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BLENDS. 



By putting together different kinds of fruit it is possible to secure 

 almost any desired flavor — as the quince has long been used to flavor 

 apple sauce. 



Taking the full range of our fruits, there is a wide field for selection. 

 The California prune is very sweet, with little other flavor. The Robe 

 de Sergent has a distinct trace of acid. Either of these will be improved 

 for most tastes by adding to them, when cooked, about one eighth of 

 their bulk of plums. They will then require more sugar, but will be far 

 richer than when cooked alone. 



A blend of plums and raisins, in about equal parts, is a very accepta- 

 ble dish, retaining all the good effects of the fruit-acid. 



Apricots blend well with almost any sweet fruits, their acid readily 

 permeating the whole. These are especially desirable in jams or marma- 

 lades. 



The highly colored plums are excellent with dried apples, imparting 

 a richness to both appearance and flavor. 



Pears are generally very sweet, and when cooked for sauce require 

 some of the sour fruits to improve them. 



Cherries, especially when a few of the pits are cracked, the meats 

 being crushed and put into the sauce or pie, make a distinctive flavor 

 greatly fancied by epicures. 



COOKING DRIED FRUIT. 



The value of dried fruit as a food, and its acceptability to the palate, 

 are largely determined by the manner in which it is cooked. In the 

 process of cooking, the flavor, the texture, and even the nutritive value 

 may be either preserved or almost entirely destroyed. In too many 

 cases the latter result is successfully attained. 



The three rules given below, if followed, will keep any one from going 

 very far astray: 



1. All dried fruit should be soaked in clear water until the moisture lost 

 in drying has been nearly replaced. 



2. Dried fruit should not be boiled. 



3. All sugar used should be cooked with the fruit. 



In drying, the tissues of the fruit are shrunken, adhering to each other, 

 and certain chemical changes take place, as shown in the change of 

 flavor. Soaking separates again these tissues, and in a measure re-forms 

 the juice once contained; and while it can never entirely restore the 

 fresh flavor, because of the chemical changes, with some fruits it comes 

 very near to it. 



Boiling hardens some of the tissues, breaks up the fruit, changes not 

 only its flavor, but its digestibility. The temperature should never be 

 raised above 180° Fahr. (a low simmer), at which temperature the fruit 

 will cook entirely tender, and at which it may stand for hours without 

 injury. 



The saccharine matter contained in fruit is mostly grape, or fruit 

 sugar, which differs from cane sugar in having passed through one step 

 in the process of digestion. Its use is open to none of the objections 

 which physiologists urge against the use of cane sugar. When the 

 sugar is cooked with the dried fruit, instead of being put in after cook- 



