FRUITS. 305 
skimmer, and arrange daintily on a dish; then boil down the 
syrup until thick. and pour it over the fruit ; let this cool before 
serving. Apples, pears, peaches, apricots, and oranges may 
all be cooked in this wholesome way. Charles Lamb, in his 
early story (a sweet, homely, pathetic pastoral), of Rosamund 
Gray, draws the moral: ‘Shall the good housewife take such 
pains in pickling, and preserving her garden fruits, her walnuts, 
her apricots, and quinces: and is there not much spiritual 
housewifery in treasuring up our mind’s best fruits—our heart’s 
meditations in its most favoured moments?” “ Hating 
strawberries ont of season,’ said Washington “ invariably 
produces mental depression. I do not believe there would be 
so many suicides (more frequent in the spring than at any other 
time of the year) if people would not eat strawberries until they 
are ripe at home.” The use of fruit will materially help to 
diminish a craving for alcohol. Lord Chesterfield, in one of his 
celebrated letters to his son Philip Stanhope, when in Italy 
(1749), wrote: ‘Fruit when full ripe is very wholesome, but 
then it must be within certain bounds as to quantity, for I have 
known many of my countrymen die of bloody fluxes by indulging 
in too great a quantity of fruit in those countries where from 
the goodness, and the ripeness of it, they thought it could do 
them no harm.” Scientists now find that cherries, strawberries, 
and some other fruits tend to lessen the quantity of uric acid 
in gouty subjects by the action of their guinic acid, or “ China 
saure.” 
Fruit soups are to be commended as agreeable, and useful ; 
they can be made by boiling fresh, or dried fruits in water (with 
or without the addition of sugar, lemon-peel, etc.), and then freeing 
them from the solid residue by pressing, and straining off. These 
soups are pleasant to some persons as drinks, being sustaining, 
because they will contain quite a small amount of albuminates, 
rather more carbohydrates, and certain of the organic acids. 
Apples stewed with raisins make an excellent dish for overcoming 
constipation : Pare, core, and cut into quarters a dozen, or more, 
of medium-sized apples; clean thoroughly as many raisins of 
good quality as equal in weight one-fourth of the apples employed, 
and pour over these raisins one quart of boiling water; then 
let them steep until well swollen; stone them, and add the 
apples, proceeding to cook them until tender. Some sugar to 
sweeten may be added if desired, although scarcely needed 
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