This section is from the book "Practical Dietetics: With Reference To Diet In Disease", by Alida Frances Pattee. Also available from Amazon: Practical Dietetics: With Reference to Diet in Disease.
Over-ripe or unripe fruit should not be eaten raw; besides inferior flavor there is danger of digestive disturbance.
Before serving, all fruit should be thoroughly washed to avoid germs. Digestive disturbances are more often caused by these germs than by the fruit itself. There is danger also of acquiring harmful intestinal parasites from raw fruits; in all doubtful cases, the food should be cooked.
1 medium apple = 70 Calories. Wipe and core apples. Put in a shallow dish with one tablespoon water to each apple; more may be added during cooking if necessary, put into the center of each apple two teaspoons sugar. Bake in a hot oven twenty to thirty minutes, or until soft; baste with the syrup every ten minutes. A little nutmeg may be added to the sugar, and a few drops of lemon juice to each apple. Care must be taken that apples do not lose their shape and break.
Wash, pare, core and slice one apple; put in saucepan and add one teaspoon sugar and enough boiling water to partly cover. Cover and cook slowly without stirring until transparent and tender. Appetizing to serve with any breakfast food.
Pears and peaches may be cooked in the same way.
Pare and core sound, tart apples. Steam until almost tender; remove to a buttered pan; fill cavities with cocoanut, stick apples full of blanched almonds, baste with syrup made of sugar, water and lemon juice. Finish cooking in a hot oven, basting often. When serving, fill the cavities with jelly or the jellied juice.
¼ cup prunes. 1 cup cold water.
¼ cup dried apricots. Sugar to taste.
Wash fruit carefully; soak over night and cook slowly for two hours. If cooked properly the fruit will need very little sugar, as the sugar in the fruit is developed by this method of cooking.
1 medium banana = 64 Calories.
Raw, this fruit is often indigestible, but baked it acts as a stimulant to the nerves, being at once received and rapidly assimilated by the stomach. Cut bananas in halves; put in shallow pan; sprinkle with sugar and a little lemon juice and bake until soft.
The banana contains starch and should be thoroughly ripened before eating.
1 cup cranberries. ½ cup water.
1/3 cup sugar.
Pick over and wash cranberries. Put in saucepan and add sugar and water, bring to the boiling point and boil fifteen minutes. Strain and cool.
For jelly use one-half cup sugar and one-quarter cup water and after straining put into molds.
Bake a lemon or a sour orange in a moderate oven for twenty minutes. When done, open at one end and take out the inside. Sweeten with sugar or molasses. This is excellent for hoarseness and pressure on the lungs.
1 Without sugar.
 
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