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Compote of Peaches
Peel some ripe peaches, cut in halves and stone them, put them over the fire in a saucepan, cover with thick syrup and let them simmer till sufficiently cooked. Crack the stones, and when the peaches are done lift them carefully out of the syrup with a skimmer, place them in rather a deep dish and put the kernels in. Let the kernels and syrup boil till pretty thick, add strained lemon-juice to taste, mix in well with the syrup and then pour it over the peaches in the dish. This may be served either hot or cold.
The problem here is not the fruit or the syrup but the cracked stones. Peach kernels are a cyanogenic seed, and this recipe both boils them in the syrup and leaves them sitting in the serving dish among the fruit.
- The kernels are the hazardPeach kernels contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide when the seed tissue is crushed, chewed or digested. The characteristic bitter-almond flavor cooks of the period prized is the same compound that makes the kernel dangerous.
- No quantity is givenThe recipe says only "some ripe peaches" and "the kernels," with no count and no ratio to syrup. There is no way to know how much amygdalin ends up in the dish, and toxicity depends entirely on dose and on how thoroughly the kernels are broken.
- Simmering is not a safeguardBoiling in syrup will drive off some hydrogen cyanide, but the reduction is not reliable or measurable in a home pan, and intact amygdalin remains in the kernel itself. A kernel that has simmered in hot syrup is not thereby rendered safe to eat.
- They are served, not strained outUnlike a noyau infusion that is decanted and discarded, the instruction is to put the kernels into the deep dish with the peaches and pour the syrup over. Anything sitting in a compote will be eaten by someone, and children are most at risk by body weight.
- What to make insteadFor a peach compote in syrup, use a current recipe. Commercial almond extract or a splash of amaretto gives the same faintly bitter, marzipan-edged note that the kernels were there to supply, without the chemistry.
- On the syrup, for reference'Thick syrup' means a heavy sugar syrup made up before the fruit goes in. The recipe gives no proportions. It serves as a poaching medium rather than a sauce until the kernels and syrup are boiled down at the end.
Oscar Tschirky, the maître d'hôtel whose name carried the Waldorf's cooking to the reading public in the 1890s, was working in a tradition where the peach kernel was a standard flavoring rather than a curiosity. French confectioners had long made noyau by steeping cracked stone fruit kernels in spirit or syrup, and cookbooks through the nineteenth century routinely direct the cook to crack a few peach or apricot stones for a custard, a ratafia or a preserve, on the sound culinary logic that the kernel tastes of bitter almond and that the almond and the peach are close botanical relatives. The cyanogenic chemistry was known to chemists well before Oscar's book appeared, though it seems not to have reshaped kitchen practice by then, and the older method persisted for reasons that are not documented ypinvolsmall ypinvolved yp small, perhaps because the quantities were slight and the flavor was genuinely good. A compote itself is simply fruit poached in syrup and served in that syrup, one of the plainest sweet courses in the classical repertoire and a useful thing for a hotel kitchen, since it holds well and can go to the table hot or cold as the menu requires.