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Apples for Present Use
Mrs. Joseph Saulter.
Take about twenty nice snow or other good cooking apples, and wipe them clean, and place them in a preserving kettle with water enough to about half cover them; then add two cups of sugar, half a cup of vinegar, and a dessertspoonful of ground cinnamon; cover them down tightly, and let them simmer over a slow fire until the apples become soft; use when cold.
A simple stewed-apple compote, sweet-sour with cinnamon. The title is the instruction that matters: these are for present use, meaning they are not sealed or preserved and should be eaten within a few days.
- ScaleTwenty apples is roughly 6-7 lb and will fill a large Dutch oven. Halving or quartering the recipe works without adjustment; the ratio is about a scant 1/3 cup sugar and about 1 tablespoon vinegar per pound of fruit.
- DessertspoonfulA dessertspoon sits between a teaspoon and a tablespoon: two teaspoons. Two teaspoons across twenty apples is a light hand rather than a heavy one.
- Snow applesThe snow apple, or Fameuse, is a Quebec heritage variety with white flesh that collapses quickly when cooked. Any tart apple that breaks down will do: McIntosh (often thought to be a Fameuse seedling), Cortland, Gravenstein or Bramley.
- Whole, not slicedThe recipe wipes the apples clean and stops there, which means they go in whole and unpeeled. The skins hold the fruit together and, on red varieties, tint the syrup pink. Core them if you prefer, but expect them to burst regardless.
- Preserving kettleA wide, heavy, unlined copper or enamelled pan. A Dutch oven or any broad non-reactive pot is the equivalent; avoid bare aluminium or cast iron, since the vinegar will pick up a metallic taste.
- The vinegarHalf a cup of vinegar in this quantity of fruit is a seasoning, not a pickle. It keeps two cups of sugar from tasting flat. Cider vinegar suits the fruit better than white.
- Heat and timeCovered, over the lowest steady simmer, 25-40 minutes depending on variety and size. Slow is the point: a hard boil will shred the apples into sauce before the syrup has thickened.
- KeepingThere is no sterilising or sealing here, and the sugar and acid levels are far too low for shelf storage. Refrigerate and use within about five days.
- ServingMakes roughly three to four quarts. Eaten cold as a side dish with roast pork, goose or cold meats, or with cream as a plain dessert.
The Home Cook Book was compiled in Toronto in the 1870s by "ladies of Toronto and chief cities and towns in Canada," with proceeds directed to the Hospital for Sick Children, and it is generally regarded as one of the first Canadian community fundraising cookbooks of its kind. The presence of snow apples in the first line places the recipe firmly in the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes orchard country, where the Fameuse was long associated with the old French settlements and remained a household standard before McIntosh overtook it commercially. The distinction the title draws, for present use, was a real one in a period when the same kettle would otherwise be turned to jellies, butters and sealed preserves for winter; this is the quick version, made from whatever came out of the barrel that week and eaten before it could spoil. The vinegar is worth noting as well, echoing the English spiced and pickled fruits served alongside cold roast meat, which appear throughout nineteenth-century North American cookery in everything from apple chutneys to spiced pears.