[Sca-cooks] period fruit pastes

[Susan Fox]

Urtatim writes:
> 
> So, first, i was wondering... would it be really terrible to purchase
> some fruit jams, then cook them down more to make fruit pastes? I
> just don't think i'm going to have the time or the room to make a
> butt load from fresh fruits? Or will the resulting product be so
> vastly inferior that the attendees will notice?
> 
> Next, if this is not a complete travesty, and i go along with this
> idea, do people think i will need to add more sugar to the fruit
> preserves to get a good result?

It would work but your budget would be much better off if you started with
frozen fruit and plain sugar.  Alton Brown says it's okay. [No really, he
did, in the episode "Urban Preservation" that aired yesterday evening.]
Frozen fruit may be the winning way for you, since it is usually broken down
into manageable chunks as necessary before freezing.

Aliter:  somebody, SOMEBODY in the Principality must have trees, bushes or
vines with more fruit than they can use at the moment, or sometime within
the next couple of months.  Maybe get some of the duchesses to hit up THEIR
friends.  Some property-owning weasels might be talked into giving you fruit
if asked by The Right People.  Use the users for a change, it may sound
cynical but it works.

I have grapes to pick this weekend.  My parents' neighbor planted grapes
many decades ago and they went wild all over OUR northwest corner.  Not that
this is a bad thing.  I plan to pick a buckefull of the admittedly small and
seedy fruit and see what I can do with it.

Selene