Pears: The Other Winter Fruit

Pears, apples, oranges and grapefruit are about the only fresh fruits available to most of us at this time of the year. Oranges and grapefruit are used so much for breakfast that our thoughts need to be directed towards uses of the other two. We know a great deal about using apples in cooking, yet most folks serve pears raw. Pears are milder than apples, but there is no reason why they cannot fill the place of apples anywhere.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette goes on in this February 19, 1945 article to share a recipe for Pear Coffee Cake. I've never given much thought to winter fruits, but those ever-resourceful 1940s housewives would have been keen to find new ways to spice up the breakfast table on frigid winter mornings. There certainly are plenty of fantastic looking pears in the produce section these days, but I'm just as guilty as "most folks" who only "serve pears raw." And yet - Pear Coffee Cake is a little too rich for my blood. Not when I've still got plenty of reducing to do. So I've been rummaging through my vintage cookbooks looking for pear recipes suitable for the reducer's breakfast table. Hmmm... Pear and Cherry Salad, Pear Conde, Pear-grape Salad, Candied Pears, Pickled Pears, Baked Stuffed Pears. The only thing that sounds simple enough for breakfast is a recipe for Stewed Pears. It's a quick recipe, too!

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STEWED PEARS

Peel pears. Cut in half, quarter or slice. Remove core. Add 1 tablespoon granulated sugar for each pear and water to depth of 1/4 inch. Add 2 or 3 cloves, 2 slices lemon. Cover. Bring to boiling. Simmer 10 minutes or until tender. Chill. Serve for breakfast or dessert.

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A November 1949 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also points out that pears can add some variety to winter breakfast menus, but their serving suggestions aren't very imaginative: "Ripe sliced pears are good served with cream... Serve them, too, on prepared cereal." The author does describe some of the varieties of pears that can be found at the market during the winter:

• "The BOSC, the fall russet pear, is distinguished by its symmetrical base and long tapering neck. When ripe, it is a rich, russet color. It is best between September and January."

• "The COMICE is a special favorite during the Christmas holiday season for a gift fruit. It is a de luxe pear, large in size which takes on a creamy yellow color when ripe. It often has a bright red hue. The flesh is fine-grained, sweet and juicy. Best between October and February."

• "The ANJOU is a stubbier, semi-heart shaped pear. It is bordering between a green and creamy yellow when ripe. It has a rich flavor, fine texture and is full of juice, making it a favorite for eating fresh. They are on the market from October until April."

• "The NELIS is a small, russet pear. It has a sweet tender meat. It appears on the market in January and is available until June."

Which variety is your favorite? Do you have any pear recipes that'd be perfect for getting these chilly winter mornings off to a good start? Or an apple breakfast recipe that might be nicely adapted for pears?

Week's End

I got to play with my new popover pan this morning!

Hot Baked Apple

Popovers

The recipe in the cookbook for Hot Baked Apples wasn't very detailed. It tells me to bake the fruit in a moderate oven (350-375 degrees F), but doesn't tell me how long to bake it:

Sour apples cook more quickly than sweet ones, and summer or fall apples take less time to cook than winter apples.

Thank goodness for the internet. Advice like that would've been meaningful for somebody who'd grown up baking apples, but for me --- not so helpful. (Boy, you skip one generation when it comes to passing down traditional knowledge about cookery and the information is practically lost!) Recipes online suggest baking the fruit for 40 to 65 minutes. With a little research, I was able to find out that Braeburn apples - the kind in my fruit bowl - are a winter variety, so I figured one of those would take at least an hour.

I realized the other night that my closet has become a little segregated. The clothes I've hung up in there since I started ironing my clean laundry on Tuesdays are all neatly hanging on one side of the closet. Wrinkle-free, by the way, even after a week in some cases. That still suprises me! I've been so fearful that the wrinkle-free will be contaminated by The Others - all those wrinkled clothes I haven't cleaned since the days when I only ironed things on my way out the door. So they each have their own sides of the closet. And I'm hoping that the wrinkle-free side will just get bigger and bigger until it takes over the whole place someday...

One of the things that's taken me by surprise lately is just how much I like being in my own home. How much more I genuinely enjoy being here when it's not as messy as it used to be. It's certainly not clean by any stretch of the imagination, but the living room and bedroom are tidy. There aren't dirty dishes all over the kitchen counters and stovetop. My clean clothes are all put away, and the dirty laundry is in its place. There's something about a neat(er) home that makes me want to spend some time here. Fancy that! It's no wonder I always felt kinda antsy at home before this. Who can relax in a messy place?

The Business Center

One of the things I love about the manual and lots of vintage women's magazines, cookbooks, etc. is that they give total props to the work of housewives as a profession. They get it. They get that these women spent seven days a week on the job. And we all need a corner office - or even just a corner of an office - to call our own. In this case, it makes perfect sense to locate the housewife's "business center" in the kitchen. It's the place where she spends hour after hour preparing and cleaning up after meals. It's the place many a housewife stores the tools and solutions needed for cleaning the rest of the house. The first stop when she gets home from doing her marketing and sometimes even the place where she does the wash and the ironing:

The kitchen is one logical location for the homemaker's "office," which need not occupy much space if it is well planned.

Every homemaker needs a desk of some description, where accounts can be kept, shopping lists made out, recipes copied and quiet planning accomplished. Files of bills and receipts, manufacturers' direction booklets, guarantees, etc., should be located here, as well as reference books on homemaking problems.

A calendar is a necessity in this business center, and a small radio and extension telephone might well be part of the equipment. A bulletin board to keep the family posted as to each person's whereabouts, to hold reminders for the forgetful ones, to hold order lists, and to give news of general interest, may be hung on the wall.

Where should I make a little "business center" for my new job at home? I don't have a whole lot of room in this one-bedroom apartment, so I think I'll let my kitchen table do double duty - actually it's triple duty now since that's where I'm doing my ironing! There's a tall cabinet just a couple steps away from the table which has been serving as kind of a catch-all for me, but I'm going to clean it out a bit and clear off one shelf for just the kinds of things the authors of the manual describe: my cookbooks, my recipe file, the operating guides for some of my small kitchen appliances. I've already got a radio on the table and a magnetic notepad on the fridge where I keep track of the groceries and supplies I need to pick up next time I'm out. Now that I know that the drawer under my range doesn't have a broiler inside, I'm going to use that space to store some of the pots and pans I'm not using every day.

I made the Broiled Grapefruit again this morning with just a sprinkling of brown sugar. It was a little better, but I'd certainly rather just have it fresh from the icebox. It's hard to improve on Mother Nature in this case! Humble Labor made a great point though in her comment to my blog two days ago. A warm fruit dish is very fitting for chilly winter mornings.

Plan B

Alas, I fell off the wagon today.

I tried to squeeze way too much in the way of holiday baking into my evening at home yesterday. Went to bed late and got up extra early to finish doing up the packages for my workmates. Before I knew it, it was time to head to work and I was still trying to clean up the breakfast dishes... So my living room went untidied this morning, and I cursed myself as I stumbled over something walking into my dark apartment this evening. I've gotten used to clean floors very quickly!

Instead of hurtling myself right on into my new mission on Sunday, I think I'm going to continue with these early morning chores for another week - effective tomorrow. Make sure I take the time to really get them down before adding anything new. I've got to kick Ms. Night Owl out of this nest. And be careful not to overextend myself during this busy holiday season.

On a brighter note, my breakfast menu felt positively luxurious this morning:

Grapefruit Half

Prepared Cereal

This is the first time ready-to-eat cereal has been on the menu. No boiling, no stirring - just add milk and enjoy! The menus in this cookbook often suggest Prepared Cereal as an alternative for warm weather, but it only pops up once in awhile during the winter. Cold weather = hot cereal. I found some Shredded Wheat at the grocery store. The old fashioned kind that comes in paper packets. Three "biscuits" to a packet.

My mom served Grapefruit Halves all the time when I was growing up. I remember my sisters and I sprinkling our grapefruit with sugar and then trying to dig out the segments with our spoons without squirting ourselves in the eye with pulp. It was a talent, let me tell you. And you had to have just the right spoon - something with a nice thin edge. Too bad I could figure out how to cut a grapefruit crosswise this morning. I actually ended up with grapefruit quarters!

Week's End

Now here's a breakfast I've got some experience making! I did pick up some interesting trivia from my cookbook today. Scrambled Eggs were once known as Battered Eggs.

Grapefruit Juice
Scrambled Eggs
Toast
Coffee

I've definitely learned a little something during the second week of The Great Housekeeping Experiment. Looking ahead at some of the breakfast menus in my 1945 cookbook, I can see the same cereals used over and over again in different ways. I should note that the menus I've been using are all "winter" menus. There are alternatives suggested for warm weather, usually involving prepared cereals and fresh fruits. If a '40s housewife wanted to be well-equipped for breakfasts on winter mornings, her shopping would have been fairly simple. She'd keep a stock of cereals on hand (rolled oats, cornmeal, wheat, farina), a prepared cereal or two, dried fruits (apricots, prunes), milk, eggs, bread, canned/bottled juices (apple, grapefruit), and some fresh citrus fruit.

And this may sound strange, but I feel like I'm getting better acquainted with my stovetop. Better able to judge where I should set the burner, that getting the water to boil before adding the cereal is always best, that stewing fruits need lots of water. Each cereal has it's own protocol --- as I learned yesterday with Corn-meal Mush. Speaking of which, I may not have been able to find a recipe on my package of cornmeal, but here's a recipe from the Aunt Jemima website with a whole step I missed!

Corn Meal Mush

1 cup Quaker or Aunt Jemima Enriched White or Yellow Corn Meal
1 cup cold water
3 cups boiling water
1 teaspoon salt

In large saucepan, bring 3 cups water and salt to a boil. In small bowl, mix corn meal with cold water. Gradually stir corn meal mixture into salted boiling water. Cook 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Cover, and continue cooking on low heat 5 minutes for white corn meal or 10 minutes for yellow corn meal, stirring occasionally. Serve hot with milk and sugar. Yield: 6 servings