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Apricots, Compote Of
Take one dozen large sound apricots; halve them, remove the stones, and blanch the kernels. Put three-quarters of a pound of loaf sugar into an enamelled stewpan with a pint and a half of water. Let it boil; then put in the apricots, and let them simmer very gently for a few minutes. Take them out, drain them, and arrange them in a dish. When the syrup is cold, pour it over the fruit. Put half a kernel upon each piece of apricot. Probable cost, 1s. 3d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
The poached fruit and syrup are straightforward Victorian work, but the garnish the recipe insists on — half an apricot kernel on every piece — is the reason this page cannot be followed as printed.
- The kernels are the problemApricot kernels contain amygdalin, which the body converts to hydrogen cyanide. Bitter varieties can carry a few milligrams of cyanide per gram of kernel. Blanching, as the recipe directs, is done to slip the skins; it leaches and denatures some of the amygdalin but should not be relied on to make a bitter kernel safe. Twelve kernels split into twenty-four halves across four or five people is several kernels a head, which for bitter kernels can exceed the acute intake modern food-safety authorities advise against, and bitterness, not appearance, is the only rough guide to which kind you have.
- Why Victorian cooks did it anywayThe kernel was valued precisely for its bitter, marzipan-like note, the same flavour then supplied by bitter almonds and by ratafia. The toxicity of bitter kernels was known in the period, but the quantities used in confectionery were treated as acceptable in a way a modern kitchen would not. Use a current apricot compote recipe rather than adapting this one.
- Loaf sugarRefined sugar sold in a hard cone, broken off and crushed as needed. Ordinary granulated white sugar is the direct equivalent by weight; three-quarters of a pound is 12 oz, about 1 3/4 cups.
- Enamelled stewpanSpecified because bare copper and iron discoloured fruit and reacted with its acid. Any non-reactive pan — stainless steel, enamelled cast iron — answers the same purpose.
- The syrup is deliberately thinA pint and a half of water to twelve ounces of sugar is a light syrup, meant to stay liquid and clear rather than set. It is poured over cold so the fruit does not go on cooking and collapse.
- "A few minutes" means very fewRipe halved apricots hold their shape for perhaps three to five minutes at a bare simmer. Past that the flesh slumps off the skin and the compote becomes a purée in syrup.
- Probable cost1s. 3d. is one shilling and threepence in pre-decimal British currency — a figure Cassell's gave so a household could budget a menu, not a measurement.
Compote is simply fruit poached in sugar syrup and served in its own liquid — a dessert course that sat between the plain stewed fruit of the nursery and the elaborate moulded creams of a dinner party. The method is a template: the same syrup, the same brief poach, works for peaches, greengages or pears. The kernel garnish reflects a long European habit of treating the stone as a flavouring rather than waste; bitter almond, ratafia and apricot kernel were used for much the same effect in nineteenth-century confectionery, and the practice fell away as the cyanogenic chemistry of the seeds came to be better understood and regulated. The costing in shillings and pence, given throughout the book, marks it as a manual for a household budgeting a weekly food allowance.