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Prunes
Wash, soak overnight. Heat gradually in water in which they are soaked, and cook slowly (on back of range or over asbestos mat) closely , and cook slowly (on back of range or over asbestos mat) closely covered, till skins are tender, letting water cook away till syrup is thick.
Most prunes contain so much sugar that lemon juice improves the flavor.
Seldom do they need sugar. 1 can pineapple
A plain method for stewed prunes, from the era when dried fruit arrived hard as pebbles and needed a night's soak and an hour's gentle heat. The text has a printer's stutter (the "and cook slowly... closely covered" clause repeats) and ends with an orphaned "1 can pineapple" that belongs to a neighbouring recipe.
- The hinge: never let it boilThe hinge: slow, covered heat -- The whole method depends on gentle covered heat so the skins soften before the water goes. A hard boil risks bursting the skins. Use the lowest burner setting with a lid on.
- Asbestos matThe asbestos pad was the standard 1900s heat diffuser, laid between flame and pan. Do not use one if you find an old one in a drawer. A modern flame tamer, a cast-iron trivet or an induction hob's lowest setting does the same job.
- Soaking modern prunesToday's prunes are sold pitted and partially rehydrated, and an overnight soak is usually unnecessary. Two to four hours in cold water, or a straight simmer in water to cover for 20-30 minutes, will bring them to the same point.
- How much waterNone is specified. Cover the fruit by about an inch; roughly 2 cups water to 1 lb prunes. The recipe keeps the pan closely covered while the water "cooks away till syrup is thick," so allow enough time for it to reduce.
- Lemon juiceThe advice holds. Prunes are around 40 percent sugar by weight, and a tablespoon or two of lemon juice per pound cuts the flatness without making the dish tart. Add it at the end, off the heat.
- The stray pineapple"1 can pineapple" is not part of this method. It is almost certainly the first ingredient line of the recipe that followed on the page. Ignore it, or drain and fold in a cup of pineapple chunks after cooking if the idea appeals.
- YieldA pound of prunes will serve roughly six to eight, depending on whether it is dessert or breakfast. They keep a few days covered in the refrigerator and the syrup thickens further as it chills.
Stewed prunes were a fixture of American breakfast and invalid cookery from the mid-nineteenth century onward, valued because dried plums kept indefinitely in a pantry and needed no sugar of their own. The American prune trade grew from petite d'Agen plum stock brought to California's Santa Clara Valley in the mid-1850s, and Santa Clara remained the dominant district as the crop became a major export trade. The instruction to cook them at the back of the range is a marker of the coal or wood stove, whose surface ran from fierce over the firebox to barely warm at the far edge, giving a cook a whole gradient of temperatures without a dial. Recipes like this one, terse and unsugared, also reflect the period's dietetic enthusiasm for prunes as a gentle laxative, which is why they turn up as often in nursing manuals and institutional menus as in dessert chapters.