To Dry Apricocks Pipins Peare Plumbes Or Peaches

This recipe comes from the early modern English period, spanning approximately 1625 to 1725. It was a time before modern canning and refrigeration, so drying fruits was a vital way to preserve excess orchard bounty for the winter months. The attribution to John King situates it among household manuscripts—collections of practical wisdom and family recipes. Baking ovens, fueled by wood or coal, were central to home life, and often retained heat after baking bread. Housewives cleverly used this residual warmth for gentle drying or slow cooking. Sugar, increasingly available but still precious, was applied both as a preservative and a luxury.

The cook would have used a broad earthenware or ceramic pan to hold the fruit, a household bread oven (a brick, wood-fired oven, cooling down after bread-baking), and perhaps a sieve or muslin to 'searche' the sugar (pass it through to make it fine). Papers for drying referred to sheets of parchment or even thick writing paper. Turning the fruit would be done by hand, sometimes with wooden tongs or spoons. A warm place or stove might have been the oven's residual heat, a hearth, or even a sunny windowsill—places less precise than our modern temperature-controlled appliances.