Cobblers

History

"Cobblers" is written as a general method in Martha McCulloch-Williams's "Dishes & Beverages of the Old South" (1913): make it "from any sort of fruit in season — peaches, apples, cherries, plums or berries." She is specific about what does not work — "Green gooseberries are inadvisable, through being too tart and too tedious" — and about preparation: stone the cherries, pare and thinly slice peaches or apples, halve plums if they are big enough and stone them, and if not, wash, drain well and use them whole. The vessel matters as much as the fruit: a skillet or deep pie pan "must be three inches deep at least," lined liberally with short crust.

The historical record does not document a specific earlier origin for this particular preparation.

"Dishes & Beverages of the Old South" is a mixture of recipes and plantation reminiscence. McCulloch-Williams was a white writer born near Clarksville, Tennessee, who grew up on a plantation before the Civil War, and the book's affection for that world goes unexamined in it: its dedication is "to our Mammys," and its opening holds that being "the best fed people in the world" let "we of the South Country... put up the best fight in history." Much of the cooking it records is the work of enslaved and formerly enslaved Black women the book does not name.

Ingredients

• fruit
• short crust dough
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 lump butter
• 1 spoonful brandy
• nutmeg
• cinnamon
• mace blades
• fruit pits/stones
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 tablespoon brandy or whiskey
• thick sweet cream

Instructions

1. Make cobbler from any sort of fruit in season — peaches, apples, cherries, plums or berries. Green gooseberries are inadvisable, being too tart and too tedious.
2. Prepare the fruit: stone cherries; pare peaches or apples and slice thin; halve plums if big enough and remove the stones — if they are not big enough, wash them, drain well, and use whole.
3. Line a skillet or deep pie pan — it must be three inches deep at least — liberally with short crust, rolled rather more than a quarter-inch thick. Fit well, then prick all over with a blunt fork.
4. Fill with the prepared fruit. Put on an upper crust a quarter-inch thick and plenty big enough, barely press the crust edges together, and prick well with a fork all over the top.
5. Cook in a hot oven half to three-quarters of an hour, according to size.
6. Take up, remove the top crust, and lay it inverted upon another plate.
7. Sweeten the hot fruit liberally, adding if you like a spoonful of brandy, and adding also a good lump of the best butter. Mix well through the fruit.
8. Dip out enough of the fruit to make a thick layer over the top crust.
9. Flavoring by fruit: grate nutmeg over apple pies, or strew on a little powdered cinnamon. A few blades of mace baked with the fruit accent the apple flavor beautifully. Cherries take kindly to brandy, but require less butter than either peaches or apples. Give plums plenty of sugar with something over for the stones, and cook a few stones with them for flavor even if you take away the bulk. Do the same with cherries, using, say, a dozen pits to the pie.
10. Serve cobbler hot or cold. If hot, serve with it hard brandy sauce, made by creaming together a cup of sugar and a tablespoonful of butter, then working in two tablespoonfuls of brandy or good whiskey. Note, once for all: good whiskey is far and away better in anything than poor brandy.
11. Thick sweet cream, whipped or plain, sets off cold cobbler wonderfully.