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Figs, Green, Compote Of
Boil one pound of sugar with a pint and a half of water and the rind of half a lemon; take off the scum as it appears, and when it has boiled a quarter of an hours, put in one pint and a half of green figs, and simmer them very slowly till tender, adding a little port wine or lemon-juice. Remove the figs, and boil the syrup up quickly; pour it over the figs, and when cold serve on a glass dish. Time, two to three hours to stew the figs. Probable cost, 2s. to 3s. per dozen.
A straightforward sugar-syrup compote, but two things in it will trip up a modern cook: figs measured by volume, and a stewing time written for hard, unripe fruit.
- "Green figs" means unripe"Green figs" -- The term in Victorian books can mean either fresh figs (as against dried) or small, firm, immature fruit picked before it softens; the two-to-three-hour stew points to the latter, the same sort of fruit used for green fig preserves. Whichever is meant, ripe supermarket figs will collapse long before that, so the long time is not transferable.
- A pint and a half of figsFruit measured by volume is inexact; a pint and a half of small whole figs comes to roughly 1 to 1½ lb depending on size, or about 12 to 16 fruit. Weigh rather than fill a jug.
- The syrup1 lb sugar to 1½ pints water is about 2¼ cups sugar to 3 cups water (using US measures; the original imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so nearer 3½ cups). It is a thin syrup on purpose — it thickens over the long cook and again in the final fast boil.
- Skim before the fruit goes inThe quarter-hour boil with skimming clarifies the syrup. The recipe has the figs go in only afterwards; in practice this also spares them being disturbed once they are in the pan and softening.
- Lemon rind, not zest and not pithPare the rind off in strips with a knife or peeler and leave the white behind; half a lemon's worth of pith will turn the syrup bitter over three hours.
- Port or lemon juice near the endPort or lemon juice -- The recipe adds these during the slow simmer; either will contribute acidity and, in the case of port, colour and flavour. If you prefer to keep the wine's character, add it towards the end rather than at the start.
- Reducing the syrupLift the figs out with a slotted spoon before boiling the syrup hard, or they will break up. Reduce until it coats a spoon, then pour over while still hot so it soaks in as it cools.
- Yield and servingRoughly four to six as a dessert, on the quantities given. Serve cold, as directed; cream or a plain custard is a reasonable modern accompaniment, though the recipe asks only for a glass dish. Covered and chilled it will keep a few days.
- The cost note"2s. to 3s." is pre-decimal shillings, apparently reckoned per dozen figs. Either way it marks fresh green figs as a costly ingredient in a British kitchen rather than a throwaway one.
Compotes — fruit poached whole or in pieces in sugar syrup and served in its own liquor — came into English cookery from French practice, and by the late nineteenth century general household dictionaries commonly carried a run of them arranged by fruit. Green figs are the interesting case: unripe figs are astringent and hard, unpalatable raw, and the long slow stew in syrup is the traditional way of making them edible, a technique still followed in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern green fig preserves. Fresh figs reached British kitchens as an expensive import, which explains why Cassell's bothers to quote a price per dozen, and why the recipe treats a pint and a half of them as a quantity worth handling carefully. The port wine is a period signature: a splash of fortified wine in stewed fruit was near-standard in Victorian sweet cookery, doing the work of colouring.