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Than in Pies and Puddings
1160. Put apples or pears sliced, plums, currants, gooseberries, &c., into a stone jar, and sprinkle as much Lisbon sugar as is necessary among them; set the jar on a hot hearth, or in a saucepan of water, and let it remain till the fruit is perfectly done. Slices of bread or rice may be either stewed with the fruit, or added when eaten; the rice being plain boiled.
A bain-marie of mixed fruit, cooked slowly in its own juice with no added water. The method survives intact; only the vessel and the sugar need translating.
- No added liquidThe fruit stews in what it releases; no water goes into the jar. Adding water gives you a thin compote instead of the concentrated syrup this method produces.
- Lisbon sugarAn unrefined, pale-brown cane sugar of the period, moist and faintly molassesy. Light brown sugar is the closest match; caster sugar works but gives a cleaner, less rounded flavour.
- How much sugarThe original leaves it to judgement because the fruits differ enormously. Reckon on roughly 2-4 tablespoons per pound for ripe plums or pears, and up to 6 for green gooseberries or red currants.
- The stone jarA stoneware or glazed earthenware crock; the original does not specify a lid. Any ovenproof china bowl, a Mason jar with the ring loose, or a heavy lidded casserole will do the same job.
- "A hot hearth"Most likely the residual heat beside a fire, which is to say a low, steady warmth; the original gives no oven setting. Keep the heat low: the value of the method is that the slices hold their shape instead of collapsing.
- Water bath timingThe original says only 'till the fruit is perfectly done'; in gently simmering water expect roughly half an hour for currants and gooseberries and up to an hour for sliced apples and pears. Keep the water at a bare simmer and topped up so the jar never sits dry.
- Bread and riceStewed in, stale bread dissolves and thickens the whole into something near a fruit charlotte. Plain-boiled rice added at the table stays separate and is the lighter treatment; the choice is a real one, not a variant.
- YieldAbout 2 lb of prepared fruit fills a quart jar and serves four to six, with cream or custard.
This entry belongs to a nineteenth-century argument, not just a menu: physicians and domestic writers of the period commonly held that fruit baked into pastry or suet pudding was hard on the digestion, while the same fruit stewed gently with sugar was wholesome and fit for invalids and children. That is the likely sense of the heading. Slow stewing in the falling heat of a hearth or cooling bread oven is older than the argument, and the method is close kin to the modern low-oven fruit compote. A jar standing in a pan of water is also the same principle later used in domestic bottling and preserving, though here the fruit is meant to be eaten within a day or two rather than kept.