Till: MONTHLY BULLETIN. 127 



To make a personal run Cession, I have been drying pears for twenty 

 years, but until this year we have never made regular use of them on 

 our own ranch and family tallies. Must folks who experiment with them 

 quite naturally assume that they should be cooked just like dried apples. 

 The result : Usually a soft, sloppy mess. One trial. Never again. 



I have a Spanish friend, somewhat an epicure, quite an artist in 

 edibles. An apron, a cookstove, some simple components, and lo ! de- 

 lightful culinary symphonies, based upon Italian, or French, or Spanish 

 themes, echoes of the sunny .Mediterranean. One day he came to me, 

 puzzled. "What is the matter — not any of the grocers of Santa Cruz 

 sell dried pears ? Why not ? ' ' 



He had camped a few weeks at a summer cottage. Among his supplies 

 was a box of dried pears which even the horticultural commissioner of 

 Contra Costa County, to his everlasting humiliation be it said, did not 

 know how to cook, although he grew them. But so deliciously had Mr. 

 Artieda served them to his visiting camp neighbors, five different 

 families of Oaklanders, that after once tasting them they became en- 

 thusiastic. Thej were like the Chinaman of Charles Lamb's tale, who 

 for the first time in history, through the fire that burned his humble 

 cottage, came to learn the virtues of roast pig. 



The enthusiasm over the pears was all in vain. They rushed to the 

 local stores to buy the new delicacy. The clerks said. "We don't keep 

 them, there isn't any demand for dried pears. ' ' Five California families 

 wanted a ( 'alifornia product, and couldn't get it. 



Perhaps you would like to know how my friend cooked his pears. It 

 isn 't a new recipe, it has probably been in use for hundreds of years. 



Wash the fruit clean and simmer for half an hour. By that time the 

 pears will have swollen to almost original size, but will not have softened 

 so as to fall to pieces. If you keep on stewing they will become too soft. 

 Take the pears out; lay them in a shallow dish or pan, strain the water 

 back over them, sprinkle them with sugar, flavor if you wish with spice 

 to taste, and bake fifteen minutes. They will come out of the oven nicely 

 baked, with the sugar crystallized on the surface. Serve with cream 

 and you have a dish that everybody enjoys. Dried pears, according to 

 analysis, are one of the most nutritious of fruits, and at the same price 

 per pound have a greater food value than dried apples. 



At the Mechanics' Library in San Francisco there is a whole shelf full 

 of recipe books, big and little. But in none of them was I able to find a 

 single recipe for cooking dried pears, and in fact, very few recipes for 

 the preparation of other dried fruits. The California Fruit Canners 

 distribute two useful little booklets with a variety of good recipes, but 

 mostly for canned fruits and canned vegetables, with just a few dried 

 fruit recipes. The Raisin Association has an excellent collection of 

 raisin recipes. Folders and booklets are good, but somehow, in the clutter 

 of a kitchen they soon get lost or destroyed. They are ephemeral. 



How many of you have ever seen a book, neatly bound and printed — 

 "The American Fruit Recipe Book" or "How to Use Our American 

 Fruits, Fresh, Canned and Dried"? This book tells the young house- 

 keeper, tells the hotel chef, teaches even the wise teachers of domestic 

 science about the fruits that are good. It gives the comparative food 



