Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1905-09-01
NEGLECTED FRUITS.
DELEGATES WHICH ARE NOT
PROPERLY ENJOYED.
New Varieties of Fruit Come to Mar
ket and Are Used by Foreign
ers Only-Native
Berries,

oGIIlSS,
Few New Workers know the true rich
ness of the New York fruit markets.
Almost every year new fruits with pc
culiar virtues, the special favorite of
some portion of the city's polyglot in
some part of the town. Many of these
are left to the particular people who
know them, states the Sun.
Now and then a visitor to the Italian
quarter is betrayed into buying prickly
pears and trying to eat them raw and
undreSsed. He never does it again,
though bushels of them are bought and
eaten by the inhabitants of the quarter.
If the casual visitor would learn the art
Of making prickly pears into salad he
would understand perhaps why the 1tal-
ians like them.
Another of the odd fruits of the Italian
markets is pineapple. or, more accu-
rately, pine cone. In form it is like the
pineapple with which everybody is ia
miliar, but in odor and color it is quite
different matter.
1t is very large pine cone, so thick
and solid that it often weighs as much
as two or three pounds. The biggest
cost from five to ten cents, and the small
est may be had at the rate of two for
five cents.
In it's natural condition it looks as if
you'd have to open it with Ratchet or
an oyster knife. Take it home and place
it for a few days in a warm place, or, if
you are in hurry, put it for Is minutes
in moderately hot oven, and it spreads
all its wings. Beneath each chiplike
you find meaty seed, and this is what
the Italians eat. A big cone will yield
more than half pint of seeds.
Figs are another neglected fruit,
though they are sold on all stands and
in every fruit store. Those who know
buy them in considerable quantities and
make them into delicious jams and pre-
serves
One of the best of these is a mixture
OF figs, rhubarb and orange peel, which
is good as soon as it is made, and can
be kept Indefinitely in properly sealed
vessels
Probably nobody in town except the
people of the Swedish colony ever eats
the Swedish equivalent of the cranberry
called lingon. Yet the fruit is imported
by the hOgshead, and sold in quart jars
with quantity Of it's own magenta red
juice at a very moderate price. Compe-
tent judges think it is not so good as the
cranberry, but it makes an excellent
sauce with meats.
A good many native fruits are neg
lected by New Workers. Elderberries
make an excellent jam or jelly, and in
the suburbs may be had for the picking.
Huckleberries are common enough in
the New York market, but nobody in
town ever eats the old Adirondack COM
bination of flapjacks and huckleberries.
When the combination is properly &C
complished the berries are thickly
stirred into the batter.
Then the fiapjack, which should meas
ure not less than seven inches in diam
eter, is cooked long enough to get the
berries warmed through. With butter
and sugar the huckleberry flapjack is
unsurpassed.
New Workers are wastefu1 in the mat
ter of fruit as in otherthings. Tons of
peaches are wasted in the season by
housewives who throw away the par
ings.
In the regions where peaches are
grown the value of the parings is recog-
nized, and they are converted into jams,
JeIlleS and fascinating conserve known
as peach leather. The. name is not al
Turing, but the thing is. excellent.
1t is the parings sugared and rolled
into disks that look like slices of rolled
jelly cake. In the same1way the inedible
part of the watermelon is put up with
sugar as a substitute for citron.
A real clever housewife could fill her
jam closet for the winter by using the
odds and ends of fruit that well to do
New York family throws away.