by Tom Stobart
ANU. See yam (ysaño).
APOLLINARIS. See water (mineral water).
APOTHECARIES’ WEIGHTS are sometimes used in old recipes where substances were sold by the chemist. The apothecaries’ dram is not the same as the avoirdupois dram.
20 grains (gr.) = 1 scruple (s.ap.) = 1.3 g
3 scruples = 1 dram* (dr.ap.) = 3.9 g
Before 1864:
8 drams = 1 ounce (oz.ap.) = 31.1 g
12 ounces = 1 pound (lb.ap.) = 373.2 g
In Britain the scales were changed in 1864 to make 16 ounces (oz.ap.) = 1 pound (lb.ap.), and the apothecaries’ ounce and apothecaries’ pound were made identical to the avoirdupois ounce and pound. The new apothecaries’ ounce therefore also equals 437.5 grains (instead of 480) and the pound 7000 grains (instead of 5760).
APPLE. The apple (Malus sylvestris) is the world’s most important temperate zone fruit. The wild crab-apple is a native of Europe, and apples have been cultivated for at least 3,000 years. Over twenty distinct varieties were known and grown even in Roman times. Since apples are highly variable and the trees cross easily when flowers are pollinated from one variety to another, there are said to be at least six thousand named British varieties known today. However, the number that are widely grown has decreased with the emergence of types which are outstanding in either commercial or gastronomic qualities, such as the Cox’s Orange Pippin in Britain and the Golden Delicious, first in Europe, then almost everywhere. Reduction in breeds is a modern tendency; you find the same thing with sheep and cattle.
Apples grow anywhere in the Northern hemisphere south of latitude 65°N (and in similar climates in the Southern hemisphere), provided they get an adequately cold resting period in winter (and are not nipped by frost during flowering). Apples will not grow naturally in the tropics, although a resting period can be induced by root pruning, and then two crops can be had in a year. They are a cool country fruit and a modern innovation in tropical cooking.
As apples store well for many months, they were at one time the only fresh fruit to be had at all during the winter (and were among the first items planted by the colonists in America).Today, with winter apples brought from the Southern hemisphere, and the techniques of chilling and gas storage (by which apples can be kept in good condition for up to a year), we have forgotten what it was like to be dependent on the seasons. Few people still bother to lay down apples at home.
Don’t bother to store early or mid-season varieties as they will keep for only a short period. However, late varieties which mature only after gathering need to be stored for from four weeks to several months. Select apples which are not damaged or bruised in any way and then wrap them singly in newspaper or put them individually into small polythene bags, making sure that they are not sealed. You may prick the bags to make air holes for the necessary ventilation. Wrapping prolongs the life of an apple, helps prevent it shrivelling and stops the spread of rot from one apple to another. Once wrapped, the apples can be stored in boxes, bread crocks or metal bins and left in a cool, frost-free place such as a cellar or garden shed. Keep apples which ripen at different times in separate containers. They shouldn’t be left in a loft or attic where the air tends to be too warm and dry.
British cooks have long divided apples into cookers and eaters, a bad tradition. Cookers (Bramley’s Seedling, Grenadier, Newton Wonder and so on) are usually too sour (though not always) to be used as a dessert apple, but their main characteristic is that they cook to a purée. Most eating apples do not; they stay in their individual pieces unless stewed to rags and are therefore better cooked in some dishes (e.g. flans and chutney) than those labelled cookers. Many of them also have an excellent, though different, cooked flavour. Cox’s Orange Pippin is an excellent variety for cooking, as are Ribston Pippin, Crispin and ldared.lt would be far better to think of apples in the way we do floury or waxy potatoes, and not to label them eaters and cookers. Every place has its own varieties, which are available at different times of the year (as well as unidentified ones inherited in orchards and gardens).Anyone who wants to cook superlative apple dishes should try to study them. The variety of apple is also important in cider-making – the special cider types provide some bitterness. Experience will soon show that crabapples differ in their quality for making jelly; country people know the best hedgerow trees and ignore those that make insipid jelly.
Products made from apples include dried apple rings (see drying), *pectin (from cores and skins) and apple butter (which the Dutch took to America) for spreading on bread. Apple sauce and apple butter were laid down in large quantities in the autumn to see the American colonists through the winter. An early recipe for apple butter gives some idea of the quantities involved: ’10 gallons sweet cider. 3 pecks (i.e. 6 gallons) of cored and quartered apples (do a few at a time). Cook slowly Add 10 lb of sugar, 5 oz of cinnamon. Stir for 5-6 hours with a wooden paddle.’
From *cider we get cider *vinegar (on which some health cures are based) as well as apple-jack and calvados (on which they are not).
To prevent apples turning brown when cut (because of exposure to the oxygen in the air) lemon juice can be effective, but for large amounts, or where the lemon might be unsuitable, cover them for 10 minutes with a solution containing 1 *Camden tablet per 100 ml (3½ fl oz) water.
[Apple – French: pomme German: Apfel Italian: mela Spanish: manzana]
APRICOT. The apricot (Prunus armeniaca) has been cultivated for so long (it has been grown in China for some 4,000 years) that it is impossible to be quite certain of its natural home, which is probably somewhere in Asia. It is a staple fruit in Middle Eastern valleys – those flat parcels of alluvial soil irrigated by a river, shaded by poplars and surrounded by barren mountains. In fact, apricots thrive in the sort of climate where the pomegranate and almond grow. They do not like the tropics, save in exceptional situations. Apricots are extensively grown in Iran, Afghanistan, the western Himalayas, China, Japan, California, South Africa and Australia, as well as the warmer areas near the Mediterranean, notably North Africa and Spain (Murcia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands).
There are many varieties, differing in hardness, texture and size. Colours range from pale yellow to deep reddish-orange, and some are sun-freckled with brick or carmine, even with rosy patches. Inside, the apricot flesh is usually a shade of yellow or orange, but some are white-fleshed. Apricots do not peel easily – anyway, some of the flavour lies in the skin – but they can be pulled into two halves and the stone is always free. A fresh, perfectly ripe apricot of a good variety, picked warm off the tree, has an incomparable smell and a delicious taste. Imported apricots, though, will have been picked rather unripe – though with full colour – and the flavour is never the same. Unlike peaches, apricots are best eaten at the temperature of a summer’s day, not chilled.
Apricots are cooked with meat in Iran and the Middle East, going especially well with lamb (the staple meat of the area). From there, by a roundabout route, apricots have got into the sauce for sassaties (kebabs) in South Africa. In sweet dishes, they are much more interesting in flavour than peaches when cooked. Usually an apricot dish should be very sweet. Syrups that apricots are poached in should be heavy. Stuffed with almonds or almond paste, apricots are Allah’s gift to the Arab sweet tooth, but one of the simplest and most delicious ways of eating them is in the Austrian Marillenknöde, an apricot dumpling of diet-shattering splendour (an apricot, stuffed with a lump of sugar, sealed in a thin coat of light dumpling mixture, poached, and finished in crispy, butter-fried breadcrumbs and sugar).
As apricots travel badly and do not keep, many are canned or dried, or are made into jam. Canned apricots are very often disappointing; they do not take on a new dimension as do canned peaches. Dried apricots are made by splitting them and leaving them out on mats to dry in the sun. To prevent browning, the halves are usually treated with burning sulphur fumes. More modern methods of treatment produce a softer, more pliable and sweeter product – nice even to chew raw –
but those who suspect the use of chemicals will prefer whole dried apricots, which are untreated chemically.
Apricots and their kernels have recently come in for attention following the discovery that the people of Gilgit, where apricots are staple food, do not suffer from many of our common Western diseases, and cancer is virtually unknown there. Apricots are particularly rich in Vitamin A compared to both peaches and apples.
Apricots are easily made into jam, and apricot jam – with its pleasant but not assertive taste – is much used in confectionery for fillings and glazes. With fresh apricots, jam is usually made with equal weights of sugar and fruit, but with dried apricots, the sugar must be three times the weight of the fruit.
Apricot liqueurs are produced in most countries – apricot brandy; apry, abricota, abricotine, capricot, etc. Some taste rather too strongly of bitter almonds, while others are very sweet. However, the Hungarian barackpálinka (made by distilling a fermented apricot mash) is my favourite spirit; it may with advantage be used either before or after a meal. The flavour is nothing like apricots, being rather reminiscent of a very fine mirabelle. The kernels of apricot stones may be poisonous for the same reason as bitter *almonds are poisonous, and can equally be made safe by roasting. A delicious liqueur, *noyau, can easily be made from them, and they are the traditional ingredient of the famous amaretti di Saronno. Apricot kernels are exported in bulk from Australia and are important in commercial baking and confectionery; particularly in the US where bitter almonds are banned.
Apricots in Syrup
Wash 1 kg (2 lb) very fine, ripe apricots, put them in a pan of cold water and bring them to the boil. Immediately refresh the fruit in ice-cold water and leave it for 3 hours to cool thoroughly. Put the apricots in a cold syrup made by dissolving 1 kg (2 lb) sugar in 600 ml (1 pt) water. Bring them to the boil and cook until they are tender. Cool the fruit in the syrup.
[Apricot – French: abricot German: Aprikose, Marille (Austria) Italian: albicocca Spanish: albaricoque]
APRY. See liqueurs and cordials.
ARBUTUS. See cranberry
ARGOL or winestone. The name for the hard, crusty deposit in casks or tanks of maturing wine. It is dried and exported from wine-growing areas as hard, shiny scales and is the raw material from which *cream of tartar and *tartaric acid are made. The semi-purified form is called tartar. To remove impurities, the argol is dissolved in boiling water and mixed with absorbent clay and blood charcoal to take up colour and other unwanted material.
It is then filtered, and the pure cream of tartar is crystallized out.
[Argol – French: tartre brut German: Weinstein Italian: tartaro Spanish: tátaro]
ARCHIL See cudbear.
ARECA NUT. See betel nut.
ARHAR. See pigeon pea.
ARMAGNAC. French brandy, second only to cognac and with its own marked, individual character. Armagnac comes from Gascony, in the vicinity of Condom, a town south-east of Bordeaux. It is made from the poor acid wine of the picpoul grape (a variety of the folle blanche), which must, by law, be grown, fermented and distilled in the Bas-Armagnac, Haut-Armagnac or Ténarèze districts (that from the Bas-Armagnac and Ténarèze is the best). Like cognac, armagnac is aged in oak casks for up to 40 years. It is empty to argue whether cognac or armagnac is the better, because they are different, and it is a matter of each person’s taste. However, in cooking, armagnac is sometimes specified and then the recipe must be followed. For example, a bécasse à l’armagnac (woodcock cooked with armagnac) would be distinguished from the same bird cooked à Ia fine champagne (cognac).
ARROWROOT. This is an old-fashioned ingredient, a fine white powder consisting of over 80% starch. The original arrowroot plant is from Central and South America and is named after the aru root of the Aruac Indians, but other sources of starch have been used and given the name arrowroot. True West Indian or Bermuda arrowroot is made from the young rhizomes of tropical species of Maranta, mainly M. arundinacea, and supplies mainly come from St Vincent in the Caribbean. The rhizomes are dealt with in the usual way for starch preparation. They are first pulverized (originally in wooden mortars but now by machinery); the pulp is then mixed with water, the fibre removed and the milky liquid strained into settling tanks. For further purification, the water is drained off, the white sludge is again mixed with water and again settled. It is finally drained and dried to a powder of starch grains with very little other debris. Because of the small size of the grains, it is easily digestible and has always been regarded as an invalid food. It is thus available from chemists rather than from supermarkets, though it may be found in a few grocers. As a thickening, it is superior to cornflour in clarity, appearance and the absence of any taste of its own. West Indian arrowroot forms a firm, clear starch jelly when heated with syrup or water, it is particularly good for fruit glazes and for flans and puddings. Arrowroot can be made to substitute for other starchy substances: arrowroot noodles, which are made in China, differ from other pasta in being completely transparent.
Other arrowroots include Florida arrowroot (from Zamia floridana), East Indian arrowroot (from Curcuma angustifolia) and Tous-les-mois, Tulema or Queensland arrowroot (from Canna edulis).Queensland arrowroot, in spite of its name, comes from a plant native to South America and there called achira. Brazilian arrowroot is from the cassava, and Oswega arrowroot is an American product made from maize. Portland arrowroot is made from the poisonous cuckoo pint or lords-and-ladies (Arum maculatum) but is acrid, despite many washings, and so is only survival food in an emergency. There are others.
[Arrowroot – French: arrow-root German: Pfeilwurz Italian: maranta, tubero edule Spanish: arrurruz]
ARSENIC. This non-metallic element is a deadly poison, but is also an essential trace element normally circulating in human blood to a concentration of six parts per million. Arsenic eaters in Austria and Hungary, at least by tradition, can gradually get used to consuming quantities that would kill an average person. It is supposed to give them long life and a youthful complexion. Most of us get sufficient in our diet; indeed, in a month we normally take in a quantity that would kill us if eaten in a single dose. Arsenic salts occur in seawater to the extent of 20 mg per 1000 It, and some natural salt deposits contain dangerous amounts of it.
[Arsenic – French: arsenic German: Arsenik Italian: arsenico Spanish: arsénico]
ARTICHOKE. A name shared by three unrelated plants, *Chinese artichoke, *globe artichoke and *Jerusalem artichoke.
ARVI. See yam (dasheen).
ASAFOETIDA. A gum obtained from the root of a giant fennel-like plant, Ferula asafoetida, which is grown in lran, Afghanistan and India. It is usually bought ground. Although it has a horrible, garlicky smell, it is a useful spice in small quantities, with fish for instance, and is quite essential in many Indian vegetarian dishes.
[Asafoetida – French: assafoetida, férule perisque German: Teufelsdreck Italian: assafetida Spanish: asafétida]
ASCORBIC ACID. See Vitamin C.
ASPARAGUS is a cultivated form of the wild Asparagus officinalis, a member of the lily family which grows quite plentifully in some parts of Europe and Russia and is naturalized elsewhere, for instance in the eastern states of the US and in irrigated parts of the American West. A subspecies, prostratus, is a rare native of the coasts of Dorset, Cornwall, South Wales and Ireland. The wild asparagus often seen in spring in Spanish markets – bunches of very spindly green stalks – is a different species (Asparagus aphyllus), in which leaves have become strong spines. It grows in dry, rocky situations in the hotter parts of the Mediterranean region – Spain and the Balearic Islands, Sardinia (but not Corsica), Sicily, Greece, Cyprus and North Africa. It is much gathered as a local speciality and has a strong, rather bitter flavour which comes through when it is mixed with other vegetables. Asparagus fern is a decorative species of asparagus and not a fern.
Cultivated asparagus has been prized in Europe for over 2,000 years, although in Britain it was not much grown until Elizabethan times.
We eat the only part of the plant that is not impossibly tough and woody, the young shoot just before or just after it leaves the ground. Asparagus is expensive because it takes several years to establish a good bed, and although the bed will last and improve for many years, the crop occupies the ground continually and does not produce a heavy yield of food. It also demands a lot of hand work, as each spear must be harvested individually with a long asparagus knife probing beneath the soil. Its merit is its deliciousness.
There is much controversy as to which type of asparagus is the best: white, green or purple. The white is more popular in Belgium, Germany and parts of France, the green or purple in Britain, the US and most of Italy. Essentially, white asparagus consists of shoots which have never seen the light, and it is claimed that they are more tender in texture and more delicate in taste as a result. The spears are usually thick, with almost no scales, but only a short part of the length is young enough to be edible. Early varieties, too, tend to be white, as also is out-of-season asparagus which is obtained by forcing roots artificially.
Green and purple types, however, are cut when the shoots are well clear of the soil, and advocates say that having seen the sun they have a better flavour. They have a more pointed tip, and are more open, sometimes loose and ‘scaly’, usually with the tender, edible part of the spear longer. These tend to be main crop or later varieties.
May and June mark the high season for asparagus in the Northern hemisphere, but forced or imported spears may be available at other times. Asparagus keeps well in the deep freeze and may even be eaten raw after freezing, as the process tenderizes it.