Putting Food By - Janet Greene [191]
The popular plastic “ripening bowl” developed, if we remember right, by a scientist at the University of California, Davis, Department of Agriculture, performs like a brown-paper bag—but in a more deliberate, sophisticated, and predictable fashion.
Root-Cellaring Fruits
Only several of the most popular fruits root-cellar well; and of these, apples retain their texture and flavor longest, with several varieties of pears next in storage life.
Like vegetables, fruits to be stored over the winter should be harvested as late as possible in the season, and be as chilled as you can get them before they’re put in their storage containers (it will take even a properly cold root cellar a good deal of time to remove the field heat from a box of warm apples).
Because they absorb odors from potatoes, turnips, and other “strong” vegetables, fruits should have their own special section partitioned off in the root cellar if they are stored in quantity; otherwise put them in another area where the conditions simulate those of a root cellar (see the chart on the following page), or keep them as far from the offending vegetables as possible.
We recommend clean, stout cartons, wooden boxes, or splitwood fruit baskets over the classic apple barrels for storing fruits for a small family. Metal barrels are best used for fruits in underground storage, with the barrel well insulated from frost in the earth.
Some fruits are individually wrapped for best keeping, but all should be bedded on a layer of insulating and protection—straw, hay, clean dry leaves, with the straw, etc., between each layer of fruit, and several inches of bedding on top of the container.
All fruits need checking periodically for spoilage. If you’re afraid your fruit will deteriorate faster than you can eat it fresh, have a midwinter preserve-making session. They’re fun on cold lowery days.
RECOMMENDED CONDITIONS FOR OVER-THE-WINTER COLD STORAGE
Apples
Best keepers: late varieties, notably Winesap, Yellow Newton, Northern Spy; then Jonathan, McIntosh in New England, Cortland, Delicious. Pick when mature but still hard, and store only perfect fruit. Apples kept in quantity in home cold storage usually will be “aged” from Christmas on.
Apples breathe during storage, so put them in the fruit room of a root cellar so they don’t give off their odor (or moisture) to vegetables. Wrap individually in paper (to cut down their oxygen intake); put them in stout cartons, boxes, barrels that can be covered, and have been insulated with straw, hay, or clean dry leaves. If you use large food-grade plastic bags or liners for the boxes, etc., cut ¼-inch breathing holes in about 12 places in each bag. They also may be stored in hay- or straw-lined pits or in buried barrels covered with straw and soil, etc.
Check periodically and remove any apples that show signs of spoiling. See the chart for ideal conditions.
Grapefruit and Oranges
Store unwrapped in stout open cartons or boxes in the fruit room of a root cellar (see chart for conditions). Inspect often for spoilage, removing spoiled ones and wiping their mold off sound fruit they’ve touched.
Grapes
Catawbas keep best, then Tokays and Concords. Pick mature but before fully ripe.
Grapes absorb odors from other produce, so give them their own corner of the root-cellar fruit room (see chart for conditions). Hold in stout cartons or boxes lined with a cushion of straw, etc., with straw between each layer; don’t burden the bottom bunches with more than three layers above them, fitting the bunches in gently. Cover with a layer of straw. Check often for spoilage.
Pears
Best keeper of the dessert varieties is Anjou, with Bosc and Comice popular among the shorter keepers. (Bartlett and Kieffer ripen more quickly and earlier: the former is especially good for canning, the latter for spicing whole or used in preserves; see Chapters 7 and 19.)
Pick mature but still green and hard. Hold loosely in boxes in a dry, well-aired place at 50–70 F/10–21 C for a week before storing. Then store them like apples. See cart