BRANDIED PEACHES OR PEARS

4 lb. fruit
4 lb. sugar
1 pint best white brandy

Make a syrup of the sugar and enough water to dissolve it. Let this come to a boil; put the fruit in and boil five minutes. Having removed the fruit carefully, let the syrup boil fifteen minutes longer, or until it thickens well; add the brandy, and take the kettle at once from the fire; pour the hot syrup over the fruit, and seal.
If, after the fruit is taken from the fire, a reddish liquor oozes from it, drain this off before adding the clear syrup. Put up in glass jars.
Peaches and pears should be peeled for brandying. Plums should be pricked and watched carefully for fear of bursting.

Common Sense in the Household by Marion Harland, New York, 1871

Comment: Mrs. Harland clearly intends these brandied fruits to be not simply preserved but preserved in pristine condition for future use in some fancy dessert. If one is interested more in the flavor than the appearance (or if one actively enjoys a red tint to one's brandied fruit) then the directions concerning reddish oozes should be ignored. While the recipe does not call for it, it would simplify later cooking to remove the pits from peaches and cores from pears before commencing. Plums are intended to remain whole and so their pits will have to be dealt with later, or simply left for the diner to discreetly spit out and put on a pit plate.

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