We noted the large number of crabapple trees in the Flapping Forest (The Pedant and the Shuffly, 7). What with Snodrog’s disposition, you’d think he would be named after the fruit and not Sir Bertram Crabtree-Gore.
There are a lot of crabapples in this little non-book. Sir Bertram sits underneath such a tree, the same type which appears on his coat of arms (18-9). A cellar of crab apple preserves was used against a giant toad by those left to defend Grisly Grange during its siege in 982 (21).
To celebrate this pesky fruit, we turned to Adeline Goessling's Orange Judd Cook Book (1916) for this darling century old recipe.
Crabapple PreservesAllow 1 lb sugar for every lb of carefully selected ripe red crabapples. Wipe the apples clean but leave the stems on and scald them in boiling water. Make a syrup of the sugar adding very little water and when the sugar is boiled clear put in the fruit and boil until soft. Then skim out the apples carefully and put them into jars. Boil the juice down until it is quite thick. Drain out the liquid collected in the jars and add it to the boiling juice. When suficiently thick, pour it over the fruit having each jar as full as possible. Seal while hot. These may be put up in small stone jars but in that case do not cover the jars until the contents are thoroughly cold.
Don't heat and throw at anything - toads or otherwise.
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