Contributing Authors: Jason Bessette, Mike Ivas, Eric Kastel

Preservation of Fruit
It is that time of year where the holiday s bring out the best in the baking world, and the bakers bring out the best of nature s bounty. We are talking about fruit, the kind that bring the magical touch to the holiday s treats. Hold up it s not the season for fruit! True but since the dawn of civilization the process of preserving food for consumption long after its harvest has shaped how we have eaten. Fruits happen to be one of the easier foods to preserve and very versatile, lending them to be used in the tasty confections we as baker s love to create around the festive holiday season. Let us take a look into preserving fruit, the why s, how s, a bit of history and its uses. WHAT IS FOOD PRESERVATION AND WHY DO WE DO IT? Food Preservation is done using a process or treatment that stops or slows down the spoilage of food from bacteria, microorganisms, yeasts, fungi, or rancidity of fats. Some processes can also help retain visual appeal while preventing spoilage. By using food preservation techniques we gain a product that is high in quality, with a much longer shelf life. This product retains its nutritional value and flavor and in some cases concentrates the flavor. TYPES OF PRESERVATION PROCESSES: Common Types are: Drying, Refrigerating, Freezing, Salting, Sugaring (including Jams and Jellies), Canning, Pickling, Smoking, Freeze drying, and Fermentation. Looking at the preservation processes fruit is most commonly preserved through Drying, Refrigerating, Freezing, Sugaring (including Jams and Jellies), Canning, and Freeze Drying. Drying is the oldest process dating back to the fourth millennium BC in Mesopotamia. It is achieved by removing the majority of the water content either naturally through air drying, sun drying (the oldest forms) or through specialized dryers and dehydrators. In removing the moisture in the food, bacteria, yeasts and fungi that need the moisture to flourish cannot, affectively inhibiting the growth of these microorganisms and decreasing spoilage. Dried Fruit with its low ph, low moisture content, and antimicrobial compounds make it a very shelf stable food with a long history of food safety. Dried Fruits are consumed worldwide, the most common of them being Raisins, Dates, Prunes (dried Plums), Figs, Apricots, Peaches, Apples, Pears, Cranberries, Blueberries, Cherries, Strawberries, currants and mangoes. Sugaring is a process done through preserving fruits in either syrup with fruits like apples peaches, apricots, and plums, or in a crystallized form where the fruit is cooked in sugar to the point of crystallization and the product is then stored dry. This is done usually with citrus fruit and ginger and is then called candied. Sugaring is often combined with alcohol to produce luxury products like brandied cherries. This method of fruit preservation was known to the ancient cultures of China, Mesopotamia, and the ancient Roman Empire. Ancient Arab culture candied citrus and roses were served at the important moments of their banquets. The Arab people brought this tradition into Southern Europe and

the candied fruit made its way west. The use of candied fruit in Europe can be traced back to the sixteenth century, during which time; the candied fruits were treated like spices. In Italy, they become a key ingredient of some of the most famous sweets of its culinary tradition: among these, the Milanese Panettone and the Cassata Siciliana. Another form of sugaring has been taking place in many early cultures, we would consider this making Jam, Jelly or Preserves. The process started by taking fruit, drying them slightly and packing them tightly in jars with honey. This process was used by the ancient Greeks. The Romans took that process and refined it by cooking the fruit in the honey which created a dense jelly. A common fruit used was the quince. This spread to cooler climate areas along with the trade of sugar and became a very popular method of preserving their fruit. This became popular in those regions mainly due to the lack of sunlight for adequate drying of fruit so they began cooking the fruit with the sugar and jarring it for winters use this was dubbed by its makers Preserves. Jams, Jellies or Preserves are a staple even today at most tables around the world used for a variety of purposes. Canning is a modern way of preserving food developed by a French confectioner Nicolas Appert around 1790. He discovered that by heating food in a sealed glass bottle the food was preserved from deterioration. His process was adopted by the French Navy in 1806 and passed the test preserving a wide range of foods such as meat, vegetables, fruit and milk. An Englishman named Peter Durand, in 1810, began using this method using tin cans instead. Although these men pioneered the process it wasnt understood why the process worked until Louis Pasteur discovered the relationship between microorganisms and spoilage and the process to destroy the microorganisms using heat. Canning is today a very popular means of preserving fruit and many other food stuffs. Refrigerating is a modern way of preserving fruit for consumption coming about in the early 1800s. With the advent of refrigeration came the ability to slow deterioration of fresh fruit so it would stay fresher longer and unaltered from its form, and color, this process does bring with it the shortest shelf life though. This was used long before cultures had what we consider modern refrigeration. Cultures in cooler climates used cellars, caves or cool streams to serve the same purpose. Freezing is also a modern way of preserving fruit coming about in the late 1800s with a similar history as refrigeration. In any culture living in areas that are of freezing or below freezing temperatures, for any portion of the year, have preserved food by freezing it. Freezing is a very popular method of long term preservation methods and became perfected by Clarence Birdseye who discovered that quick freezing at very low temperatures made for better tasting product and revolutionized this preservation method. We see it on frozen package of food all the time the term IQF or Individually Quick Frozen. A less popular, more complex form of preserving fruit would be through Freeze-drying. This process is very complex and costly usually performed in a laboratory type setting freezing product using chemicals like liquid nitrogen and specialized dryers that sublimate (turning liquid to a gas) the water out of the product. It was developed for long term preservation during WWII for medications and vaccines and then used for food. This process is used commonly for products such as fruit in cereals, instant coffee, astronaut food or R.E.Ms (ready to eat meals) all of which can be kept extremely long if kept dry. Preserved Fruit with its long history of versatility of uses have worked their way into kitchens worldwide since the dawn of civilization. It is no wonder why these tasty morsels have made their way through history in the products we as bakers love to bake especially for the Holiday Season. They bring a spark of life to the simple ingredients that we use. You may notice a variety of preserved fruit used in our bakery cafes, such as dried cranberries, frozen cranberries, dried blueberries, frozen blueberries, dried strawberries, frozen apples, fresh-refrigerated apples, frozen cherries, dried cherries, frozen orange peel, frozen orange zest, candied orange peel, raisins, currants, cherry pie filling (preserves), and apple pie filling (preserves). We truly pay homage to our ancestors utilizing ingredients such as preserved fruit that have such a vibrant history and add such a tasty accent to what we do.