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GREENGAGES, COMPOTE OF (a German recipe)
Take one pint of very ripe greengages, peel off the skins, and put the plums into a glass dish, with half a pound of pounded loaf sugar strewn over them. In two or three hours sufficient syrup will have been drawn from them. Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A no-cook compote that relies entirely on maceration: sugar draws juice out of ripe fruit and makes its own syrup. Everything depends on the plums.
- The hinge: ripenessThere is no heat here to soften anything, so underripe greengages will stay firm and yield almost no juice. Use fruit that gives to gentle pressure and smells honeyed.
- A pint of plumsThe pint is a measure of volume, not weight; a pint of whole greengages comes to somewhere in the region of 1 lb / 450 g. The recipe asks only that they be peeled; it says nothing about halving or stoning.
- Loaf sugar, poundedSugar came as a hard cone to be broken and crushed at home. Caster sugar is the direct modern equivalent and dissolves faster; granulated works but needs longer to draw the syrup.
- Half a pound is generous225 g of sugar to roughly a pound of fruit is about one part sugar to two of fruit by weight. Ripe greengages are already sweet; 100–150 g gives plenty of syrup without burying the fruit's flavour.
- PeelingGreengage skins are thin but cling. A 15–20 second dip in boiling water followed by cold water loosens them, as with peaches; do it before stoning so the fruit holds together.
- Two or three hoursThe recipe reckons this enough to draw a syrup. Longer — up to overnight, covered in the refrigerator — draws more juice and softens the fruit further. Stir once or twice.
- ServingEnough for three or four as written. It suits cream, thick yoghurt or a plain sponge, and the syrup is worth spooning over rather than draining away.
The greengage is the same plum the French call reine-claude, after Claude of France; the English name is traditionally traced to the Gage family of Suffolk, who are said to have introduced the tree in the early eighteenth century after its label was lost in transit. Cassell's marks this version as German, and the label fits: Kompott in German usage covers fruit prepared with sugar and served cool alongside or after a meal, and not every version involves cooking. A raw sugared compote of this kind belongs to the brief late-summer window when greengages are at their best, when heat would only dull a fruit already at its peak. The stated cost of sixpence places it among the cheaper sweet dishes in the book, which is a reminder that stone fruit in season was ordinary domestic fare rather than a luxury.