Paging JoeBryant. JoeBryant to the HELP desk, please!

[hencackle]

Ms. Lewis Rich :

My Mother for years did something that reminds me of your fermented tea, only she used fruit.
It would bubble and she would give other people a start.
She used it over Ice cream . It was kept on the counter in a closed glass container.
As a child I kept my eye on it!

Found this old thread while doing a search and I'm resurrecting it to answer MissPrissy's question...........

What was it called? I need a new project!

My great-grandmother made this too, she called it Fruit Compote and it's not the same thing as the stewed fruit concoction that goes by the same name. If I had the recipe, I'd share it with you. You could try googling Fermented Fruit Compote.​

 

[MissPrissy]

Here is one -

Friendship Fruit Starter

Ingredients:

20 oz. can pineapple chunks, drained
16 oz. can peach slices, drained
16 oz. can apricot halves, drained
10 oz. jar maraschino cherries, drained
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups brandy
Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a clean, large glass jar. Stir gently with wooden spoon. Cover and let stand at room temperature for three weeks, stirring at least twice a week

Serve over ice cream or pound cake, use in recipes or feed as directed. To keep the starter going, retain at least three cups at all times.

To feed and maintain: Stir mixture daily. Add one cup sugar and one cup of pineapple, peaches or cherries every two weeks, alternating fruits each time and stirring gently. Brandy should not be required. Do not add fruit more often than once every two weeks. Do not delay adding fruit for more than one or two days past schedule. Cover and let stand at room temperature at least three days before using. Fruit is fermented when it is translucent. To store, keep in warm place. Makes about nine cups. Variation: Substitute canned fruit cocktail, mandarin oranges or pears. To share: Whenever you have more than six cups of fermented fruit, you may divide it into two portions, being sure there are at least three cups in each portion. Do this just before you would do a normal feeding. Feed each portion. Give one portion to a friend and keep one for yourself.

 

[hencackle]

Thanks for that recipe.

It seems that Mama Kennedy's compote used dried fruit because I do remember seeing prunes in there. Sorry, I never got a taste of the compote as it was "strictly for adults." Like kids would really want to taste some bubbling, weird-looking stuff in a covered glass dish.

I don't know if it had brandy in it--doubt it--because she was a teetotalling, charter member of her Baptist church, but somehow the fermentation of fruit compote was allowed.

 

[MissPrissy]

Lots of older women (our grandmothers and great grandmothers) who would never touch a drop used liquors and spirits in their kitchens. I don't know why one was acceptable and the other wasn't but many many women did it. Even my grandmother. Fruit cakes soaked in brandy, rum filled cakes etc. This fruit compote is what I always knew as brandied fruit.

 

[joebryant]

I'll be darned. I'd totally forgotten about that fermented fruit concoction that Anne used to keep about a thousand years ago. That was GOOD. 'tain't brandy (a re-distilled wine), it's its own form of "joy juice". When Anne gets back from the bank, I'm going to show her your directions; maybe she'll start another one. Shorenuff is goooooood on ice cream, cake, and other goodies.

EDIT: OOPS! Then again:
WordNet Search - 3.0 - WordNet home page - Glossary - Help
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Key: "S:" = Show Synset (semantic) relations, "W:" = Show Word (lexical) relations
Noun

* S: (n) brandy (distilled from wine or fermented fruit juice)

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[MissPrissy]

Cherry brandy and peach brandy is my favorite, Joe.

 

[joebryant]

Quote:
Then you gotta try DeKuyper's apricot brandy.

 

[MissPrissy]

I have! I love Cherry brandy and chocolate cakes at Christmas.

 

[hencackle]

Well, my mother called this afternoon and I had a chance to ask her about the fermented fruit compote. She doesn't have the recipe, but she said my gr-grandmother used fresh fruit--peaches, plums, cherries and some cinnamon, yeast, & sugar---that's all she could recall of the ingredients. Nothing was from a can. She said most definitely there was no brandy or any liquor of any kind added to make the starter. That stuff just wasn't allowed in her house. Too bad my mom didn't keep her starter alive after all these years because I'm curious how the compote tasted. Darn, that's another missing recipe. Everything went to the grave with Mama Kennedy. Nobody can make sugar cookies as good as she could. All the grandkids LOVED getting their cans of homemade sugar cookies for Christmas.

 

[MissPrissy]

She may not have started with liquor but the fruit and sugar ferment and your end result is liquor. 6 of one half dozen of the other. Same with sour dough bread starter. The liquid that separates is called 'hooch' - sugar alcohols. :-D