Page 13 - Simply Vegetables Spring 2021

Preserving the pomes
ADRIAN BAGGALEY
To save anyone dashing off to the computer, or to look through the OED for the definition of a ‘pome.’ A pome for the purpose of
this article is an apple or a pear. Plums are drupes, or stone fruit to you or me.
Drying
This has been the method of preserving fruit since time immemorial; our climate leaves much to be desired when it comes to drying fruit outdoors. Fortunately there are purpose made driers for domestic use which will dry many tiers of fruit or veg at a time. Earlier in the year (2020) at a Midlands Fruit Group, part of the light refreshment was dried apples and pears. In the past I tended to think of dried fruit as a bit of a poor relation when compared to their fresh counterpart.
2015 Cider Workshop
Red Jonaprince apples, General Tottleben pears (the latter has little use as a desert pear in an average year, apart from 2018 and 2020) and Comice or to use its proper name Doyenne du Comice. Its reputation is legendary. For sweetness I would give it ten out of ten, for texture also ten out ten and for juiciness ten out of ten, flavour, sorry I
2 for 24 hours), this actually worked. I finally acquired a set of instructions from Vigo, which said mark 3 for 8 to 12 hours.
The apples were crisp and the pears
were soft, sweet and gooey but they came through the experience okay, considering I was about to throw them away. The question was, will they keep? I stored the dried fruit in airtight old coffee jars and Kilner jars. Over several weeks I dried several batches of any apples or pears that came to hand, there
is no shortage of either as I have around ninety varieties of apple and getting on for seventy varieties of pear. Next year I shall
try various varieties of apple to try and find one that is significantly better than the rest. What I am not sure about is, do I dry them to a crisp or do I leave them moist and rely on the concentrated sugar content to preserve them? The last batch of Comice were in
a hell of a mess but they just managed to hold together; when dried for around twelve hours they turned out deliciously gooey and toffee like, some tasting like bonfire toffee, they by far outshone the dried apples. It
was a good decision to use them; they were an unqualified success in a year that badly needed one.
A couple of points particularly with the pears, about three quarters of the way through drying turn the fruit over and separate any slices that are stuck together; also bring the bottom trays up to the top and drop the top to the bottom.
Juicing
I remember a long time ago smashing some very ripe William pears up in a bucket with a
Some years ago a friend gave me a Vigo six tier drier. The first casualty of this new toy was six trays of dessert cherries. Twenty seventeen saw a bumper cherry
crop; I made loads of jam and
still had loads left over. I came
up with the idea of drying
some. The instructions said
don’t take out the pits (stones).
I was happy with that; anyone
working with cherries will
know how messy they are - second only to mulberries. Most of the dried cherries didn’t keep; the ones on the bottom tray pretty well came out as they went in. The drier was consigned to the loft.
Fast forward to November 2020 and I am on the last lap with the apple picking, I have pears in store with a finite life so I resurrect the drier and prepare what is to hand,
find it a little light on flavour. I cut the fruit into 6-8mm slices, apples crossways and pears lengthways, discard the stalks, eyes and core complete with carpels (the sharp bits that surround the pips). Take a slither of skin off the first and
the last slices. Arrange the slices fish scale wise in the drier, one single layer going all the way round the tray. The General Totleben pears were ‘past it’, they were brown inside and I agonised as to whether or not throw them away, I thought it worth having a try with them. Only one problem left, I couldn’t find the instructions for the drier so I had to guess the time and the heat settings (mark
For sweetness I would give it ten out of ten
2011 Pear Conference, Harlow Carr
Brown’s Apple juice 2019
Simply Vegetables 13