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Stewed Figs
Stew one pound of figs in water until tender, then add one cup of vinegar, one pound of sugar, and cook slowly a long time until a rich syrup is made. Nice to serve with meats.
— Mrs. Elmer P. Miller
A sweet-sour fig conserve of the kind Victorian and Edwardian cooks kept on hand to serve alongside roast meats. The method is sound; the original simply assumes knowledge a modern cook may not have.
- Which figsA pound of figs in a village receipt book of this period means dried figs, sold whole and hard. Stem them and cover with water by an inch; they will take 30-45 minutes to soften. Fresh figs need no preliminary stewing at all and will collapse if given it.
- The vinegarThe recipe does not say which vinegar; in an American household of this period cider vinegar is the likeliest, and it remains the closest match. White distilled vinegar is sharper and flatter, and wine vinegars pull the flavour somewhere else entirely.
- "Cook slowly a long time"Practically, 45 minutes to an hour of gentle simmering after the sugar goes in, uncovered, until the syrup coats a spoon and a spatula drawn through the pan leaves a brief channel. Add the sugar only after the fruit is tender, as the original does; sugar added early keeps the skins tough.
- Stir and watch the endA pound of sugar to a modest amount of liquid will scorch once the water cooks off. Keep the heat low, stir often in the last fifteen minutes, and pull the pan when the syrup is still slightly looser than you want, since it thickens as it cools.
- BalanceA pound of sugar to a cup of vinegar is quite sweet by current taste. Reducing the sugar to about 12 ounces gives a sharper condiment, at the cost of a thinner syrup and shorter keeping.
- Yield and keepingAbout a pint and a half. The recipe gives no canning instructions, so treat it as a refrigerator preserve: cool, cover, and keep chilled for a month or so rather than sealing jars for the shelf.
- Serving"Nice to serve with meats" means ham, cold roast pork, goose, or a strong cheese. A spoonful per plate is plenty.
Sweet-sour fruit relishes like this one bridge the gap between dessert and condiment, a habit English and American cooking held onto well into the twentieth century, when spiced pickled peaches, damson cheese and vinegar-sharpened conserves were standard beside a roast. Figs would have reached an inland household as pressed dried fruit, and along with raisins, currants and prunes they were among the few fruits that could be counted on out of season. Community cookbooks of this sort, credited receipt by receipt to the women who supplied them, record exactly that pantry: shelf-stable imports treated with a generous hand of sugar and vinegar, both of which did the preserving work.