The cheese-flavored beaten biscuits of Mary B. Merritt, beaten-biscuit queen of Montgomery, Alabama, are back in circulation. And have you tried the Merritt “cheese morsels”? Seventy-two rich, tasty squares of pastry, price ＄1.25 at Maison Glass, 15 East 47th Street.
The gold-and-green-skinned Comice, perfumed, creamy in texture, is a pear to remember for Christmas gift-giving. A fruit de luxe for the holiday dinner. Serve it with cheese, thick slices of pear, thin slices of Cheddar. Boxes of these pears can be ordered direct from the orchard for as low as ＄2.95 for a No. 1 pack of 10 to 14 pears according to size, the No. 2 box holds 18 to 24 pears, ＄4.75. There is also an assorted fruit chest, 14 pounds ＄5.75, and a basket of fruits, Comice included, 18 pounds ＄11.85. Write for the free catalogue. Address Pinnacle Orchards, 480 Fir Street, Medford, Oregon.
Christmas packages that give every penny of their money's worth are those of Grace Rush, stuffed with an assortment of the delectables which make up her food line. One box weight over 25 pounds, chockablock with good things, ＄19 to ＄20.
Glamour star of the pack is the fruit-cake, a three-pounder, the famous Martha Ann cake of which Mrs. Rush is so rightfully proud. These cakes are baked six months to a year and a half in advance of the holiday season, then aged in bonded brandy, and placed in a redwood cold-storage vault to let ripen slowly. The cake is a masterful blend of ten kinds of choice fruits, five kinds of nuts, creamery butter, fresh eggs, spices. sherry, and old brandy. A cake oblong in shape, originated by Mrs. Rush thirty-three years ago when she began business. Eleven cakes were sold her first year, weighing three pounds apiece; today a year's sales total one hundred and fifty tons.
What else in the box? Spiced almonds, a jar of ginger, three different conserves, two of the new ice cream sauces introduced only last summer. And what we like best are the packets of glacéed dates, apricots, prunes, and the tender candied peels. Here's the brandied hard sauce. Serve that rich cake as a pudding, cut in thick slices and heated in the double boiler; spoon on the sauce.
John Rush, son of the baker, told us a cake must be rich of fruit altogether excellent to go over well in such fashion. Many a competition cake, John is convinced, just wouldn't be fit to eat dished as pudding. The hard sauce is made of the finest bonded brandy, creamery butter, sugar, and fresh eggs.
The same gift-box assortment, but in a smaller size, sells around ＄12, and a junior package is priced at ＄8.50. The Grace Rush fruit cake, a 2 ½-pound size, is available hermetically sealed in tin, price ＄3.65.
This winter Mrs. Rush is making the butter-pecan mints, pecan pieces, that's what, delicately sugar-frosted, the coating mint-flavored. Most pleasant for tea, and nice to pass after dinner. Maplette is a new Martha Ann candy. Pecans for this, coated in maple-flavored sugar, the nuts tender and crisp, like infant pralines. These, too, in the assortment, or purchase them separately, ＄1.18 for the 9-ounce box. Martha Ann ginger is being processed this winter for the first time since 1941, and selling crystallized and preserved. The very finest Canton ginger is imported for these packs, arriving in syrup in 224-pound casts, then reprocessed at the Rush plant in Cincinnati, Ohio. The finished ginger is mellow in flavor, not too hot, not too sweet, ever so tender.
The crystallized regular ginger sells in 4- and 8-ounce boxes, the stem ginger comes in Rockwood jars, this a Cincinnati pottery of renown since 1880 and winner of 12 world awards, now on display in 23 museums. The little pots are in four colors. Chinese green, Chinese blue, porcelain white, dragon red, 5-ounce size, price ＄2.85. The Martha Ann delicacies can be purchased item by item, or in the gift assortments, in the following New York City stores: B. Altman, Fifth Avenue at 34th Street; Gristede Brothers, 55 East 59th Street; Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue; Louis Sherry, 769 Fifth Avenue. In Brooklyn, Abraham & Straus; in Newark, L. Bamberger & Company. Farther afield, we locate the line in the Old Mill Inn Town House, Morristown, New Jersey; at William B. Chase, Inc., Providence, Rhode Island; H. & S. Pogue Company, Cincinnati, Ohio; Halle Brothers Company, Cleveland, Ohio; Young-Quinlan Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Davision-Paxon Company, Atlanta, Georgia; Stewart Dry Goods Company, Louisville, Kentucky; Fred Wolferman, Kansas City, Missouri; Nieman-Marcus Company, Dallas, Texas; Joske, San Antonio, Texas; White House Dry Goods Company, Beaumont, Texas; The Kaune Grocery Company, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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