Plans for an ample apricot harvest

Summertime activities at Towerwater are dictated by the garden. A glint of yellow in the apricots tells us that within in the next two weeks we will be making preserves with apricots.

Apricots

The question every season is, do we go traditional or explore new ways of using the sun-ripened golden fruit. This year, among other things, I am planning on making apricot brandy. A number of cocktail recipes call for apricot brandy, but this is not so easily found. One of my mottos in life is, if one cannot find an ingredient, make it yourself.

A recipe for Apricot Brandy in  "Maak jou eie likeur - Jean Dickson, 1991"

I consulted my trusted recipe books. In the 1908, Hilda's 'where Is It?' of Recipes, by Hildagonda Duckitt, on page 4, I found a recipe for ‘Mebos’, (salted dried apricots). It reads as follows:

“Apricots, dried and salted

(Commonly called “Mebos”)

Take soft ripe apricots, lay them in salt water (about two ounces of salt to a quart bottle) for a few hours. Then lay them on a mat to dry in the sun; the next day press them between the hands to flatten, and let the stone come out. The next day repeat the process. At the Cape it generally dries and becomes “Mebos” in three or four days in the sun, but if the weather should be damp, they might be dried in heated rooms, or a cool oven. To crystallise the Mebos, lay them in lime water (see lime water) for five minutes, till they feel nice and tender, take out, wipe dry on soft cloth, and rub course crystallised white sugar well into each; take one and half pounds of sugar to one pound of Mebos. Pack closely with lots of sugar in between in jars that will cork well. A very nice sweatmeat, and said to be a remedy for sea-sickness.”

Treasured recipe books

On page 173 and 174 is a recipe for green apricot preserve. It reads as follows:

“Preserve (Green Apricot)
(An old Constantia Recipe)

Ingredients:
100 green or unripe Apricots.
Their weight in sugar.

Prick the fruit with a steel pin, lay them in a deep dish, sprinkle some salt over them (about a dessert spoonful), pour boiling water over them, cover with green vine-leaves (this keeps them green), lay a plate on top. Now proceed to make the syrup, taking a cup of water to a cup of sugar. When it is boiled and clarified, take the apricots out of the salt water, wash them, and pour the boiling syrup over them. Leave for a night like this. The next day preserve by gently simmering till the fruit is nice and clear.”

I find the recipes very interesting. I doubt whether I will try them this year. But I will definitely keep them in store as possibilities.

The nectarines are acquiring that beautiful red glow of ripe fruit. I can see the peck marks of the Cape White-eyes as they test them for ripeness. I will have to invest in netting to cover the fruit trees to protect them from these tiny destroyers of ripe fruit.

Nectarines

We do not mind sharing, but the birds have a habit of pecking holes in the fruit and moving on to the next instead of just eating the whole.

On page 149 of Hilda's 'where Is It?' of Recipes, I came across the recipe for nasturtium seed for use as capers. It reads as follows:

“Nasturtium seeds used as Capers

Gather the seeds before they are too hard. Keep them for a day or two with salt sprinkled over them, then put them into empty pickle bottles; pour boiling vinegar over them and leave them to cool. When cold, cork closely.

The nasturtium flowers are very nice to eat with bread and cheese, and butter; and look very pretty to hand round on a separate plate, with the cheese and butter after dinner.”

Some of the new nasturtium seedlings in the orchard

If I look at the sea of tiny nasturtium plants coming up in the dams of the fruit trees, there will be lots of nasturtium flowers and seeds. I might then try Hilda’s suggestion and experience a culinary tradition that she and her guests enjoyed around the Groote Post dining room table on the West Coast of the old Cape Colony.