The Apple Essence makers, Paul and Betty Keene, operate a diversified farm, selling their produce by the long arm of Uncle Sam's mailman. Here's their latest price list, in 5-pound packages: yellow corn meal, 80 cents; whole yellow soy beans, 75 cents; whole wheat, 75 cents; whole-wheat cereal, 80 cents; whole-wheat flour, 85 cents.
Those who like the English conserve such as Tip Tree and Frank Cooper turn out, will be glad to know of two items from the home kitchen of Skatacook Farm, Pine Plains, Dutchess County, New York. One is the citrus conserve made of grapefruit, oranges, lemons, apples, and red or purple grapes and aimed to be as imitative as possible of the Tip Tree products. The fruits are cooked down together, then run through a Foley food mill to take out skin, seeds, and cores. Sugar is added to the purée and this cooked to the sheeting stage. The result is a red-brown stuff, stiff enough to stand alone, no juices weeping out. The tang of citrus is there, but much more, a “Rare Recipe” as the trademark implies.
The plum and grape conserve is made with blue plums and Concord grapes, or sometimes fox grapes are used, these growing in the woods around Skatacook. Grapes and plums are cooked to soften, then run through the food mill and black currants added, and the mixture cooked down with sugar. Those plump currants are little matters to surprise the tongue. This conserve is remindful of Frank Cooper's Damson cheese, remember it, imported in the years before the war?
These products are handled in Pough-keepsie by the fancy grocers, Mack and Fry, in New York City by the Women's Exchange, 541 Madison Avenue, Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue, William Poll's Delicatessen, 1120 Lexington Avenue.
Beats all how Poll's little store gets everything good, and right off the bat.
Mayonnaise, 8-ounce jar, 45 cents; French dressing, 8 ounces, 59 cents; citrus fruit conserve, 8 ounces, 69 cents; plum and grape conserve, 8 ounces, 69 cents.
The laurel leaf to Louis Sherry's for their new coffee blended of Guatemala's famous Antigua with other expensive top-grade types from the Central American countries. Most coffees are made to a price, not Louis Sherry's. This was blended to give an ideal brew with the utmost in mellowness, in richness of flavor, without regard to cost. The result is one of the highest-priced coffees in the world, 85 cents a pound, vacuum-tin packed. Order from the Louis Sherry Shop, 769 Fifth Avenue; for mail orders add postage to price.
Pull a pair of soft-shelled crabs from a can. Cleaned they are and ready to batter-dip and drop into hot fat. They look tiny because their legs are folded under neat as you please. But out of the fat pot and all aglisten in their crisp overcoats, one crab serves one portion. That is, if you have an onion handy to make fried onion rings using the left-over batter. But two crabs are not a bite too much for excellent eating, sweet as the fresh ones which travel out of Crisfield, Maryland, crab capital of the world.
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