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Parisian Pears
6 juicy pears. 1/2 cupful macaroon crumbs 2 tablespoonfuls cream 1 tablespoonful sherry wine 1 teaspoonful vanilla extract 6 rings of angelica 6 candied violets 2 cupfuls steamed ric Peel the pears and stew them in a little sugar syrup flavored with vanilla. Take them out when tender, cut them in halves, and remove the centers.
Mix the macaroon crumbs with the cream and the sherry wine, and divide them into the pear cavities. Cook the rice in milk till tender and flavor it with a little vanilla extract. Line some flange ramequins
The text as printed is both garbled and truncated: the pears themselves never appear in the ingredient list, "steamed ric" is rice, and the method breaks off at "Line some flange ramequins." What follows is enough to reconstruct the dish, but treat the printed instructions as a sketch rather than a complete procedure.
- The missing quantityThe garnish is counted in sixes, which points to six filled halves, i.e. three pears; the printed text gives no number, so any figure is a reconstruction. Firm, slightly underripe Bosc or Anjou hold their shape in syrup; a ripe Bartlett will collapse.
- How it was meant to finishThe text breaks off at the lining of the ramekins. A plausible completion is to line them with the vanilla rice, set a filled pear half in the centre, smooth the top and turn out, with the angelica and violets added last; on this reading the rice is the mould, not a sauce. This is inference, not what the page states.
- Flange ramequinsSmall individual dishes with a flat projecting rim. Any 4 o 6 oz ramekin or dariole mould does the job; butter them lightly if you intend to unmould.
- MacaroonsThese are the crisp almond macaroons of the period — amaretti are the closest supermarket equivalent. Coconut macaroons are a different confection entirely and will not crumble to the same dry, absorbent texture.
- Angelica and candied violetsAngelica is the candied green stem of Angelica archangelica, once a staple of the confectioner's counter and now largely a specialty import. Candied violets are still made in France; strips of candied citron or a green-tinted candied peel stand in for the angelica if need be.
- The poaching syrup"A little sugar syrup" is not specified; a light syrup of about equal parts sugar and water, enough to cover, works. Poach at a bare simmer until a skewer meets no resistance, 15 o 25 minutes depending on ripeness, and let the pears cool in the syrup so they do not dry out.
- The riceTwo cupfuls of cooked rice, not raw. Short-grain rice simmered slowly in milk until it is soft and thick enough to hold a shape is what is wanted; long-grain will not bind and the moulds will slump.
- YieldSix ramekins, one pear half each, as a light dessert following a substantial meal.
Casserole cookery books appeared in numbers in the early twentieth century, when fireproof earthenware and glass made it practical to cook and serve in the same vessel. A dessert like this one is French in idiom rather than in origin: poached pears set on sweetened milk rice is the family of dishes descended from poires Cond " labelian" label is often said to have been used loosely by English-language cookbook writers for anything finished with candied fruit and a spoonful of sherry. The angelica and candied violets place it firmly in the confectioner's vocabulary of the period, when a dessert was judged partly on its colour scheme; both had largely vanished from ordinary home kitchens by mid-century.