Gertrude Mackay’s 1913 Recipe for ‘Apple Ginger’

“Wipe, pare, quarter, core and chop two and one-half pounds of sour apples. Put in a stew pan and add one and one-half cupfuls of light brown sugar, the juice and rind of one and one-half lemons, one-half ounce ginger, and just enough water to prevent the apples from burning. Cover and cook slowly for four hours, adding water if necessary. Apple ginger may be kept for several weeks. For the Christmas dinner, serve around roast goose in apple cups made of bright red apples.”

Gertrude Mackay, Two Hundred and Nine Ways of Preparing the Apple (1913)

‘Tis the season! And I’ve been scouring the historical cookery archives for suitably festive, fruit-based recipes to brighten and enliven your Christmas dinner table, should you fancy a bit of a change from the usual. I’ll be posting a few of these over the next couple of weeks, to give you time to get the ingredients in.

To begin, here’s a not-so-quick, but super-simple recipe for a lemon- and ginger-flavoured apple sauce, suitable for accompanying a Christmas roast goose. Or, as will be served up at our house this year, a Christmas baked ham.

I’ve actually made a couple of batches of ‘apple ginger’ myself already. Well, sort of. I peeled and chopped an assortment of apples and added ginger, lemon zest and lemon juice to one batch, whilst the other was just apples with ginger (stem), ginger (ground) and more ginger (syrup).

Both were cooked for an hour to two hours, but I didn’t stew them down for the full four. I mean, as much as I enjoy standing in the kitchen listening to a good podcast, I do have other things to do. And neither batch included the added sugar, so I think what I ended up making was a gingery apple sauce, and a gingery-lemony apple sauce, rather than Gertrude’s version, which would probably be a much denser, possibly even sliceable, apple-ginger butter, or apple-ginger cheese.

Still, they both tasted great, especially the gigner and lemon version, which had a nice, sharp kick to it. I think I might give ‘apple ginger’ one more try for luck, this time with the addition of a few spices and possibly a tot or two of whisky, just to really Christmas it up. Port would also be an acceptable substitute. Or rum. Or brandy. Whatever you fancy.

Anyway, what do you think of Gertrude’s ‘Apple Ginger’ recipe? Or indeed, my attempt at making something similar? Do you like the sound of a gingery, lemony apple sauce / butter / cheese , or do you prefer yours plain? Do let me know, via the comments.