Giles Rose’s 1682 Recipe for a “Pippen Composte”

‘Tis the season to be picking apples, and if, like me, you’ve been picking a lot of apples over the past few weeks, then you’re probably on the hunt for some interesting and potentially tasty apple recipes to help you use up some of your apple glut.

Here’s one I came across, in the superbly-titled (brace yourself) A Perfect School of Instructions for the Officers of the Mouth, Shewing the Whole Art of A Master of the Household, A Master Carver, A Master Butler, A Master Confectioner, A Master Cook, A Master Pastryman¹Brevity may have been the soul of wit, but it clearly wasn’t thought suitable for seventeenth century book titles. (1681) by one Giles Rose.

The author was “one of the Master Cooks in His Majesties Kitchen” and according to the lengthy dedication of the volume to Sir Stephen Fox, dated 24th June 1681, the whole book is a translation of a French volume; including the preface, in which the original author says there’s another cookery book doing the rounds that has the same title, but it really shouldn’t be confused with this one.²I’ll leave it to the more forensically-minded to work out who might be ripping off whom.

Under the section header “Here follows the Composts, or Preserves in their Liquor”³There are a few more interesting-looking recipes in this section, which so I might be re-vsiting them before too long… we find the following:

“How to preserve Pippens, a Composte
Take Pippens, and pare, coare, and quarter, them and put them into fair water, take in also some of their parings, and the parings of some other Apples which you will pare and quarter also in small quarters, and make them boyl till they are tender ; then put them into a clean cloath and let the Water run from them, and then take as much of that water or decoction as will serve to boyle up the quarters that you have reserved for your Composts, and put it into a Copper pan very clean, and put in as much fine Sugar as you please, but in proportion to the quantity of quarters of Apples that you had reserved for your preserve, put them all together, and make your pan boyl upon a good Char-coal fire till they are very tender, stirring them sometimes with a Spoon but not to break them, then take them out, and lay them upon the brims of a Dish, or on a clean Cloth a-running : after this you may dish them up upon a Plate, and then make an end of boyling your Syrup upon a quick fire, putting in some more Sugar and the juice of Lemons, and let it boyl till it be a gelly, and then take it off from the fire and let it stand till it be cold, and then pour it over your Apples, and on the brims of the Plates as you shall fee fit. Remember to take out the parings of your Apples be fore you strain the Decoction from your Apples. This Decoction is very good for the doing of almost all other fruits but some will boyl the paring before the fruits and strain out the water.”

Giles Rose, A Perfect School of Instructions for the Officers of the Mouth (1681)

Firstly, it’s important to note that “compost” was a catch-all term meaning a mixture of ingredients, and comes from the same root-word – Latin compōnō, meaning to compile – as does composition, and of course the more familiar compote, and also condiment. Please don’t use apples that have been composted in the garden compost sense. That would be very bad.

Giles Rose’s translation from the French may have lost something along the way, or perhaps he was one of those master cooks who just assumed everyone reading the book would be a master cook as well, and therefore had the same base knowledge as he did. Hence the lack of precise measurements of ingredients, timings, or a clear sequence of instructions.

Unpacking and translating into something a bit more approachable, I think the intention here is:

1. Peel and quarter your apples. I’d suggest using a fairly robust variety, rather than an apple that you know is going to break down to a mush, otherwise there won’t be much of them left after cooking.
2. Gently boil them in water, along with the the parings (peel) of the quartered apples, plus some more apples, peeled and chopped, with both peel and apples added to the pot, until the apple quarters are tender, but not too soft.
3. Remove the apple quarters and set them aside to drain. Drain and discard the mixed peelings and chopped apples, but keep hold of the cooking water, as this will contain much of the pectin necessary for stage 6.
4. In a second pot, put roughly the same amount of sugar as you have apple quarters – you might want to weigh them, but eyeballing it is probably fine – and add the reserved cooking liquor from the first pot, then put your apple quarters back in.
5. Boil the apple quarters in the liquor + sugar until they are “very tender”, presumably on the point of collapse, but still whole enough to allow you to fish them out and put them aside to drain again.
6. Continue to boil the apple water & sugar syrup – adding more sugar, and lemon juice – until it thickens to a jelly consistency – this could be the tricky bit – and then take it off the heat and allow it to cool. Bear in mind you’re looking for a thickened but still viscous jelly, rather than a fully set birthday party jelly.
7. When the jelly is cooled, but hopefully not set solid, put your apples in a bowl and pour the jelly over them top of them. Serve cold, by the sound of things.

I’m guessing that, if you wanted to actually preserve your apples then you could replace bowls with sterilised jars at the final step, putting the cooked quarters carefully into jars and then topping them up with the jelly. Although I expect you shouldn’t allow the jelly to cool down first; fill the jars with the hot jelly instead, as you would do if making jam.

And I’m sure if you wanted to add a bit more flavour, then grating in some nutmeg at the boiling stage, or adding some chunks of root ginger or cinnamon sticks to the initial boil would do the trick.

What do you reckon? Do you think that has potential? Or is it a lot of fuss and bother for a dish of jellied apples? How do you prefer to preserve your apple gluts? Do please let me know, via the comments.

Footnotes

• 1
  Brevity may have been the soul of wit, but it clearly wasn’t thought suitable for seventeenth century book titles. ↩︎
• 2
  I’ll leave it to the more forensically-minded to work out who might be ripping off whom. ↩︎
• 3
  There are a few more interesting-looking recipes in this section, which so I might be re-vsiting them before too long… ↩︎