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Stewed Prunes
Wash and pick over prunes. Put in a saucepan, cover with cold water, and soak two hours; then cook until soft in same water. When nearly cooked, add sugar or molasses to sweeten. Many prefer the addition of a small quantity of lemon juice.
A method rather than a formula — Farmer gives no quantities at all. The one thing worth knowing is that modern prunes are far softer than the ones this recipe was written for.
- Working quantitiesA pound of dried prunes takes about 3 cups of water and roughly 1/4 cup of sugar, and yields about 4 cups stewed, or 6 servings. Add sweetening to taste; commercially dried prunes are already sugary.
- Soaking is now optional"Wash and pick over" assumed prunes that were bone-hard and possibly gritty or stemmy. Today's pitted, partly moist prunes need no two-hour soak; 20 minutes of simmering in water to cover will soften them.
- Cooking timeUnsoaked modern prunes take 20 to 30 minutes at a bare simmer. Soaked as directed, 10 to 15 minutes is plenty. Keep the heat low — a hard boil bursts the skins and clouds the syrup.
- Add sugar late, and whyThe instruction to sweeten only "when nearly cooked" is not fussiness. Sugar added at the start firms the skins and slows softening, so the fruit takes longer to come tender.
- MolassesThe molasses option gives a much darker, more assertive result, closer to a fruit sauce than a compote. Its flavour is strong, so add it cautiously and taste as you go; a slight bitterness is normal.
- Lemon juiceA tablespoon or two per pound cuts the flat sweetness of the syrup. Add it off the heat so the brightness survives.
- PitsPrunes at this date were generally sold whole, with the stones in. If you use unpitted fruit, warn anyone at the table; the pits do not loosen reliably in stewing.
- ServingServe warm or chilled with the syrup, plain with cream, or alongside breakfast cereal, where stewed prunes were commonly met with at this period.
Stewed prunes sit in the fruit chapter of Fannie Farmer's book because dried fruit was the year-round fruit: before reliable refrigeration and cheap out-of-season imports, a pantry box of prunes, apricots or apples was what a cook reached for between the last of the autumn apples and the first spring rhubarb. A "prune" is a dried plum; the English word comes from Old French prune, meaning plum (modern French pruneau is the dried fruit). The varieties grown for drying, most famously the Agen plum brought to California in the nineteenth century, hold enough sugar and enough flesh to dry without souring. American commercial prune growing was concentrated in the Santa Clara and Sacramento valleys by the time this book was published, which is why prunes appear so casually here — they were cheap, shelf-stable and shipped nationwide. Their long association with digestive virtue is older than the cookbook, and helped keep them on the breakfast table well into the twentieth century.