Fruit is mainly water, but that is pure, and the solids are such as will aid in keeping the body in healthy condition.

Perfect fruit is always best served in its natural condition, without cooking and without any addition. But fruit of the highest order is not always obtainable, nor is fresh fruit always most economical or digestible, hence other modes of serving it must be devised.

The market fluctuates; a holiday, or a cold wave, or long rain, adds a few cents to the cost of even the common fruits, while a day or two earlier or later they may be proportionately lower in price.

A prudent housekeeper has a reserve supply for such occasions; when prices were low she bought a double quantity, and now serves stewed or baked fruits. She may even anticipate the season and bring out a jar of canned blueberries or blackberries just as the new crop appears in the markets. Such fruits if properly canned and well aired after being taken from the jar are almost as good as when first cooked.

When a quantity of berries is bought, the choicer specimens may be reserved to be eaten as they are.

Washing Berries

One writer says of berries: "Do not ruin their flavor by washing them"; this may apply to those grown in our own gardens, but not to those which come from city markets. When we think of the many hands and the clouds of dust through which most fruit comes to us, the loss of a little flavor is the less evil.

There is a right and a wrong way of washing berries; they should not be left standing in a pan of water in a warm kitchen, nor be put in a colander and water poured through long enough for the sand on the top layer to be washed down through the whole mass. Gently put a few at a time in a pan of cold water. Shake out the clusters of currants, or hull strawberries, rinsing each as lifted from the water, and the sand will be removed and settle to the bottom of the pan. Raspberries must be handled very carefully, but blueberries and gooseberries will bear quite severe treatment.

Preparation.

In the preparation of fruits no utensils should be used that can discolor them or injure the flavor. Agate or graniteware, wooden or silver spoons and silver knives are best suited to this work.

There is much for Americans to learn from the French regarding their compotes or fruits preserved with little sugar, and made as needed. Too little care is given to the stewed fruits, and they are consequently despised. Indefinite quantities of fruit, sugar, and water are put together in a pan (perhaps a tin one), which is placed on the stove and left until it is convenient to remove it. There may be so little water that the mixture scorches, or so much that it would better pass for one of the German fruit soups; while sugar is used carelessly, and the compound is either unpalatably sour or sickishly sweet.

When cooked with acid fruits, sugar loses much of its sweetening power; therefore, it is more economical to add it after the cooked fruit has cooled. But most fruits keep their shape better if cooked in a thick sirup.

Watery fruits are improved by the addition of a little gelatin to thicken the juice after cooking. This is much to be preferred to an excess of sugar.

A tiny speck of salt may be used with good effect in most stewed fruits.

Only the larger and most perfect fruits should be baked whole.

Berries and small fruits are usually stewed rather than baked, but an "afternoon oven" may be turned to good account in cooking them. The fruit is put in a sirup, or with alternate layers of sugar, and is covered closely and left in the oven for several hours.

In general, moderate heat, more like the natural ripening process, is best for cooking fruits; shape and color are better preserved, and the natural flavor is not lost. Fruit juices, however, require little more than thorough scalding, provided they are afterward kept air-tight.

When it is not convenient to cook fruit as soon as might seem desirable, the preserving qualities of sugar may be utilized and the fruit left covered with it for several hours or over night. Then a part of the juice may be drained off and cooked by itself if desired for jelly. The remainder of the fruit will make an excellent jam.

It seems a pity to mash fine berries to get the juice for ice-cream, when so many are inferior in appearance, but are of good flavor, and would answer for juice alone. Often it is wiser to prepare two or more boxes at one time and select the best to serve whole, and use the smaller or imperfect ones for dishes in which the juice only is required.

Such juice has other possibilities besides ice-cream and sherbets. It may be used to dilute the heavy-cream before whipping for a filling for layer cakes or cream puffs, or for many gelatin desserts, or to cook with tapioca or rice, or as the basis of fruit soups.

While fine fruit is best for cooking as well as to serve raw, imperfect or half ripe fruit will be palatable and digestible when carefully cooked; if insipid, a slice or two of lemon, a bit of cinnamon bark, or a few cloves may be cooked in the sirup and removed afterward. Over-ripe or decayed fruit should never be used.

Some housekeepers find it easier to stock their shelves with rows of well-filled jars of fruit little by little rather than by wholesale canning. Thus it is easy to keep the table supplied with fresh-stewed fruit and at the same time fill a jar or two. The necessary directions for stewing fruits and canning and preserving are nearly identical. Prepare the fruit carefully, cook it slowly, but at sufficiently high temperature to destroy germs of decay - then keep them out by keeping the air out.

Often several varieties of fruit may be combined, as raspberries with currants, apples with pineapple, quince, or barberries. Fruits may be combined in salads without number, which serve equally well for the first course at luncheon or the last at dinner; and their juices, sweetened and chilled, or frozen, make an unlimited variety of refreshing desserts and beverages. Some of them are more satisfying when cooked with rice or cereal; but the rich combinations with eggs, or fat in pastry, are no improvement on the simpler ways, and take time and heat for their preparation.