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Prunes Spiced
Prunes may be very simply spiced by stewing, as above, with the addition of a little lemon peel and a half-teaspoon each of allspice and cinnamon, or spicing as for plums, pears, etc., allowing a cup of vinegar to each pint of the dried prunes. (See plums, etc.)
This is a note appended to a plain stewed-prune recipe rather than a standalone method, so it assumes you already have the base in front of you: prunes covered with water and simmered until plump. Two variants are offered — a sweet spiced stew and a vinegar-spiced pickle.
- "As above" means plain stewed prunesThe base is dried prunes soaked and then simmered in water until tender. Cover the fruit by an inch, bring to a bare simmer, and give it 20 to 30 minutes; modern pitted prunes are softer than the dried fruit of the period and will collapse if boiled hard.
- A pint of dried prunesMeasured by volume, not weight — very roughly 12 oz or 340 g. So the pickling version takes one cup of vinegar to that quantity, which is a light pickle rather than a preserving brine.
- Vinegar strengthCider vinegar was the usual household vinegar of the period, though its strength was not standardised. Any standard cider or white wine vinegar works; do not substitute the balsamic or aged vinegars, which are sweeter and will muddy the spice.
- Spiced-plum treatmentThe cross-reference points to the book's spiced-plum method, which in recipes of this kind generally means sugar and vinegar boiled to a syrup with whole spices — stick cinnamon, cloves, allspice berries — the fruit added and simmered briefly, then left to steep. Whole spices in a bag keep the syrup clearer than the ground allspice and cinnamon of the first variant.
- Lemon peelPare it in strips with a vegetable peeler and leave the white pith behind. It is there for aroma, not acidity, and should be lifted out before serving if the prunes sit for more than a day or two.
- Not a canning recipeThere is no processing time, no headspace and no sealing instruction here, and the sugar and acid are not measured for preservation. Treat both versions as refrigerator preserves: cover, chill, and use within two or three weeks.
- Yield and servingA pint of dried prunes swells to roughly a quart of finished fruit. The vinegar version is a condiment — serve it cold with ham, pork, game or cold roast fowl rather than as a dessert.
Prunes are simply dried plums, and the book files them under The Plum for that reason. American cookbooks of the late nineteenth century leaned on them heavily because they kept well in a dry pantry, and gave a household fruit in the months between the end of the canning season and the first of the spring produce. The sweet-and-sour treatment described in the second half, fruit steeped in spiced vinegar syrup, belongs to a much older English tradition of pickled fruit served alongside roast and cold meats, the same family as spiced peaches and pickled pears. It survives on the modern table chiefly in the form of chutney and cranberry sauce.