Grapefruit

“ Two large grapefruit; one cup chopped celery; one cup chopped tart apples; one-half cup hickory nut meats. Cut grapefruit in small pieces, being careful to remove all partitions and tough parts. Drain off juice, add celery, apples, nuts and mayonnaise. Toss together and serve on small leaves of cabbage. Garnish with round pieces of pimentos to resemble holly berries and pieces of green pepper cut to resemble holly leaves. [70]
DATE AND PINEAPPLE SALAD Mrs. ”

“ Fruits have affinities the same as human beings. Witness the excellent agreement of grape fruit and rum. Nothing else, not the finest liqueur, so brings out the flavor. But there are other fruits which, conjoined to the grape [213] fruit, make it more than ever delicious. Strawberries for example. They must be fine and ripe. Wash well, pick, wash again, halve if very large, and mix well in a bowl with grape fruit pulp, freed of skin and seed, and broken to berry size. Add sugar in layers, then pour over a tumbler of rum, let stand six hours on ice, and serve with or without cream. ”

“ In the case of the attractively coloured fruits, it is curious to observe how the seeds are always of such a nature as to escape destruction when the fruit itself is eaten. They are generally very small and comparatively hard, as in the strawberry, gooseberry, and fig; if a little larger, as in the grape, they are still harder and less eatable; in the fruit of the rose (or hip) they are disagreeably hairy; in the orange tribe excessively bitter. When the seeds are larger, softer, and more eatable, they are protected by an excessively hard and stony covering, as in the plum and peach tribe ”

“ The fruits now thriving are the grape, fig, peach, almond, apple, pear, strawberry, sloe, plum, several varieties; olive, the common and white mulberry, pine apple, plantain, sugar cane, Cape gooseberry besides these, there are several others that will ripen here, which, in colder countries, never come to perfection ”

“ In the United States, while widely grown, is of minor importance, ranking sixth among small fruits, being preceded by the strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, cranberry and currant.
Grape (Vitis Labrusca) has a climbing, knotty trunk, which sometimes attains a length of thirty to fifty feet; its leaves have from three to five lobes, and are coarsely serrated; its small, fragrant, greenish blossoms stand in panicles. The fruit of many varieties of vine, which have been produced by cultivation in the course of thousands of years is very different in color, size and flavor. ”

“ You who do not always expect money to grow on everything you touch, you who admire and love a plant or vine and feel well repaid for your labor to see it grow and bear fruit, you who have a vacant corner in your garden well adapted to that purpose, I urge you most earnestly to plant some grape vines, and I assure you that with some knowledge of their care and a determination not to fail you will succeed, and you will eventually be able to see a pretty sight—for, to my mind, nothing is handsomer than a well trimmed grape row with the ripening fruit. ”

“ Squeeze with your fingers the pulp from each grape. Put the pulps on the fire, and boil them until they are tender; then press them through a colander, so that the seeds may be taken out; now add the skins to the pulps and juice. Put a cupful of sugar to each cupful of fruit, and boil all together until of a thick consistency. Green-grape preserves are also nice. In managing the green grapes, halve them, and extract the seeds with a small knife. Put also a cupful of sugar to a cupful of fruit. Many prefer the green to the ripe grape preserves. ”

“ Wild plums are also common, and frequently brought to market. The large purple flower of the rose-raspberry yields a fruit of a beautiful color and pleasant, acid taste, but it is seldom eaten in quantities. Wild grape-vines are very common, and formerly the fruit used to be gathered for sale, but of late years we have not seen any. All these lesser kinds of wild fruits, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and whortleberries, are gathered, to a very great extent, for sale; women, children, and occasionally men also, find it a profitable employment to bring them to market ”

“ But when the fruit is allowed to become ripe, which is not when it first turns red, but when the seeds have become dark brown and the berries assume a mahogany color, then will its true richness and flavor be developed, and the fruit be found to possess that commingling of sweet and sour which is sprightly, refreshing and agreeable. For those whose taste demands a greater degree of sweetness, sugar may be added without destroying the flavor, but they will be few who will require much addition of saccharine beyond that which the perfectly ripened berry yields. ”

“ The flowers on the grape-vine are very small and delicate. They are much smaller than the fruit that forms after they fall. The delicious grape is something more than a seed-holder. If it were meant only to hold the seeds, it would not have all that juicy pulp that is so pleasant to the taste. ”

“ The fruits of the temperate regions that we are able to grow include the apple, pear, plum, prune, quince, apricot, Persian peach, nectarine, almond, walnut, chestnut, cherry, &c., as well as some of the hardier fruits which I have classed as semi-tropical—viz., the Japanese plum, persimmon, Chickasaw plum, strawberry, &c. ”

“ But fruit also literal: for what joy of vegetation is lacking to the man who every month in the year can look through his study-window on a green lawn, and have strawberries and cream for his breakfast,—who can sit down to this royal fruit, and at the same time to apricots, peaches, nectarines, blackberries, raspberries, melons, figs both yellow and purple, early apples, and grapes of three kinds? ”

“ When sour enough to be 'just right' the barrels should be filled as full as possible and tightly corked or the sourness may disappear."
MAKING GRAPE JUICE
Any girl with a little experience in canning fruit can make for home use and for sale a harmless and delectable beverage out of the surplus grapes. Every good grape year on the farm there comes the question of what to do with the grapes. A little jelly is made when the grapes are green but most people prefer currant jelly or blackberry or crab apple. ”

“ The sample of cashew preserves examined had the following composition:
Citrus Fruits. —The term “citrus fruit” is applied to that class of fruits represented by the orange, lemon, grape fruit, and lime. In the United States extensive areas are devoted to the production of citrus fruits, and it is claimed by connoisseurs that some of the best varieties grown anywhere in the world are the products of this country. Florida and southern California are two localities where the development of the citrus fruit industry has been carried to the greatest extent. ”

“ Grape-juice is the most nourishing kind of a fruit drink, and every family ought to put up enough in the fall when grapes are plentiful and cheap to last all winter. First pick the fruit from the stem, wash and put on in water enough to cover. ”

“ In the market-place stand the fruitsellers, who sell all kinds of fruit: ripe figs, with their bruised purple flesh, melons, smelling of musk and yellow as topazes, citrons and rose-apples and clusters of white grapes, round red-gold oranges, and oval lemons of green gold. ”

“ Grapes are much used as a fresh fruit. When they are to be used in this way, the bunches should be put into a colander and washed thoroughly by running cold water over them. Then all the imperfect ones should be removed and the grapes kept cool until they are to be served. Clean grape leaves make an attractive garnish for the individual plates or the serving dish on which the grapes are placed. Grapes are also used extensively for making jelly and grape juice, a beverage that is well liked. ”

“ How to Prepare Grape Fruit for Serving Wipe grape fruit and cut in halves crosswise. With a small, sharp-pointed knife make a cut separating pulp from skin around entire circumference; then make cuts separating pulp from tough portion which divides fruit into sections. Remove tough portion in one piece, which may be accomplished by one cutting with scissors at stem or blossom end close to skin. Sprinkle fruit pulp left in grape fruit skin generously with sugar. ”

“ In our oranges and grape-fruit and in a score of other fruits, the elimination of seeds is exactly one of the modifications we have bred and selected for, in order to make the fruits less troublesome in their eating. ”

“ When the juice of the grapes is one fourth sugar, they are ready to pick. The grower generally tells the condition by the taste and color of the fruit, although there are instruments for determining the amount of sugar.
Like oranges, grapes are cut from the vines and not picked. We saw great companies of Chinamen going through the vineyards cutting off the beautiful clusters. These they placed on shallow, wooden trays to dry. ”

“ The apple-trees grow tall and slender, the blossoms break out on the top of each branch in a cluster; the fruit, when ripe, is about the size of small crabs, and shaped like golden-pippins, without any acidity, but the sweetness rather resembles turnips than the well-flavoured apple. ”

“ Should they heave up an inch or more, if well pressed down, they will start and make better growth than cuttings set in the spring. In either case, however, the cuttings should always be made in the fall.
A Rural New Yorker correspondent gets down to the real art of grape eating. Hear him tell how to manipulate the fruit: No! the man who holds the grape between his thumb and dexter finger and squeezes or shoots the pulp into his throat, does not know how to enjoy the fruit, and is not likely to appreciate the good qualities of a fine grape. ”

“ It is the tendency of the present age to ask what is, not what has been or shall be. And yet, on the part of some, as they deliberately enjoy a saucer of strawberries and cream,—it is a pleasure that we prolong for obvious reasons,—a languid curiosity may arise as to the origin and history of so delicious a fruit. ”

“ A bunch of purple grapes can be made to look very beautiful, and if the leaf of the vine is cut out of green silk and veined with sewing or crewel silks the effect is quite startling. It takes time and patience in making the berries to arrive at perfection, and great artistic taste is required to blend the colours, only the dark purples, and for the green grapes, the delicate shades of green. The red mountain ash berries can be made of red wool and are a great improvement on the crewel berries worked flat. ”

“ The luxuriance of the peach, the plum, the pear and the apple, is such, in this region, as to afford the most perfect possible specimens. The vigor of fruit-trees, in such a soil and under a heaven so congenial, produces fruits which are very large without being coarse-fleshed; the flavor concentrated, and the color very high. It is the constant remark of emigrants from the East, that our apples surpass those to which they have been accustomed. ”

“ Such may be found occasionally in the native persimmon, in certain grapes, and in many apples; but in the strawberry, blackberry, and raspberry, the berry which constitutes our desirable fruit, never swells unless the germs have been impregnated and the seeds perfect. In the stone-fruits the stone or pit is always developed, but the enclosed seed is often imperfect from want of impregnation or other cause—and yet the fleshy covering will sometimes swell and ripen. ”

“ A really good table grape should have a large amount of sugar, but tempered and made more agreeable by a due proportion of acid, as, if the acid is wanting, it will taste insipid; a tender pulp, agreeable flavor, a large amount of juice, a good sized bunch, large berry, small seeds, thin skin, and hang well to the bunch. ”

“ Then we find large quantities of the grapes so deficient in color and flavor as to be worthless; in some varieties whole bunches will hang flaccid, withered, and insipid—while perhaps a few, more favorably situated, will have their proper flavor. The grape vine is well called beautiful, and it is capable of sustaining most wonderful amounts of fruit; but on young vines, especially, it is very bad policy to allow of this over-production. ”

“ It is true that a grape vine may be allowed to produce too many branches and leaves for the fullest development of the fruit, and the proper time to guard against this is when the buds are starting into growth, by rubbing out all superfluous eyes or buds as they begin to push forth. But it is not true that the clusters of grapes require to be exposed to the sun’s rays in order that the fruit may be ripened. ”

“ Men’s taste in fruits is widely different. The delicacy and mildness of flavor which some admire, is to others mere insipidity. The sharp acid, and coarse grain and strong flavor which disgust many palates, are with others the very marks of a first-rate apple. The object of the cultivator in planting an orchard, whether for his own use, for a home market, for exportation, for cider-making, or for stock-feeding, will very materially vary his selection. ”

“ The fruit that follows is yellow, being near ripe, and covered with a white freeze, or cotton; thick set on the younger, and growing less as they grow to be thorough ripe, bunched out oftentimes in some places, some being like an apple, and some a pear, of a strong heady scent, and not durable to keep, and is sour, harsh, and of an unpleasant taste to eat fresh; but being scalded, roasted, baked, or preserved, becomes more pleasant. ”

“ EXTRACT FROM THE ACCOUNT OF DAMPIER'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD PERFORMED IN 1688.
The breadfruit (as we call it) grows on a large tree, as big and high as our largest apple-trees: It hath a spreading head, full of branches and dark leaves. The fruit grows on the boughs like apples; it is as big as a penny-loaf when wheat is at five shillings the bushel; it is of a round shape, and hath a thick tough rind. When the fruit is ripe it is yellow and soft, and the taste is sweet and pleasant. The natives of Guam use it for bread. They gather it, when full-grown, while it is green and hard ”