I. Serve in the skins with fruit-knives, one to each person.
II. Skin and scrape and serve immediately. People who cannot ordinarily eat bananas usually find them harmless when the tough, stringy pulp is scraped off.
III. Baked.—Bake without peeling, basting with hot water and melted butter occasionally. Let cool in the skins.
IV. Baked.—Skin, scrape, and bake, basting with lemon-juice and melted butter. Sprinkle with sugar if desired.
V. Au naturel.—Slice into saucers, sprinkle with lemon-juice and sugar.
VI. With Sugar and Cream.—Slice, sprinkle with powdered sugar, pour cream over, and serve at once.
VII. With Oranges.—Slice, add an equal quantity of sliced oranges, and sprinkle with sugar.
VIII. With Cereal.—Slice fresh bananas into a saucer, sprinkle with sugar, cover with boiled rice or with any preferred cereal.
IX. Equally good with sliced peaches.
BLACKBERRIES
Serve with powdered sugar, with or without cream. A tablespoonful of cracked ice in a saucer of berries is appreciated on a hot morning.
BLUE PLUMS
See Green Gages.
CHERRIES
I. Serve very cold, with the stems on. A dainty way is to lay the cherries upon a bed of cracked ice, and serve with powdered sugar in individual dishes.
II. Pit the cherries, saving the juice, and serve in saucers with sugar and plenty of cracked ice.
III. Iced.—Beat the white of an egg to a foam. Dip each cherry into it, then roll in powdered sugar, and set on a platter in the refrigerator. Must be prepared overnight.
IV. Crusts.—Butter rounds of stale bread, spread with pitted cherries and their juice, sprinkle with sugar, and bake. Serve very cold.
CURRANTS
Serve in cracked ice with plenty of sugar. These are also served iced, and on crusts. See Cherries III and IV.
FIGS
May be served from the basket. This, of course, applies only to the more expensive varieties, which are clean. The ordinary dried fig of commerce must be washed many times, and is usually sweet enough without adding more sugar.
II. Steamed.—Set a plate of figs in a steamer over boiling water until plump and soft, then set away to cool.
III. Stewed.—Clean, soak, and cook slowly till tender in a little water. Skim out, drain, sweeten the syrup slightly, reduce one half, pour over the figs, and cool. A bit of vanilla or wine may be added to the syrup.
IV. With Cereal.—Cover a saucer of steamed or stewed figs with any preferred cereal. Serve with cream if desired.
V. In Rice-Cups.—See Apples XXIX.
VI. In Crumbs.—See Apples XXVIII.
GOOSEBERRIES
These berries must be stewed in order to be acceptable. The fruit, after stewing, may be rubbed through a sieve fine enough to keep back the seeds, or it may be baked on crusts. See Cherries IV.
GRAPES
This luscious fruit is at its best when served fresh from the vines, with the bloom still on. Never wash a bunch of grapes if it can be avoided. Serve with grape scissors to cut the bunches apart. People who fear appendicitis may have the grapes squeezed from the skins and the seeds afterwards removed. They are very nice this way, with sugar and pounded ice.
GRAPEFRUIT
A good grapefruit will have dark spots, a skin which seems thin, will be firm to the touch, and heavy for its size. To serve, cut crosswise, and remove the white, bitter pulp which is in the core, and separate the sections. Fill the core with sugar and serve cold. A little rum or kirsch may be added just before serving, but, as George Ade said, “A good girl needs no help,” and it is equally true of a good grapefruit. If anybody knows why it is called grapefruit, please write to the author of this book in care of the publishers.
GREEN GAGES
Serve as they come, with the bloom on, or peel, pit, and serve with cracked ice and powdered sugar.
HUCKLEBERRIES
Look the fruit over carefully. Nothing pleases a fly so much as to die and be mistaken for a huckleberry. Serve with cracked ice, with sugar or cream, or both.
MUSKMELONS
