Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1894-08-29
Fruit Drying.
Harper's Bazar.

AO-
Huckleberries and currants neec
no farther preparation thar. wash
ing and picking over. Cherries
and pln.ns need to have their pits
removed, and peaches require
in addition, to be pared and quar-.
tered, while the other fruits need
to be pared, cored, and cut into
quarters OF still smaller divisions
The old-fashioned method OF
threading the quarters Of apples OF
pears upon strings. to hang in long
= festoons on the sunny side of The
house or against the kitchen wall,
had many disadvantages. In The
first place the drying was neces-
sarily 80 slow hat some parts OF
the fruit were almost sure to De-
come in a measure decomposed be-
fore the drying was completed, and
in the second place the !estoons
were exposed to the attacks of
hosts of flies; and at the present
day we know that it was not with
out reason that the ancient Philis-
tines named their Spirit of Evil,
"Beelzebub, god Of the flies," for
there are no more industrious dis.
seminators of disease than they.
The fly which has come from putrid
offsl to alight upon some slight
scratch or pimple may be instantly
brushed away, but perhaps not be-
fore he has had time to deposit the
blood-poison which may produce
the dreaded carbuncle, or even the
almost surely fatal malignant
pustule; or by alighting upon az
ticles of food, it may bring infec-
tions which produce many sorts of
stomach trouble or even typhoid
fever and cholera.
Tin dishes or fiat sheets of tin
are most convenient for this use,
but are apt to imparta disagreea-
BILE flavor. Thin boards of some
odorless wood answer a good pur-
pose, but it is not easy to SO place
them that the oven will hold many
at time. There is no danger of
their burning, for the oven
hot enough to burn the wood is
quite too hot for the fruit, which
would be cooked lnstead -of7urIed.
The best way is to have set OF
agate.ware or porcelain-line3 drip
ping-pans kept for this purpose
only. In each spread a single layer
of the fruit. Place the pans in the
oven in a pile, one above the other
not in such way as to make
closed dishes of them, but "crlss
cross" so that the hot air may
have free access to the fruit-till
the oven will hold no more. In this
way good deal of fruit may be
done at one time. The heat of the
oven may be first tested by putting
in small portion of the fruit to
be dried, as not only do different
fruits require different tempera-
ture, but even various sorts of the
sane fruit; a good deal depending
upon whether the season has been
wet or dry, that which is gathered
in dry season demanding not
only lower degree of heat, but a
shorter time than that gathered in
wet season.
All varieties of even the same
fruit are not equally good for dry
ing. AS rule, the more acid the
fruit the better will it preserve its
qualities. The old-fashioned sour
red cherry-known in some parts
of the country as the ''English"-
is far better for drying or preserv-
ing than any of the sorts which
are much more delicious when
eaten fresh. The same is true of
the dsmson-p plum, though almost
all plums dry we'll.
Comparatively few sorts of pears
are good for drying. The sweetest
and juiciest sorts, like the Bartlett,
and iuciest sorts, like the Bartlett,
Virgalleu, and Seeker, oelng almost
worthless. But there is nameless
sort, hard, green: sour thing, not
worth gathering for any other pur-
pose save picking, which is per-
fectly delicious when dried and
stewed. Almost all old-fashioned
orchards contain one or two trees
of this kind, probably allowed to
remain because they are very pro-
life, and country housewives
know their virtues. This pear ls the
only one we know of which is bene'
flied by the use of sugar is drying