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The Old Apple Woman
"She sits by the side of a turbulent stream, That rushes and rolls for ever, Up and down like a weary dream In the trance of a burning fever :
Up and down in the long Broadway It flows with its endless paces; Down and up through the noisy day, A river of feet, and of faces.
Withered and dry like a leafless bush That clings to the bank of a torrent.
Year in, year out, in the whirl and the push, She sits, of the city's current.
Apples and cakes, and candy to sell, Daily before her lying; The ragged newsboys know her well, The rich never think of buying.
Year in, year out, in her dingy shawl, The wind and the rain she weathers, Patient and mute at her humble stall; But few are the coppers she gathers.
The loud carts rattle in thunder and dust, Gay Fashion sweeps by in its coaches.
With an absent stare she mumbles her crust, Being past complaint, and reproaches :
Yet in her heart there remains the hope Of a Father's love, and pity:
For her the clouded skies shall ope', And the gates of a heavenly City."
As a remedy against pride, "Bear in mind," said Spurgeon, we are all descended from a certain disreputable old gardener, who was turned out of his Master's garden for stealing His apples."
The wild Apple tree (scrab, or crab), armed with thorns, grows in our fields, and hedgerows, furnishing verjuice in its fruit, which abounds with tannin, and is highly astringent, being of very helpful use against some forms of chronic diarrhea. For crab-apple jam, choose some of the largest crab apples; peel, score, and slice them; to each pound of these add one and a quarter pounds of lump sugar; and boil gently for three-quarters of an hour to a proper consistence. Verjuice also contains citric acid, about ten grains in an ounce. If a piece of a cut crab apple be rubbed on warts first pared to the quick, it will effectually cure them. Warts are brought about by the bacillus porri. "Their disappearance when charmed away by this or that whimsical method, is due," says Dr. Plowright, "to an auto-immunization, such as occurs likewise with regard to ringworm, leaving the child immune for the remainder of its life." But this would not obtain in the case of adults, or old persons, from whose skin warts may be similarly dispelled by incantation, etc. The greater probability is a physical effect produced on their skin by the mental suggestion. Verjuice-formerly verjuyce-may be expressed from other green crude fruits, such as unripe grapes, etc. "Having a crabbed face of her own, she'll eat the less verjuice with her mutton." Again, "His sermons with satire are plenteously verjuiced." Being rich in tannin, verjuice is a most useful application for old sprains. Similarly, a vinegar poultice put on cold is an effectual remedy for sprains and bruises; it will also sometimes arrest the growth of scrofulous enlargements of bones. The poultice should be made with vinegar and oatmeal, or with the addition of breadcrumb, as was directed in the Pharmacopœia Chirurgensis (1794). APRICOT (See MARMALADE).
THE Apricot, Armeniaca, is a beautiful stone fruit, of a rich, reddish, yellow colour, "shining," as Ruskin has said, " in sweet brightness of golden velvet." Its name originated in the Roman epithet "præcox," early; because of its ripening so soon in the season. Shakespeare has told of it as "apricock." At the Cape, Apricots, dried and salted, are commended as remedial against sea sickness. They go by the name of "Mebos," and are a delicious confection.
The stones of Apricots are imported because of their kernels, which contain Noyau freely. At Cairo the pulp is made into a luscious paste, which is slightly dried, and then rolled, incorporating the kernels. In Italy the fruit is cut in half, the stones being removed, and the pulp spread out for a while in a spent
Buried in this ramble through apple lore is a genuine, workable preserve: crab-apple jam at a ratio of one and a quarter pounds sugar to a pound of fruit. The rest of the page is folk medicine and should be read as such.
- The hinge: don't discard the coresThe hinge: keep the trimmings -- Crab apples carry much of their pectin in the cores and skins. The recipe tells you to peel the fruit and says nothing about coring; if you do core them, tie the peel and cores in muslin and boil them with the fruit, lifting the bag out before potting, to help the set.
- Lump sugarLoaf or lump sugar was refined cane sold in cones or cut blocks, prized because it was clean and dissolved without scum. Ordinary granulated sugar is the same thing by weight; 1 lb fruit to 1 lb 4 oz sugar.
- "Score" the fruitMost likely it means cutting slashes through the flesh rather than slicing off. Crab apples are small, though the recipe specifies the largest ones, so peeling and scoring each is slow; halving and quartering is quicker.
- Three-quarters of an hour is a guide, not a ruleJudge by setting point instead: 220F on a sugar thermometer, or a spoonful chilled on a cold saucer that wrinkles when pushed. High-pectin crab apples often set closer to 30 minutes.
- YieldThe original gives none. Reckon on roughly a pound and a half of finished jam per pound of prepared fruit, so about 3 lb of jam from 2 lb of crab apples; the number of jars depends on their size.
- VerjuiceThe sour juice pressed from unripe grapes or crab apples, used as an acidulant before lemons were cheap and common. Bottled verjus is sold again by specialist grocers; in cooking it sits between lemon juice and mild vinegar, and it is worth a spoonful in this jam if your fruit is on the sweet side.
- The medical claimsWarts are caused by human papillomavirus, not by a "bacillus porri," and rubbing cut crab apple on pared skin will do nothing but risk infection. Nothing on this page is treatment for diarrhoea, sprains or "scrofulous enlargements."
- Apricot kernelsThe noyau flavouring mentioned at the end comes from amygdalin, which releases cyanide on digestion. Kernels were used in tiny quantities for scent; they are not a snack, and several countries now cap or ban their retail sale as food.
This is a page from the run of medico-culinary compendia that flourished in Britain around 1900, in which a physician-author works alphabetically through the larder explaining what each food is good for, padding the entries with poetry, scripture and Shakespeare. The poem is a New York street scene, and Spurgeon was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the Baptist preacher whose sermons were quoted everywhere in the period. The crab apple, Malus sylvestris, earns its place because it is genuinely astringent with tannin and sharply acid, which is exactly why it makes good jam and jelly: sour, high-pectin fruit sets hard where a dessert apple sulks. Verjuice, the pressed juice of unripe fruit, had been a standard kitchen acid in England from the medieval period until cheap imported lemons and distilled vinegar displaced it, and by the time this book was written the word survived mainly as the metaphor for sourness of temper the author quotes twice. The wart cure and the appeal to Dr Plowright's "auto-immunization" show a writer trying to give a respectable mechanism to charm-lore he was not quite willing to abandon.