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Brandied Figs
Shorten stems of about one-half of five pounds fresh, sound figs, place in a glass jar, add a pound sugar and fill up jar with brandy. Tightly cork, briskly shake jar, put away and let infuse for thirty days, then figs will be ready for use.
A maceration rather than a preserve: no heat, no processing, just fruit, sugar and spirit left to reach equilibrium in a sealed jar. The wording is loose in one important place, and the strength of the finished liquid is the thing that keeps it sound.
- The ambiguous first line"Shorten stems of about one-half of five pounds fresh, sound figs" most plausibly means trim the stems back to about half their length on five pounds of figs, not use half of the five pounds. Either reading works in practice; trimmed stems simply stop them puncturing neighbouring fruit.
- Choose the fruit carefully"Sound" is doing real work here. Any fig that is split, weeping or showing mould at the eye will taint the whole jar over thirty days, since nothing is cooked. Use firm, just-ripe fruit and wipe rather than soak it.
- Keep the alcohol strongFigs are roughly four-fifths water, and that water leaches into the brandy as the sugar draws it out. Five pounds of fruit can dilute the spirit substantially, so use a full-strength brandy (40% ABV or better) and enough of it to keep the fruit submerged; the finished liquid should stay above about 20% ABV, which is what makes an uncooked, sealed jar of low-acid fruit keep.
- Cork, but do not seal hardFresh figs carry wild yeast, and with a pound of sugar present a little fermentation is possible in the first days, so a cork that can vent is safer than a hard seal. A screw-top jar should be loosened daily for the first week, and the jar kept out of direct sun.
- Shake, then leave aloneThe brisk shaking is to start the sugar dissolving; repeat it every few days for the first fortnight until no crystals remain at the bottom. After that, agitation only bruises the fruit.
- Storage after the thirty daysOnce the figs are ready, refrigerate the jar; cold storage keeps the fruit firm rather than collapsing into the syrup.
- Yield and servingFive pounds of figs needs a large jar, since the sugar and the brandy have to fit as well, and serves a great many people two or three fruit at a time. They are a dessert accompaniment — with cream, ice cream, or sliced over a plain cake — and the strained brandy is worth keeping as a cordial.
Fruit put down in spirit is one of the oldest domestic preserving methods that needs no fire, and it survived into printed cookbooks long after boiling-water canning had taken over the vegetable shelf, because sugar and alcohol together do the work that heat does elsewhere. Figs suit it particularly well: they are too soft and too low in acid to jelly reliably, and their skins hold shape in spirit where they would slump in a syrup. Brandied figs belong to the Mediterranean fig belt, from Provence through Italy to Greece and the Levant, and they arrive in an American collection of this period as one of the small luxuries a household could produce without special equipment. The thirty-day wait is the traditional figure, the interval by which the fruit and the liquid are held to have come into balance.