Appetite
The place of appetite at the dinner-table cannot be more happily described than by Carême. He was for a time chef to the Prince Regent in England, who devoted about an hour every day to a philosophical discourse with the great artist on dinners past and dinners to come. One day said the Prince, "Carême, you will make me die of indigestion. I want to eat everything you send to table, and the temptation is too great-en vérité." The last two words are no doubt the French way of rendering the Regent's double-shotted language. "Sir," answered Carême truly, "my business is to provoke your appetite; it is not for me to regulate it."
APPLE is the best known and most useful fruit in England. The crab or wild apple is indigenous; the cultivated kinds have been introduced at different times, beginning with the Romans, who were fond of them, and had a proverb founded on the fact that a Roman meal set out with eggs and ended with apples-"ab ovo usque ad mala." There has long been a theory current to account for the scarcity of certain kinds of apples-and it is sure to live for ages among the fruiterers, although it is now quite exploded among scientific gardeners-that an apple lasts no longer than its original tree. Say that the tree lasts for 200 years: at the end of that time the slips and grafts Apple which have been taken, at ever so many removes, from this tree will cease to bear, though themselves quite recent. If there is a scarcity of any kind of apple, it is through neglect. The redstreak, which Sir Isaac Newton loved, and which was our most popular apple in the seventeenth century, is dying out, simply because it is not sufficiently prized : it is replaced by better varieties everywhere, except in the cider counties, where it is found useful. The oldest apple of which we have any record in England is the pearmain : it dates many centuries back, and it shows no sign of decay. It is a curious fact, however, with regard to the old winter pearmain, which is supposed to be the father of all the other varieties of pearmain, that it ripens in December. Now, the earliest record of the pearmain occurs in a tenure in the county of Norfolk, which bears the date 1200, and requires that 200 pearmains and four hogsheads of pearmain cider should be paid into the Exchequer yearly at Michaelmas. This surely implies that the pearmain was ripe before Michaelmas, and there is indeed a pearmain, by some called the summer, by others the autumn pearmain, which ripens early in September. Dr. Hogg, however, who is the chief authority on apples in this country, has decided that the old pearmain is the winter variety. He has also explained that the last syllable of the name is the same as in the old spelling of Charlemaine. Pearmain therefore means an apple like a great pear.
There are about 1500 varieties of apple named. It will be enough here to give the names of about fifty of the best, in the order of the months in which they ripen. The names of the months mentioned after them show the length of time they ought to keep if well looked after. It is curious to note that, unlike other fruits, the best apples, and those which keep the longest, are those which ripen latest.
Apple Dessert Apples June-Joanneting. (August.) This is commonly called June-eating, and the dictionaries spell it jenneting. It really means "little John," after John the Baptist, whose day, the 24th of June, ought to see it ripe. It is the earliest of all the apples; but in England we can seldom count on it before July. It does not keep long.
July-Early Harvest. (August.) Of American origin.
Margaret. (August.) A conical, green-yellow apple, named after St. Margaret's day, 20th July, when it ought to be ripe. It soon turns mealy.
August-King of the Pippins. (September.) Ovate or conical.
September-Summer Pearmain. (October.) Gravenstein. (October.) An apple of German origin. October-Another King of the Pippins, but not the true; better called Hampshire Yellow, or Golden Winter Pearmain. Lasts till January. Golden Reinette. (January.) Api, or Lady Apple. (April.) Named from the forest of Api, in Brittany, where first discovered. November-Fearn's Pippin (February.) Blenheim Pippin. (February.) Herefordshire Pearmain. (February.) Ribston Pippin. (March.) The favourite apple of England. Golden Pippin. (April.) One of the oldest English apples. The Empress Catherine of Russia was so fond of it that every year she had supplies of it sent from England, each apple wrapped in silver paper. Reinette de Canada. (April.) Bradick's Nonpareil. (April.) Winter Pearmain the oldest of English apples. (April.) - December-Dutch Mignonne, (April.) A German apple. apple. Downton Nonpareil. (April.) Newtown Pippin. (April.) Named after Newtown, Long Island.
Appie This apple is imported from America. For more than a hundred years the English gardeners have tried to reproduce it, but they cannot reach the flavour of the American stock. Send to Liverpool for a barrel of them. They are cheap enough.
January-Nonpareil. (May.) A Jesuit brought this over from France. Boston Russet. (May.) With a Ribston flavour.
February-Sturmer Pippin. (June.) The last of the Mohicans.
Kitchen Apples Most of these are called codlings-from the old verb to coddle, to boil a little, stew or simmer. The peculiar virtue of a kitchen apple is expressed in a phrase which is a constant reminder of the Garden of Eden-to fall. An apple is said to fall when on being cooked it forms a pulpy mass of equal consistence. Some of the dessert applesas the Wormsley pippin, summer pearmain, golden winter pearmain, Fearn's, Blenheim and Ribston pippins, Herefordshire pearmain, reinette de Canada, Dutch mignonne, Downton nonpareil-have this falling virtue, and may therefore be used in the kitchen. The following are said to be unfit for dessert, and are used only for cooking. But all depends on taste, and a lady of very good taste has been heard to say that Sops-in-wine is the most heavenly of the apples, and might well tempt an innocent in Paradise or reward a goddess on Mount Ida.
August-Keswick Codling. (September.) Codling. (December.) Carlisle October-Hawthornden Codling. (December.) An apple found in the poetical garden of Drummond of Hawthornden. Beauty of Kent. (February.) Sopsin-Wine. (February.) A very ancient English culinary and cider apple.
Apple November (February.) Newtown Spitzemberg.
Named by William Cobbett "the matchless." Bedfordshire Foundling. (March.) December-Norfolk Beefing. (June.) Pleasant as the apple is by itself, it needs assistance in cooking. Its taste requires nearly always to be heightened by other fruity flavours, to be crossed with spices, to be enriched with butter, or to be magnified in contrast with sugars and creams. For the fruity flavour it mixes best with apricots or quinces; a mash or marmalade of either of these is excellent in any of the cooked preparations; and the addition of lemon-juice is almost imperative. For spicy additions the old English way was to add cloves to every form of baked apple, but especially to apple-pie; now it is more usual to employ ground cinnamon; and nutmeg, and the zest of either lemons or oranges, are also in favour. Butter, in combination with sugar, gives a peculiar richness to cooked apples; but for the most part it should not be added till the last moment and not at all if the apples are to be eaten cold. Sugar helps the apple much-even a sweet one-in the cooking; but if it is necessary to add sugar at table, there is more of a flavour that goes well with the apple in some of the best brown sorts than in pounded loaf-sugar. Cream also is generally added at the table, and all the world knows how its blandness contrasts with and brings into relief the fine acid of the fruit. Which of these helps shall be chosen for the apple must be left to individual taste and to the accidents of time and place. They are more or less required for every form of cooked apple, and the reader will understand this if no further mention should be made of their necessity in some of the following receipts. Two words more. The first-that apples, as fast as they are peeled and cut, must be thrown into cold water to keep Apple them white; and lemon-juice will recover their whiteness if they should happen to lose it. The second that it is always good to follow the Continental plan of dividing cooked apples into two portions: the one to be cooked longer than the other, and reduced to a mash or marmalade. In a pie, for example, place a mash or marmalade of apples at the bottom of the dish, and heap on this the raw slices, which are to be baked enough, but not so much as to lose their solidity.
Black Caps. This is the primitive form. When Eve cooked apples for Adam, she must have baked them in their skins. The form is kept up when its meaning has departed. Apples were baked in their skins upon ashes, or under or before a fire. from which there was danger of ashes. The skins were often burnt on one side, and made black caps. But now what do we do? We punch out the cores, and the apples have no longer a protection from ashes. We therefore bake them in an oven or in a casserole; and then, to make believe that we cooked them before the fire, we pass a salamander over them, to produce the primæval black caps. Some people would imagine that it was time to seek another world if black caps were abolished. They are essential to the existence of the human race.
Baked Apples. -The apples are peeled, cored, and arranged on a dish. The hollows are filled with sugar and sprinkled with cinnamon. Some sugar may be placed round them, with a spoonful or two of water. They are then baked in the oven.
Buttered Apples. - The same as the foregoing, with this difference-that the hollows of the apples are filled with butter as well as sugar; and that, instead of putting water in the dish, there is a mash or marmalade of apples, or it may be of apricots.
Stewed Apples or Compôte.-Simmer the apples, peeled and cored, with clarified sugar and lemon-juice; also a Apple scrape of the lemon-rind. Serve them with custard or cream.
Apples and Rice. - Either proceed as for buttered apples, but placing them in a bed of sweetened and buttered rice instead of the apple marmalade; or else take stewed apples and arrange them on rice which has been cooked in sugar, milk and salt, with lemon-peel. In either case finish them in the oven.
Apples and Bread. - This is one of the most perfect of the apple combinations. In its most refined form it is called a Charlotte, and will be found described under that name, which equally applies to apricots and other fruits. A more rough and ready receipt goes by the name of Brown Betty, whose name may be also consulted.
Apple Pie. This English pie is famous all over the world. Prepare the apples according to the general direction given above. Put them in a pie-dish with quinces, for which the preparation will be found under the proper name, with sugar and with whatever spice may be preferred. Make a paste-either No. 4, a puff paste, or No. 7, a short paste. Cover the pie with this paste, first placing a band of it round the wetted edge of the dish; trim it nicely; decorate it with leaves of paste: egg it over, and bake it in the oven for three-quarters of an hour.
Apple Tart. Sufficiently described once for all under the head of tart, which is not to be confounded with pie. Pies are covered; tarts open.
Apple Turnover. - Roll out a short paste, and cut it in rounds. Put some stewed apples, with proper seasoning, on one side of the round; turn over the paste so as to make a semicircle. Close the edges, trim them, and bake them in a moderate oven for twenty minutes.
Apple Pudding. -Cut a dozen apples in quarters, toss them with an ounce of butter, sugar and spices, over a slow Apricot fire till they begin to soften, and then let them get cold. Line a pudding-basin with paste No. 8; put in the apples, cover all over, tie it in a cloth, and boil it for an hour and a half.
Apple Pudding of Nottingham. - Arrange the apples in a pie-dish as for baking-the hollows filled with sugar and sprinkled with cinnamon. Pour over them a light batter -the best is described among the fritters, No. 1-and bake for three-quarters of an hour.
Apple Fritters.- Steep the apples for an hour beforehand in brandy and sugar, and then proceed as for other fritters.
Apple Sauce may be made by stewing the apples; but best by baking or roasting them. When they have fallen, beat them smooth with a wooden spoon, pass them through a sieve, and add to them a very little sugar. Nearly all the receipts recommend a tiny bit of butter: but the quantity is so small as to be inappreciable, and is only mentioned because cooks are afraid of simplicity. No butter, therefore.