Rations

[Andy]

Dried Fruit

Lads,

I thought there was a thread on this before, but it must have been before "the crash", as I couldn't find anything after a search...

I wanted to bring some dried apples with me to my next event to compliment my other rations, and I was wondering how similar the dried fruits we buy in our modern grocery store are to period dried fruits. And if they don't look period enough, does anyone have any tips on drying my own?

Thanks.
Andy

[PigPen]

Re: Hardtack boxes

I have two of these fine boxes and can't say enough about them. We used them at our recent event at Mansfield and they are great! It took we all weekend to figure out where the dern bands were spliced. Way to go Sam!

[Michael Comer]

Re: Hardtack boxes

These boxes are fine indeed if the ones at Mansfield are any example. However, I want to know where you finally found your brother after he disappeared Saturday evening?

[Enfilade]

Re: Dried Fruit

Dried cherries, dried strawberries, and dried apples are best found at a specialty type store rather than the processed packaged stuff you see at like a major grocer isle. The dried apples at that time had no preservatives like they use in modern packaging today, so they wouldn't have the "white" appearance they have from a major supplier like "Mott's" or similarly packaged food source. We have a local Mom and Pop grocer in my hometown who carries dried apples wrapped in a plastic bag. They are browned and cost about $3.50 apound. They taste fine and look much better. You can do your own if you get the right kinds indigenous from Virginia or wherever your supplies are arriving from.


I hope thios helps.

Mark Berrier
North State Rifles
combinations@northstate.net

[KathyBradford]

Re: Dried Fruit

Hi, Andy,

Attached, please find a picture of drying fruits, vegetables, and herbs taken at the Yorktown Victory Center kitchen. You can see dried apples, sliced thinly and strung. Also, notice the whole green beans. They were soaked and boiled to make a dish called "leather britches".

To make your own dried apples in the traditional method, optimum conditions require a cool, dry, dark place with good ventilation (e.g. a drafty attic in the fall). Slice apples into horizontal circles less than 1/4 inch thick, no peeling necessary. Allow them to dry a bit in a single layer. String loosely, and hang to dry until they turn leathery. Eat them as is, or to reconstitute them, soak in warm water for at least an hour. Soaked and heated with a little sugar, they would make a tasty addition to breakfast.

Firm, less sweet apples will dry best and naturally will not turn as brown. Apples available this time of year are often past their prime, soft, and turning sugary. Hank, may you please recommend the best varieties that would have been available?

Since it's spring and dry, drafty attics are getting harder to come by, you can also dry apple slices in about 24 hours in an oven on the coolest setting (200 degrees or less) or in a gas oven with just a pilot light. (Optional: to keep dried fruit from turning overly brown, dip each slice in a mixture of 2 cups of water and a tablespoon of lemon juice before drying.) Turn once to be sure to dry thoroughly. The less moisture in the dried fruit, the better it will last. This will also work for pears. Peaches are more difficult to dry without low heat because of their high moisture content. A food dehydrator would be another option. A google search will turn up all kinds of methods of drying fruit if you're opposed to decorating your rafters with foodstuffs.

How common would it have been for soldiers to be sent dried fruit from home? Might they more frequently have gotten it locally by different means?

Did anyone else save the thread about dessicated vegetables?

Thank you,

[vbetts]

Re: Dried Fruit

Horne Creek Living Historical Farm, near Pinnacle, North Carolina, has a small wonderful fruit drying building, with a place to build a fire at one end, a stone covered flue under the racks of trays, to a chimney on the other end, if I remember correctly. It was clearly a pretty ambitious undertaking and I'm guessing that the family probably produced more than they actually needed.

On their calendar of events, this year on September 11 they will feature "From Peel to Pie." Cidermaking, apple peeling contests, fruit drying techniques, a display of Southern heritage apples, apple butter, apple cider, and fried pies. Discussions with Lee Calhoun on orchard traditions and techniques and tours of the Southern Heritage Apple Orchard also take place. Apple products available at the country store. Nominal fee for food and drinks. 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/sections/hs/horne/horne.htm

If I were closer to North Carolina, I'd be there.

In the lower South I've read more about dried peaches than dried apples.

Vicki Betts
vbetts@gower.net

[KathyBradford]

Re: Dried Fruit

Vicki,

What an all encompassing apple day! Alas, North Carolina is too far from here, too.

Do you have any information about methods for drying peaches? The fruit drying building would be just the thing to dry them before they had time to spoil, but you're correct that it sounds like an ambitious item for common folks.

On a personal note, thank you so much for all the research information you've posted. Just today, I put together my next research trip wish list from your Godey's index.

With high regards,

[Sam Doolin]

Re: Hardtack boxes

I drove around from Mansfield to Pleasant Hill twice that night. Didn't find him till Sunday AM with those La. boys who marched all night to P.Hill .

Sam Doolin

[Medic14]

Re: Hardtack boxes

That sounds cool
So could you send me a price list??


Josh Coughenour
Muddy Creek Mess

[SparksBird]

Re: Dried Fruit

Here is a quick list of some period apple varieties, winesaps are still my favorite.
Westfield
Chandler
Pound Royal
Tolmans Sweeting
Queening
Rhode Island Greening
Roxbury Russet
Rome Beauty
Rambo
White Pippin
Jonathan
Winesap

In regard to drying houses, they were frequently seen on farms in the 1860s as an outbuilding. I have also seen them attached to outdoor bake ovens. I would love to rebuild one myself. But, you could tell that a dry house was for producing alot of dried fruit. I have come across first hand diary accounts of farm families then selling dried apples or peaches at market. One more way to mass produce on the farm.

Rick Musselman
Buckeye Mess
GHTI

[vbetts]

Re: Dried Fruit

A number of years ago I visited the 1850 Homestead at Land Between the Lakes (northern Tennessee), and I think they were drying fruit by making a square of something like lathing, maybe 2' by 3' or thereabouts, then tacking down cheesecloth, laying the fruit across it, then another layer of cheesecloth, then putting the squares in a outdoor dry but not sunny place, with good air ventilation through the cheesecloth, presumably away from animals and insects. I suppose you could do the same with old mosquito netting. I'm not sure where they got this technique, but I was impressed with the rest of the operation there and am pretty sure they documented it in some way, if only by oral history. They did (or do) put out a little cookbook on cooking by the seasons, and when I get a chance I'll check to see if they mention dried fruit in there.

I've got a lot of other gardening/cook books where I could check, but I'm heading into a pretty busy family weekend. I'll try to remember to check next week if I don't find some spare minutes at home before then. Thomas Affleck, professional nurseryman from Mississippi then Texas, also lists apple varieties suitable to the lower South in his 1860 farm and plantation almanac. I'll look up his suggestions when I get a chance in case we have some coastal state Southerners following this thread.

Vicki Betts
vbetts@gower.net
East Texas

[Drygoods]

Re: Dried Fruit

I know that many purists would not like this idea, but what about using a food dehydrator? My trouble is that I have a busy household and cats which does not leave me much room to hang fruit. I have heard of drying apples or tomatoes under cheesecloth but that too is taking too much room away from our home space. If you dried your food in a dehydrator would it look all that different from hanging it on string?

And just on a personal note, I think that brandied peaches are much more tasty than dried ones :wink_smil and brandied peaches were sold clear across the country. Finding those period fruit bottles is a bit of a challenge though but antique bottle shops often have them. If I can figure out how to use a digital camera, I will send photos of them.

Mfr,
Judith Peebles

[SparksBird]

Re: Dried Fruit

I suppose you could prepare them in a food dehydrator, but that would take some of the fun out of preparing dried fruit in a period way. Personally, I have used the method that Vickie is talking about by using a frame with cheesecloth, and I have hung them. Either way works quite well. Once that they have dried out, I put them in a period correct jar to store. Vickie, I will look for you, I do have documentation on the method with the cheesecloth. I will post it after the weekend. Lastly, Mrs. Peebles, if you are in the market for some good repro glassware, please look at Dog River Glassworks. They carry some excellent bottles that are reproductions. The only problem with using original jars, besides them being original, is that you never know what was stored in them. We had a really good thread going last year on old crocks and jars and the hazards of using them. Hope this helps.

Rick Musselman
Buckeye Mess
GHTI

[vbetts]

Re: Dried Fruit

I was able to spot the Land Between the Lakes cookbook while I was home at lunch, and this is what they say about dried fruit:

"The peaches and plums the women dry for winter use are cut in half and pitted, and then set on the scrubbed wooden railings of the porch in the hot mid-summer sun. They must be turned at least three times a day and taken in at night and during wet weather. In a few days, they shrink to half their size, turn brown-red, and feel like scraps of leather. Wild berries and grapes dry into small, hard balls. Sometimes soft summer fruits are mashed to a pulp and dried in a thin layer spread on clean boards or a cloth. The soft and pliable sheet that forms when the fruit dries is called "fruit leather."

Dried fruits are stored in the attic above the dogtrot kitchen, where the air is warm and dry and somewhat smoky from the fire below. Soaked in water, they turn soft and moist again; dried, they substitute for expensive raisins and figs in cakes and fruit pies. The best eating, according to the children on the farm, is dried fruit eaten straight from the sack like chewy candy.

Drying is simple, inexpensive, and straightforward, asking of the cook nothing more than her time. . . ."

---Fraser, Kathryn M. _By the Seasons: Cookery at the Homeplace--1850_. Golden Pond, KY: TVA's Land Between the Lakes, 1983, pp.53-54. Remember, this is a secondary source at best, but they do live what they teach on site so it has the ring of experience.

As far as brandied fruit go, I think they would look superb in one of Dog River Glasswork's food bottles, or for smaller fruit, the cathedral bottle:
http://dogriverglassworks.com/NineteenthCentury.htm so that you can see the fruit in the brandy syrup!

Vicki Betts
vbetts@gower.net

[MtnRebel]

Re: Dried Fruit

Depending on where you live, you may be able to obtain the real deal from folks in a Mennonite or Amish community. Dried apples are a large component of baking and cooking in those communities and they hew to doing things in a traditional manner (i.e., without modern equipment). There are many vendors online who sell Amish food products, so try your luck there if you are not near one of these communities.

Good luck

Wendell O'Reilly