The sight of the fruit-dish or basket upon the breakfast table has become so common of late years that its absence, rather than its presence, in the season of ripe fruits would be remarked, and felt even painfully by some. It is fashionable, and therefore considered a wise sanitary measure, to eat oranges as a prelude to the regular business of the morning meal. Grapes are eaten so long as they can be conveniently obtained. It may be because my own taste and digestion revolt at the practice of forcing crude acids upon an empty, and often faint stomach, that I am disposed to doubt the healthfulness of the innovation upon the long-established rule that sets fruit always in the place of dessert. I have an actual antipathy to the pungent odor of raw orange-peel, and have been driven from the breakfast-table at a hotel more than once by the overpowering effect of the piles of yellow rind at my left, right, and opposite to me. A cluster of grapes taken before breakfast would put me, and others whom I know, hors de combat for the day with severe headache. In the consciousness of this, I can be courageous in declining the “first course” of an À la mode breakfast, and at my own table, withholding the fruit until the stomach has regained its normal tone under the judicious application of substantial viands. Then, it is pleasant to linger over the vinous globes of crimson, purple, and pale-green; to dip ripe strawberries in powdered sugar with lazy gusto; to pare rosy rareripes and golden Bartletts while discussing the day’s news and plans, in the serene belief that the healthful, delicious juices are assimilating whatever incongruous elements have preceded them in the alimentary canal.

I write this, not to guide the practice of other households, but to enforce a remark I see an opportunity for bringing in here. Be a slavish follower of no custom whatsoever. It is sensible and expedient to act in uniformity with your neighbors when you can do so without moral or physical injury. Conformity to a foolish or hurtful fashion is always weak, if not positively wicked.

Serve your fruit, then, as the first or last course at your family breakfast as may seem right to yourself, but, by all means, have it whenever you can procure it comfortably and without much expense. In warm weather, you had better banish meat from the morning bill of fare, three days in the week, than have the children go without berries and other fresh fruits. Make a pretty glass dish, or silver or wicker basket of peaches, pears or plums, an institution of the summer breakfast. In autumn, you can have grapes until after frost; then, oranges and bananas if you desire. These, being expensive luxuries, are not absolutely enjoined by nature or common sense. Let the “basket of summer fruit,” however, be a comely and agreeable reality while solstitial suns beget bile, and miasma walks, a living, almost visible presence, through the land.

Fruits, each in its season, are the cheapest, most elegant and wholesome dessert you can offer your family or friends, at luncheon or tea. Pastry and plum-pudding should be prohibited by law, from the beginning of June until the end of September. And in winter, a dish of apples and oranges flanked by one of boiled chestnuts, and another of picked walnut or hickory-nut kernels, will often please John and the bairns better than the rich dessert that cost you a hot hour over the kitchen-range, when Bridget was called away to a cousin’s funeral, or Daphne was laid up with “a misery in her head.”

Among the creams, jellies and “forms” of a state-dinner dessert, fruit is indispensable, and the arrangement and preparation of the choicer varieties is a matter for the taste and skill of the mistress, or her refined daughters, as are the floral decorations of the feast.

Frosted Peaches.

12 large rich peaches—freestones.

Whites of three eggs, whisked to a standing froth.

2 table-spoonfuls water.

1 cup powdered sugar.

Put water and beaten whites together; dip in each peach when you have rubbed off the fur with a clean cloth, and then roll in powdered sugar. Set up carefully, on the stem end, upon a sheet of white paper, laid on a waiter in a sunny window. When half dry, roll again in the sugar. Expose to the sun and breeze until perfectly dry, then, put in a cool, dry place until you are ready to arrange them in the glass dish for table.

Garnish with green leaves.

Frosted and GlacÉ Oranges.

Pare the oranges, squeezing them as little as you can, remove every particle of the inner white skin, and divide them into lobes, taking care not to break the skin. Take half of the sugar meant for frosting, and stir it up with a few drops of liquid cochineal. Spread on a dish in the sun to dry, and if it lump, roll or pound again to powder. Put the white sugar in another dish. Add the water to the stiffened whites; dip in one-third of the orange lobes and roll in the white sugar; another third, first in the eggs and water, then in the red sugar. Lay them upon a sheet of paper to dry.

Put the gum arabic and hot water together over the fire, and when the gum is melted, add the cup of sugar. Stir until it is a clear, thick glue. Set in a pan of hot water and dip the remaining pieces of orange in it. Lay a stick lengthwise on a flat dish, and lean the lobes against it on both sides, to dry.

Heap red, white, and yellow together in a glass dish, and garnish with leaves—orange or lemon leaves if you can get them.

This is a delicate, but not difficult, bit of work, and the effect is very pretty.

Tropical Snow. Maltese cross

10 sweet oranges.

1 grated cocoanut.

2 glasses pale sherry.

1 cup powdered sugar.

6 red bananas.

Peel the oranges; divide into lobes and cut these across three times, making small pieces, from which the seeds must be taken. Put a layer of these in the bottom of a glass bowl, and pour a little wine over them. Strew thickly with white sugar. The cocoanut should have been pared and thrown into cold water before it was grated. Spread some of it over the sugared oranges; cut the bananas into very thin round slices, and put a layer of the fruit close together, all over the cocoanut. More oranges, wine, sugar and cocoanut, and when the dish is full, heap high with the cocoanut. Sprinkle sugar on this, and ornament with rings of sliced banana. Eat very soon, or the oranges will grow tough in the wine.

Oranges cut up in the way I have described are more easily managed with a spoon, and less juice is wasted, than when they are sliced in the usual manner.

This is a handsome and delightful dessert.

Cocoanut Frost on Custard. Maltese cross

2 cups rich milk.

½ pound sweet almonds, blanched and pounded.

4 eggs, beaten light.

½ cup powdered sugar.

Rose-water.

1 cocoanut, pared, thrown into cold water and grated.

Scald the milk and sweeten. Stir into it the almonds pounded to a paste, with a little rose-water. Boil three minutes, and pour gradually upon the beaten eggs, stirring all the time. Return to the fire and boil until well thickened. When cold turn into a glass bowl, and heap high with the grated cocoanut. Sift a little powdered sugar over all.

Stewed Apples. Maltese cross

Core the fruit without paring it, and put it into a glass or stoneware jar, with a cover. Set in a pot of cold water and bring to a slow boil. Leave it at the back of the range for seven or eight hours, boiling gently all the time. Let the apples get perfectly cold before you open the jar.

Eat with plenty of sugar and cream.

Only sweet apples are good cooked in this manner, and they are very good.

Baked Pears. Maltese cross

Cut ripe pears in half, without peeling or removing the stems. Pack in layers in a stoneware or glass jar. Strew a little sugar over each layer. Put a small cupful of water in the bottom of the jar to prevent burning; fit on a close cover, and set in a moderate oven. Bake three hours, and let the jar stand unopened in the oven all night.

Apples and Jelly. Maltese cross

Fill a baking-dish with pippins, or other tender juicy apples, pared and cored, but not sliced. Make a syrup of one cup of water, and half as much sugar; stir until the sugar is dissolved, and pour over the apples. Cover closely, and bake slowly until tender. Draw from the oven, and let the apples cool without uncovering. Pour off the syrup, and fill the hollowed centres with some bright fruit jelly.

Boil down the syrup fast, until quite thick, and, just before sending the apples to table, stir into it some rich cream sweetened very abundantly. Pass with the apples.

Boiled Chestnuts.

Put into warm (not hot) water, slightly salted, bring to a boil, and cook fast fifteen minutes. Turn off the water through a cullender; stir a good piece of butter into the hot chestnuts, tossing them over and over until they are glossy and dry.

Serve upon a hot napkin in a deep dish.

Walnuts and Hickory Nuts.

Crack and pick from the shells; sprinkle salt lightly over them, and serve mixed in the same dish.

Black walnuts are much more wholesome when eaten with salt. Indeed, they are not wholesome at all without it.

Melons.

Wipe watermelons clean when they are taken from the ice. They should lie on, or in ice, for at least four hours before they are eaten. Carve at table by slicing off each end, then cutting the middle in sharp, long points, letting the knife go half way through the melon at every stroke. Pull the halves apart, and you will have a dentated crown.

Wash nutmeg and muskmelons; wipe dry; cut in two, scrape out the seeds, and put a lump of ice in each half.

Eat with sugar, or with mixed pepper and salt.

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