EVAPORATING FRUITS. 



185 



great furore ; but the principle then employed was totally incor- 

 rect, and the result correspondingly disappointing to all con- 

 cerned. The fruit offered was really cooked and then dried, and 

 not genuinely evaporated at all. The trays were placed one 

 above the other, in a box or chamber ; the hot vapor, or steam, 

 from below was augmented by the moisture from the contents of 

 the lower trays, and the result was that the fruit swelled just as 

 though it had been cooked, the delicate membranous cells burst 

 asunder, and the starch they contained, instead of being con- 

 verted into grape-sugar or glucose, acidified, and thus both the 

 sweetness and the flavor of the fruit, which is an essential oil 

 held prisoner by these same little cells, dissipated, and conse- 

 quently the whole character of the fruit was changed. The "salt'^ 

 had " lost its savor," hence " evaporated " fruits took no hold on 

 public favor, and those who had invested in expensive driers 

 soon abandoned their use, the universal verdict being that " it 

 did not pay." And yet all felt that there existed a satisfactory 

 solution of the vexed question of perfect evaporation, and 

 within the last few years it has been solved completely, b}" the 

 invention of the " American Fruit Drier," or evaporator — Dr. 

 Ryder. 



He set aside, from the beginning, the erroneous idea, upon 

 which the vertical evaporators were constructed, that " evapora- 

 ted produce should be retained and finished in a humid atmos- 

 phere, entering at the point of greatest humidity and finishing 

 at the point of greatest heat." Water in " dried fruit " means 

 decay, acetous ferm.entation, and consequent loss of sweetness 

 and flavor. This theory had failed lamentably in practice ; so 

 Dr. Ryder adopted the opposite as the true method, and the 

 result of his patient investigation is, what the writer, after care- 

 ful study and observation, fears not to pronounce the ne plus- 

 ultra of an . evaporator. 



No one, even though blindfolded, can taste or smell a slice 

 of fruit or vegetable evaporated by the " American," without at 

 once distinguishing the name of the crude article. So perfectly is 

 the flavor preserved, no mistake can be made about it; and 

 here is just the difference of product between the old vertical 



