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Normandy Pippins, Stewed
Take half a pound of Normandy pippins. Let them soak for an hour or two in a pint and a half of water in which has been put an inch of whole ginger and a quarter of a tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon. At the end of that time put them into a stewpan, with the thin rind of a large lemon and two ounces of sugar, and let them simmer gently until they are half done, then add another two ounces of sugar. When quite tender, take out the pippins, and place them in a glass dish: strain the gravy, flavour it if wished either with a glass of port or the strained juice of the lemon, pour it over the pippins, and place a small piece of lemon-rind upon each. Normandy pippins are delicious when eaten with Devonshire cream, and the appearance of the dish is improved if a small knob of cream is placed between the apples. Time to stew, about three hours. Sufficient for four or five persons. Probable cost, 10d. per pound.
A Victorian compote of dried apples, slow-simmered in spiced syrup. The only real difficulty is knowing what "Normandy pippins" are.
- Normandy pippinsNot fresh apples but dried ones, sold by weight. Dried apple rings from a health-food shop are the nearest substitute, though they are peeled and will soften far faster than three hours. Half a pound is roughly 225 g and swells to a surprising volume.
- Soak first, and keep the waterThe hour or two in spiced water is not idle time; it is where the fruit takes up the ginger and cinnamon. The same liquid becomes the syrup, so do not drain it away.
- Quantities in modern termsA pint and a half is 30 fl oz in British measure, about 850 ml. The two lots of two ounces of sugar are 55 g each, 110 g in all.
- Why the sugar is added in two stagesSugar firms fruit tissue, which is the likely reason for splitting it: the first two ounces sweeten the liquid, and the second two go in only once the fruit has begun to yield.
- An inch of whole gingerThis means a piece of dried root ginger, the hard pale kind, not a slice of the fresh rhizome. Fresh will work but gives a hotter, greener note; bruise it and fish it out before serving.
- Heat and timeA bare simmer throughout — the surface should barely tremble. Three hours is realistic for genuine whole dried pippins; check at intervals and stop when a skewer meets no resistance. Boiling collapses them into sauce.
- Reducing the syrupThe strained liquid is often thin. Boil it down by half before adding the port or lemon juice, and add either off the heat so the flavour is not driven off.
- ServingFour or five portions. Devonshire cream means clotted cream. The glass dish suggests it was served cold or barely warm, set in its syrup, though the recipe does not say so.
"Pippin" originally meant an apple raised from seed rather than a graft, and by the eighteenth century the word had settled onto a family of firm, sharp keeping apples. Normandy pippins were not a variety at all but a commodity: whole apples dried hard, said to come from northern France, and sold by the pound in British grocers. They were winter fruit for households with no fresh apples left in store, and cookery books of the period treat them as a standard pantry item needing long soaking and longer stewing. The inclusion of the probable cost — tenpence a pound — places the dish among the affordable middle-class sweets, and the note about Devonshire cream is the flourish that lifts a dish of stewed dried fruit into something fit for a glass dish on the table.