Baked Peaches

Source: Martha McCulloch-Williams, 1913

History

"Baked Peaches" appears in Martha McCulloch-Williams's "Dishes & Beverages of the Old South" (1913), where it is offered as a side rather than a dessert — "Especially fine with barbecued lamb or roast duck or smothered chicken." A dozen large ripe peaches are peeled and each stuck with two cloves, then set in an agate or earthen pan "they will just fill," with two cups of sugar, a tablespoonful of butter, very little water and "a good strewing of mace and lemon peel." Covered close and baked until done, served hot. She offers an alternative: a gill of whiskey in place of the butter.

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

Instructions

  1. Peel one dozen large, ripe, juicy peaches and stick two cloves in each. Arrange them in an agate or earthen pan that they will just fill. Add two cups sugar, a tablespoonful butter, a very little water, a good strewing of mace and lemon peel.
  2. Cover the pan closely and bake until the peaches are done. Serve hot.
  3. Variant: Instead of butter, a gill of whiskey may be used. Add the whiskey just before the peaches are taken from the oven, then let them stand covered until the spirit goes through them. Prepared this way, they are better eaten cold than warm.
  4. The pits flavor the fruit so delicately they should never be removed.

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