No. 3662

Brandy Greengages

Reines Claudes a l'Eau de Vie

Take fine sound greengages; prick over and blanch; have them resume their former green color the same as for preserved greengages (No. 3679), and when well refreshed drain again and arrange them in glass jars, each one to contain a vanilla bean; cover with good white brandy and cork the jars hermetically; leave them thus for fifteen days. After this lapse of time drain off the brandy and add some sugar to it, allowing three pounds for each gallon of liquid; stir well together; when the sugar is dissolved pour it over the fruits; close the jars hermetically and leave them in a cool place.

← No. 3661 Brandy Figs Preserves & Conserves No. 3663 Brandy Peaches →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

A two-stage brandied fruit: the plums steep in plain spirit for a fortnight, then that spirit is drawn off, sweetened and returned. The delay matters, because sugar added at the start draws water out of the fruit and leaves it shrivelled.

The fruitReines Claudes are greengages, small round green-gold plums with a honeyed flesh. Use firm, barely ripe fruit; anything soft will collapse in the jar. Italian prune plums or damsons work by the same method but will not stay green.
Prick overPierce each plum several times to the stone with a needle or a clean fork so the spirit penetrates and the skins do not burst during blanching. Skipping it can give you split fruit floating in cloudy brandy.
The greening step, and a warningRanhofer's cross-reference to No. 3679 most likely points to the nineteenth-century practice of restoring the colour of blanched green fruit in a copper or brass pan, sometimes with a copper coin. Copper salts stabilise the green pigment, and those salts are toxic. Blanch and refresh in stainless steel, accept a duller olive-green fruit, and ignore any historical instruction involving untinned copper.
Blanch and refreshA brief dip in barely simmering water, about a minute, then straight into ice water. The point is to soften the skins enough to take the spirit, not to cook the plums.
"Good white brandy"An unaged fruit spirit or a clean grape eau-de-vie, at minimum 40% ABV. Preservation depends on that strength: cutting it with anything weaker, or topping up with water, drops the alcohol below the level that keeps the fruit sound.
Three pounds of sugar per gallonAbout 360 g per litre of drained brandy, taking the gallon as a US gallon, or roughly 1 3/4 cups of sugar to each quart. Dissolve it cold by stirring, not by heating, or the alcohol will drive off.
"Hermetically"In Ranhofer's day this typically meant a tight-fitting cork sealed over with wax or a wired bladder. A glass canning jar with a new lid does the same job. No heat processing is involved and none is needed; the spirit is the preservative.
Timing and keepingFifteen days for the first steep, then at least a month in a cool dark place before eating. They improve for a year and will keep considerably longer. One vanilla bean per jar is plenty; two makes the vanilla the only thing you taste.
ServingServe two or three fruits per person with a spoonful of the syrup, alongside ice cream or a plain cake, and keep the strained liquor as a cordial.

A Little History

Reine Claude is the French name for the greengage, generally traced to Claude of France, queen to François I; the English name for the fruit is traditionally credited to Sir William Gage, whose family imported the trees from France in the early eighteenth century. Fruits "à l'eau de vie" — whole fruit put up in spirit rather than cooked into jam — were a standing part of the French confectioner's repertoire, and Charles Ranhofer, who ran the Delmonico's kitchens in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894, gives a whole run of them: figs at No. 3661, greengages here, peaches next. They were dessert and digestif at once, set out at the end of a long service or kept on the sideboard, and they belong to the era before reliable refrigeration when spirit, sugar and a tight seal were how a summer plum was made to last until Christmas.