Peaches

 In her famous 1861 Book of Household Management, Isabella Beeton described peaches as being “among the most delicious of our fruits. I absolutely agree. While canned and frozen peaches are nice to have the rest of the year, fresh peaches in summer are wonderful. My mother created peach cobbler and peach pie that rank next to strawberry shortcakes as the best summer desserts.

This month I decided to expand my peach repertoire by exploring some recipes from early 20th century cookbooks.  

From Lowney's Cook Book, 1908

I used a cinnamon stick and about 20 whole cloves instead of the powdered spices.  In place of the cayenne pepper, I also added a whole, dried ancho chili.  I didn’t put these in a bag, as the recipe recommends, and that was probably a mistake.  It was easy to fish out the chili and cinnamon from the finished peaches, but it was difficult to find all the cloves.  Next time I’ll wrap them in a bit of cheesecloth. 

From Modern Priscilla Cook Book, 1924

I really like the idea of single-serving desserts, individual servings can easily be frozen to eat later.  I might try slicing the peaches and tossing them with a bit of sugar instead of using peach halves.  Either way, this is wonderful with vanilla ice cream on a hot summer day.