Fruit Recipes

Nine hundred ways with fruit, 1907 — apple to pomegranate, each fruit given its history, its food value and its recipes.

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Kumquat Gelatine

Make as for lemon gelatine, using orange or lime juice mixed, or kumquat syrup with a little lemon, adding the sliced fruit.

CHAPTER XVIII THE POMELO (OR "GRAPE-FRUIT"), LIME Tangelo and Citrange IT Tis not strange that so many human beings consider the pomelo the acme of fruit perfection, or that many who at first disliked and merely ate it to follow "fashion" should in time have become extremely fond of it. Years before it had obtained proper recognition among Americans or before its near relation to the socalled "Forbidden Fruit" was generally known in this country it was declared by fruit growers who appreciated it that the pomelo must have been that jewel of the first garden through which the wise serpent tempted Eve and Adam.

The Spaniards introduced the pomelo, like the Seville orange and the lime, into Florida and, though full recognition of its value came late, it has attained remarkable development commercially and horticulturally and now, though for years unsalable in the North, it is the favourite though the highest-priced of breakfast fruits.

The species Decumana, of the citrus family, includes both the shaddock and the pomelo, the latter-pomelanushaving been nicknamed "Grape-Fruit" because of the clustering, grape-like groups in which it grows, but the two fruits, while of the same species, are yet distinct as to horticultural race.

The name "pomelo" seems to have come direct from the Dutch "pompelmoes," and that of "shaddock" was taken from Capt. Shaddock, its godfather, the old sea-captain who is said to have first conveyed it into the West Indies. Under the shaddock comes that variety so long known in Europe as the "Forbidden Fruit."

The world in general has had a mistaken fashion of eating the pomelo before it is mature and thus many times has misjudged its flavour. Most varieties do not really ripen and attain full richness and sweetness until March at the earliest and from then on, through May and into June, are at their best.

While the grape-fruit and lime do not contain so great a percentage of citric acid as does the lemon, yet both have goodly share and like all juicy citrus fruits are antiscorbutic, while in the pomelo there is in addition, though in lesser degree, the same bitter tonic quality possessed by cinchona. The grape-fruit should oftener be eaten in its natural state without wine or sugar, either or both of which, though making it very delicious, perhaps detract from the fullest value of the pomelo.

The lime (C. hystrix acida) elicits almost equally great praise from other humans, the acid varieties as the basis of cooling, wholesome drinks, and the "Sweet Lime" the "Lima dulcis" of Mexico, in some of the more southern of American countries, as a rival of the sweet orange. The tangelo, a cross between the tangerine and pomelo, is the name by which a new group of citrus fruits is called, a group which so far includes but the Nocatee and the Sampson tangelo. Its skin is rather thin and readily removed; its flavour lacking the extreme bitterness, acidity, and sweetness of its parents, yet pronounced in individual flavour. With many people it will take the place of the pomelo as a favourite breakfast fruit, partly because of its more convenient size.

The citrange is still a newer member of the citrus family and also a hybrid, this one the result of the crossing of the common orange with the trifoliate orange, the two varieties thus far in existence (the Rusk and the Willits) being "reciprocal hybrids." The Willits citrange is more tart, more nearly resembles the lemon than does the Rusk, but both varieties are excellent as citrangeade and for general purposes of cookery may be treated as are the orange, lemon and grape-fruit, with the necessary adaptations. The trifoliate orange (C. trifoliata) is the hardy, dwarf, Japanese stock formerly so much used for budding on to. It is thorny and bears a small yellow fruit not over two inches in diameter which is ornamental and aromatic but useless, with its bitter, "gummy" pulp, thick rind and many seeds, for eating.

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