup. Serve very cold for dessert.
A heavy sugar syrup poached with fruit, served chilled. The only real difficulties are the syrup ratio and the fact that bananas collapse quickly.
- The syrup is very concentratedHalf a pound of sugar is about 1 cup, against only 1/2 cup water — a two-to-one syrup. Ten minutes of hard boiling will take it well past thread stage and toward caramel. Boil gently, keep a lid on for the first minute or two to wash down crystals, and stop when it is clear and slightly thickened rather than counting the full ten.
- "Let cook" after the lemonPossibly a printer's slip for let cool, though the next sentence calls for the syrup to be hot when the fruit goes in, so a brief return to the boil is at least as likely a reading. The lemon juice is there to invert some of the sugar and keep the syrup from crystallising; it does not need long cooking.
- Stew slowly means barely a simmerBananas go to mush in a few minutes. Slide the halves into the hot syrup off a rolling boil and hold them at the barest tremble for 3-5 minutes, turning once, until translucent at the edges but still holding shape.
- HalvesCut crosswise for compact pieces that hold together, or lengthwise for the more usual presentation. The recipe's later reference to "sliced bananas" simply means the halved fruit.
- Choose firm fruitBananas just short of full ripeness — yellow with green tips — survive poaching. Spotted, fully ripe fruit will disintegrate in the syrup.
- If the syrup sets too thickCooled two-to-one syrup can be almost solid over the fruit. Loosen it with a spoonful or two of hot water while still warm, before pouring over.
- YieldA dozen bananas serves eight to twelve as dessert. Chill several hours; the dish is meant to be eaten cold.
The compote is one of the oldest forms of French fruit cookery, often said to predate jam in the modern sense: fruit gently cooked in sugar syrup and served in its own liquid, distinct from a preserve made to keep. Bananas reached ordinary European and American tables only in the late nineteenth century, once fast steamers with ventilated holds made the fruit cheap enough for daily eating, and a cook of the period might well try to fit this new arrival into an established French format — hence a tropical fruit treated exactly as a cook would treat pears or quinces. A book like this one, organising a year of dishes by nationality, uses that French technique label as its claim to the entry rather than any French origin for the fruit itself. The spelling "bannanes" is the compiler's, not standard French, which is bananes.