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By Root 2365 0

in boiling water for a minute and then gently skin them. Extract the stones by pressing firmly with your finger on the stalk end. Cut the peaches in halves. Weigh them. For each pound weigh lb. of preserving or loaf sugar, and measure pint of water. Put sugar and water into a preserving pan and bring to the boil. Put in the peaches, and when the sugar has once more come to the boil turn the flame low, and leave them very gently cooking, only just moving, for hour. Remove from the fire and leave until next day, when the jam is to be boiled as before, very gently, for hour. If the syrup sets when poured on a plate the jam is cooked. If it is still too thin, remove the fruit, pack it carefully in jars, and continue cooking the syrup until it does set. Skim it when cool, pour it over the fruit, to fill the jars; tie down when cold. A dozen average-size peaches will make sufficient preserve to fill two 1 lb. jars.

This method makes a rather extravagant but very delicious preserve. Unfortunately it tends to form a skin of mould within a very short time, but this does not affect the rest of the jam, some of which I have kept for nearly a year, even in a damp house. As an alternative, here is a second method, less extravagant and just as good in its way, although sweeter and more of a true jam than the above.

MARMELADE DE PÊCHES (2)

PEACH JAM

Prepare the peaches as above; when they are skinned, stoned and halved weigh them and put them with an equal weight of loaf sugar in a china bowl. Leave for several hours, or overnight. Put them in a preserving pan without water and bring slowly to the boil. Boil until the syrup sets when tested on a plate. Put into pots and seal while warm.

PRUNES À L’EAU DE VIE

PLUMS IN BRANDY

A recipe from the Dordogne. Small purple plums or greengages (Reines-Claudes) can be used for this preserve, which is served mainly as a kind of dessert and liqueur combined—3 or 4 of the plums or greengages in a small thick wine-glass, with a little of the brandy in which they have been preserved.

Buy the fruit slightly under-ripe. Leave the stalks on and pierce each plum through to the stone with a skewer in three or four places, and leave in a bowl of cold water until all are ready. Bring a pan of water to the boil, put in the greengages and, as soon as the water comes up to a fast boil again, remove the fruit with a perforated spoon to a large china bowl. For each pound of fruit, measure a pound of white sugar and a wine-glass (somewhat under pint) of water. Boil together to the pearl stage (i.e. until the syrup is bubbling with little beads), throw in the fruit, leave until it comes to the boil again, then immediately return it to the bowl and pour the syrup over the fruit.

Leave for 24 hours and next day pour off the syrup, bring it to the boil, put in the fruit, bring it once more to the boil, and again put the fruit in the bowl and pour the syrup over, having carefully skimmed it.

After another 24 hours remove the fruit to large glass or stone jars. Boil the syrup until it has thickened somewhat. Filter through a cloth and, when cold, mix with it half a bottle of brandy or pure white spirit to every 3 lb. of fruit used. Stopper the jars, or tie down with several layers of paper, and leave it for at least a month before opening it.

Unlikely though it may sound, vodka can be used instead of brandy, and because it is a colourless spirit produces a preserve of better appearance than does brandy coloured with caramel. If you like a preserve with a more powerful flavour of spirits use a half-bottle to every two pounds of fruit instead of to every three.

Cookery books

‘Which is the best cookery book? The one you like best, and which gives you that confidence that cannot be called forth to order, but which is instinctively felt. For myself I like those books which are not too complicated and which suggest ideas rather than being minutely detailed handbooks—I also like the kind of cookery book which evokes the good meals of the old inns, for reconstitution of the past is a delicate pleasure