286 FRUIT RECIPES 



"First Method — When fairly ripened pick the fruit from 

 the trees, peel off the skin and hang them by threads at- 

 tached to the stems in a room for two or three weeks. They 

 will then turn brown or black and become soft. You will 

 say that they are the most delicious fruits in the world and 

 dried still further, they will become just like dried figs, or 

 better than figs. Further, pack them in a box in alternate 

 layers with cut rice straw and keep them for a month. 

 Black ones then become covered with a white powder (not 

 mouldy). They then become very sweet, though the 

 sweetness may not be retained through the next summer. 



"Second Method — Harvesting time being the same as 

 above, the fruits are packed into an empty wine cask (in 

 Japan Sake casks, Japanese rice- wine). This should still 

 be full of alcoholic flavour, or if the flavour be weak, the 

 cask should be sprinkled with wine or brandy or any other 

 spirit. Sherry wine somewhat resembles our Sake. 

 Sprinkle the fruits very lightly with wine and keep covered 

 air-tight for a week or two according to the temperature 

 and the degree of austereness of the fruit. At the end of 

 the time they become sweet. 



"Other Methods — ^The process of sweetening is not merely 

 limited to the above methods, but the fruit may be treated 

 in several other ways; for instance, put new rice straws 

 and dried haulms of sweet potato in about equal proportion 

 in a vat, filling it about one-fifth full. To this add a little 

 wood ashes and pour warm water over them. Stir up the 

 straw so as to get it thoroughly wet. When the water is 

 tepid, put in fruit to fill it one-quarter to one-third full and 

 stir up to wet the fruit and imbed it in the straw. Cover 

 the vat for five or seven days, after which time the fruit will 

 be fit to eat. The fruits thus cured are not as sweet as 

 by the Sake cask process," 



