Home › Vinegar, Pickles, and Pickling › Vinegar, Pickles, and Pickling: Fruit

Vinegar, Pickles, and Pickling: Fruit

Lath Boxes for Vegetables and Fruit. Cut end pieces of inch thick pine stuff 14 inches long and 12 inches deep. Cut laths 17½ inches long which will give two pieces for each lath. Tack these laths to the end pieces to form two sides and the bottom, having the thickness of one lath between every two. Cut holes about 3½ inches long and 1 inch or more deep in the two ends about 3 or 4 inches from the top as handles, and use these boxes for picking up apples, potatoes, onions, and other vegetables, and storing them for winter use.

Packing Fruit. -- Carefully pick over the fruit and discard all windfalls, and specked or wormy specimens. For an extra fine quality, wrap each fruit in tissue paper.

Pack in clean, dry, flour barrels and pour over the top dry sand or road dust, shaking it down until the barrel is full. Place the barrels in a cellar or other cool place where they will not freeze.

Evaporated Apples. - To dry or evaporate apples, peel and core them and cut across in thin slices. Let the slices fall into cold water to prevent their rusting. When all are sliced, and in readiness, lay the slices on a large piece of cheese cloth and baste them to this by means of a darning needle and suitable cotton thread, taking a stitch through each slice, so that it will lie flat and keep in place.

Suspend the cheese cloth out of doors by the four corners to suitable stakes, high enough to be out of the reach of small animals, spread another thickness of cheese cloth over the fruit and expose to direct sunlight. Be sure to take them in before dew falls. When sufficiently dry store them in a dark place. This is the cheapest and most convenient way to dry apples, and the color will be nearly equal to that of the commercial article.

Or thin trays or slats about 1 of an inch in width may be tacked together, the apples spread on these and covered with cheese cloth to prevent the fruit turning dark.

Storing Nuts. - Pack walnuts in jars, boxes, or casks between layers of fine dry sand. If they have become shriveled, let them stand overnight in skimmed milk or a solution of milk and water. Chestnuts and filberts may also be stored in the same manner.

Almonds. - Buy for domestic use the sweet almond, as the bitter almond contains prussic acid which is a deadly poison. To freshen almonds place them while still in the shells in a colander set in a basin of cold water and bring to a boil. Lift them out, peel them as quickly as possible and drop the kernels into cold water.

Never leave almonds in boiling water to cool as it is likely to make them bitter.

To roast almonds for salting or bonbons, put them in an ordinary corn popper and shake them over a brisk fire.