October, and we were down on Cape Cod in the midst of the cranberry picking to visit the National Cranberry Association's packing plants, where the Ocean Spray products are put up for market, and to visit their kitchen at Hanson, Massachusetts. It was there we first clapped an eye on this year's handsome holiday gift box filled with cranberry delicacies. Here's the line-up: two cans of cranberry jelly, two cans whole cranberry sauce, one pint cranberry juice cocktail, one jar blended cranberry preserves, one set of plastic cutters, and a new cranberry recipe book.
A word about that cranberry juice cocktail, which is bottled in only limited amounts because dead-ripe berries are required for this, and the growers hesitate to hold their crops longer than necessary for fear of loss through some turn of the weather. At the Association headquarters, we were told of a new electric eye device, almost perfected, which will pick out the dark reds from the greens, thus releasing more fruit for making the nectar. The juice sells throughout New England, in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York. But anyone can get it anywhere by ordering the new Cranberry Sampler Box, one bottle included in each box. Address Ocean Spray, Department G-10, Hanson, Massachusetts, price ＄2.50 delivered.
Remember away back when, with a nickel to spend, you leaned on the grocer's candy case and studied the assortment? A momentous decision. Would it be the rock candy or the jawbreakers or licorice whips or barber poles or sour balls or a few, maybe, of each? Now for ＄1.50 you can buy the lot, 2 pounds, an assortment of 9 kinds, the box called the Penny Packer. A 5-pound selection of the old-timers is packed in a maple firkin topped with a tray of creamy mint and maple rosebuds, the price ＄4.95. Some may prefer the 7-inch bean pot holding 2 ¾ pounds of the old mouth-waterers topped with a layer of candy pork and beans, price ＄3.25. As Christmas gifts, these candy kits are different and delightful, beloved by young and old. Sent postpaid east of the Mississippi; elsewhere in the United States and Canada add 40 cents, for overseas, add ＄1. Address Wiggins Country Store, 38 Town Lane, Northampton, Massachusetts.
Firm, meaty nuggets the Ambernut hazelnut kernels and superior in size, in freshness and flavor, coming from the filbert groves of the inter-mountain valleys of Oregon and Washington. These nuts have been graded and developed to the highest degree for palatability and food value. Slow-roasted, vacuum-packed to insure extra crispness, offered are the full kernels, 8 ounces ＄1 prepaid, and chopped if you say, the 12-ounce jars ＄1.25. A special gift pack containing two jars, one of whole kernels and one of chopped, bedded in the unshelled nuts, may be had for ＄4.35 postage prepaid, shipped by Ambernuts Company, 806 S. W. Broadway, Portland 5, Oregon.
Filberts are one of the hazelnuts deriving from Europe, there named for St. Philibert. Prewar, this nut came by tons out of Italy, Sicily, Turkey, and Spain. Now we depend on the Washington and Oregon groves. Handsome crops there but the acreage is still small, the industry new. However, production in the North-west is on the increase, with hundreds of acres of trees soon to come into bearing.
Fruit fresh from Florida's Indian River citrus orchards, tree-ripened, juice-heavy, is being shipped by the bushel for the holiday season anywhere east of the Mississippi. Order direct from Hooper Groves, 1504 Forrest Avenue, Department G, Cocoa, Florida. Bonded growers the Hoopers, established in business since 1923. The 55-pound basket with oranges and grapefruit sells for ＄5.50; the de luxe assortment, oranges, grapefruit, tangerines, and tropical jellies and marmalade, topped off with pecans in shell and the dainty kumquats, sells for a bit more, price ＄7.50 and worth the extra money for the extra fancy nibbling.
Pepper basket is a gift to charm the heart of a gourmet. Little baskets carry five peppers, big baskets nine. First on the pepper list is a cayenne from the East Indies, hot, hotter, hottest. From Louisiana a similar pepper but milder, called Creole, to give that Southern accent to numerous dishes. The Lampong pepper is available in the corn, or have it ground as you please. The dried berry of this black pepper adds stimulating flavor to soups, to baked fish; it does a wonderful something in the pickle pot; handy for the pepper mill. In the ground form, good in any dish where pepper is desired. Unusual is Poivre Aromatique, a ground black pepper blended with other spices, most flavorful, something to substitute for ordinary black pepper when a truly spicy flavor is desired. There is a white pepper, divested of its outer shell, then ground, and quite mild in consequence, something to use in omelettes, mayonnaise, and dishes of neutral color, in which mildness is desired. There is a white decorticated pepper, in whole berry, its thin coating having been removed, leaving the very inner kernel of the corn, extremely mild, yet aromatic, to be used where great delicacy is required. Here's pepper from the Independent State of Nepal, situated in the northeastern frontier of India, a pepper often difficult to procure, this in a medium grind of bright yellowish red color, very full in flavor.
Centered amid the peppers is a small bottle of a liquid pepper, Borre's Scotch Bonnet. The basis of this seasoner is a unique pepper known as the Scotch Bonnet, the fruit bonnet-shaped. It's a pepper difficult to raise, a hothouse baby, the young plants grown under glass, then garden-planted; as the peppers are late to mature, their harvest is hazardous. The concentrated flavor, hot and intriguing, is extracted from the fruit and blended with sherry to reduce it in strength, then into wooden casks for the long, long aging. The pepper's full flavor is brought out by the sherry, making its uses manifold in soups, sauces, meats, any cooked dishes, in salad dressings, and especially nice added to the dunk sauce for oysters and clams.
The pepper baskets are packed by John Wagner and Sons, of Philadelphia, a firm in business now for over one hundred years. Always they have specialized in the importation and distribution of spices, herbs, seeds. Greig, Lawrence & Hoyt of New York City are the distributors for the Eastern seaboard, and in New York we saw the baskets selling at Hammacher Schlemmer, 145 East 57th Street; Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue; Maison Glass, 15 East 47th Street. Prices vary as to choice of fillers. Small basket, five seasoners, ＄5.50 to ＄6.50.
Good news for the holiday. Those little eye-cup-sized jars of caviar so pesky to pry into have been given new easy-lift lids. The Romanoff Caviar Company has made a new jar in a special mold with a lid so easy-raising it “ups” with a coin.
It seems the company officials didn't like those tight fits in the “little ones” any better than the rest of us did. But stop us if you have heard of this before: there was a war on, and glass companies didn't have time to bother with special requests for luxury packs—not until now. The new jars with the “easy-up” tops sell in delicacy stores of all leading cities. In New York City, Hammacher Schlemmer, 145 East 57th Street, have them in the 2-ounce size, ＄2.98; the 1-ounce jars are at Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue, ＄1.55.
Tight-bodied Kadota figs, sweetly spiced, preserved in heavy syrup, packed in sturdy wooden kegs, is the perfect Christmas present for those who enjoy entertaining. The preserved fig has a dozen uses; only a couple are as a relish with meat and fowl, stuffed with seasoned cream cheese for a sophisticated dessert.
The Hamiltons, Department G, 644 C Street, San Diego 1, California, have been packers of the figs for forty years, and are now offering them for mail order in three sizes, 3 pounds ＄4.15, 5 pounds ＄5.35, 10 pounds ＄7.75, delivered anywhere in the United States. Numerous other delectables come from their kitchen. Order their catalogue for a listing.
Merriest holiday box in the candy world is the Ting-a-Ling package, from Blum's of San Francisco, which carries its own Christmas bells fastened to a crossbar along one side of the box. The over-all wrap is silver and blue, the pound container is divided into four sections convenient as a utility box after the sweets are gone. ＄2.95.
Candy Cane is for the young in heart, a colorful, full- sized, red-and-silver-striped cane 29 inches long, containing dozens of Blum's Almondettes, chews, and bumps. ＄2.95.
The Lights Before Christmas box is electrified; lights go on, lights off, with a flick of a switch. This is done in French gray with a moss-green tree, bedecked with multicolored lights and filled with 3 ½ pounds of Blum's very best. ＄14.75.
Greeting Box is unique, representing a giant Christmas card with a good-cheer sentiment printed inside and a place for the donor to sign his name. The entire Christmas-card lid lifts up, and behold—1 ½ pounds of Blum's unusual candies! ＄4.50; 3 pounds for ＄8.75.