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Compote of Prunes
Wash well in a basin of water one pound of French plums, then remove and put them into a stewpan with one quart of water, an ounce of loaf sugar and a small piece of cinnamon, placing the pan over the fire. When the water boils, remove the pan to one side of the fire, and simmer gently for forty-five minutes; then take out the prunes, place them on a sieve to drain, and afterwards put them into a compote-dish. Add a couple of ounces of sugar to the liquor, and after straining it put it back into the saucepan and reduce it to a syrup at 32 degrees, and when it is cold pour it over the prunes, and serve.
A plain stewed-fruit dessert from the Waldorf's larder, written in the professional shorthand of its day. Two phrases need decoding before you start: "French plums" and "syrup at 32 degrees."
- French plums are prunesThe term meant dried plums, generally the Agen type from southwestern France, sold whole with the stone in. Any good dried prune works; pitted ones will soften faster and hold their shape less well.
- "32 degrees" is the Baume scaleSugar syrup in professional kitchens was commonly gauged with a hydrometer as well as by feel. Thirty-two degrees Baume is a heavy syrup of roughly 58-60 percent sugar, thick enough to coat a spoon but well short of thread stage; the reading is taken on cooled syrup, so it does not translate neatly into a candy-thermometer figure. Without a hydrometer, reduce until the syrup visibly slackens off the spoon in a sheet rather than running clear.
- Loaf sugarRefined sugar sold in hard cones and broken up as needed, prized for purity. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct replacement, ounce for ounce.
- Managing the heat"Remove the pan to one side of the fire" is coal-range language for lowering the heat. Bring to a boil, then hold at the barest simmer so the fruit swells without bursting.
- Forty-five minutes is right hereUnlike many old fruit timings, this one is not excessive: whole unsoaked prunes genuinely need that long to plump through. Check at thirty minutes if yours are soft and moist to begin with.
- Total sugarOne ounce goes in with the fruit, two more into the liquor afterward, so three ounces in all for a pound of prunes. That is restrained by period standards; the dried fruit supplies most of the sweetness.
- Reducing a quartA quart of water down to a 32-degree syrup on 3 ounces of sugar means a long, hard reduction. Expect to end with well under a cup, and pull it off the heat before it darkens.
- ServingChill the syrup fully, as instructed, before it goes over the fruit; poured hot it will soak in and the compote loses its gloss.
Compotes belong to the older French dessert repertoire, where fruit poached in sugar syrup was set out at the end of a meal or as part of a cold buffet. Oscar Tschirky's Waldorf kitchen ran on that grammar, and a compote of prunes was the sort of dish an American hotel could produce in any month of the year, since dried Agen plums kept well and shipped well. The book dates from a moment when California's prune orchards, planted heavily in the Santa Clara Valley from the 1870s on, were beginning to displace French imports; "French plums" as a name for the fruit hung on in kitchen usage long after much of the supply had stopped coming from France. The instruction to gauge syrup in degrees rather than minutes is a mark of professional training: Baume hydrometers were standard equipment in a hotel pastry department.