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Tutti Frutti
Dissolve one pound of granulated sugar and two tablespoonfuls of water over a slow fire; set aside until cool, then pour into a large stone crock or wide-mouthed glass jar, which will hold two gallons. Be sure that the cover fits tightly. Add and mix thoroughly with the syrup one pint of the best brandy and one pound of hulled and washed strawberries. As the various fruits appear in market, add them, each time using one pound of sugar dissolved as above to the pound of fruit, weighed after it is prepared. All light colored fruits can be used, such as white cherries, peaches, red raspberries, pears, plums, apples, currants, apricots, white grapes and oranges. All stone fruits must be pitted and the larger ones, such as pears and peaches, cut into small bits; grapes should be pulped and seeded and skin fruits pared. Pineapple should not be used, because of its tendency to cause fermentation. Each time that fruit is added, the mixture should be thoroughly stirred through. Continue stirring once a week for six weeks after the last fruit is added; then it may be put up in smaller jars. Tutti frutti is delicious served with ice cream.
This is a season-long fruit crock of the rumtopf type, built up from spring strawberries to autumn grapes and pears. It is a preserve made by alcohol and sugar rather than by heat, which means the proportions matter more than the technique.
- The hinge: keep the spirit strongThe original adds one pint of brandy at the start and never again, so by the fifth or sixth addition of fruit the alcohol is diluted by fruit juice and dissolved sugar. Modern rumtopf practice is to add spirit with every layer, roughly enough to keep everything submerged, on the principle that a preserve of this kind needs to stay high in alcohol -- broadly in the region of 20 percent by volume -- if it is to keep rather than ferment or mould.
- Dissolving the sugarOne pound of sugar with only two tablespoons of water needs very low heat and patience; it is closer to melting than to boiling a syrup. Keep it below a simmer and stir until clear, then cool completely before it meets the brandy, or the alcohol flashes off.
- The vesselA two-gallon glazed stoneware crock or a wide-mouth glass jar, kept in a cool dark place. Do not use a metal-lidded jar without a liner, as brandy and fruit acid will corrode the lid. Note that the original calls for a tightly fitting cover; if you follow it, release the lid periodically in the early weeks, as fermentation gas can build up.
- Weighing fruitFruit is weighed after hulling, pitting, peeling and cutting, one pound of sugar to each pound of prepared fruit. Weighing before you prepare it counts pits, stones and peel, so the fruit that actually goes into the crock would get more than its pound of sugar.
- Why no pineappleFresh pineapple is notoriously prone to fermenting in preserves of this kind, which is presumably what the book has in mind, though the exact reason is not given. The same caution applies to any bruised, split or overripe fruit; use sound fruit only.
- "Light colored fruits"The restriction looks cosmetic rather than chemical. Blackberries, dark cherries and blueberries bleed and would turn the whole crock a muddy purple, and the list goes no darker than red raspberries and currants.
- Keeping it submergedAnything that floats above the liquid will mould. Weight the fruit down with a small plate or a glass fermentation weight, and stir weekly as directed. Discard the whole crock if you see fuzzy growth or smell anything sour or acetic rather than winey.
- Yield and servingA full two-gallon crock built through a season gives a great deal of preserve, better decanted into pint jars and kept refrigerated once broken into. A spoonful or two with its syrup over vanilla ice cream suits the book's suggestion, and the syrup alone is good over pound cake.
Tutti frutti takes its name from the Italian for "all fruits." The method is closely comparable to the German Rumtopf, a crock kept in the cellar and fed with each fruit as it came into market, layer by layer, from strawberries in early summer to grapes and pears in autumn, so that the finished preserve was a record of the whole growing season. Recipes of this kind appear in American household books of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, from a period when a household with a cool cellar held summer fruit by drying, sugar, spirits, vinegar and glass canning.