My Southern clients, with long family ties to Charleston or New Orleans, always astound me. These Santa Barbara transplants, who’ve lived in Santa Barbara for generations, own great silver, textiles (table linens), and usually fine cut or blown glass objects called a pair of COMPOTES.
You must remember the American South had ties to France in a way no other region did. My friend V sent me this fabulous pair of compotes sourced from New Orleans. Of course her family is Old South. What are these?
This elegant pair of glass dishes we call compotes, named for the sauces they contained. As far back as Medieval times, Europeans cooked fruit in a sugar mixture, the original meaning of compote. This pair of glass dishes came from that tradition.
Compotes Always Come In A Pair
We don’t see them on the East Coast unless we see them in the Southern areas of the US. Decidedly the French invented the food called compote.
These are designed to hold a type of curative today we call a laxative. In 15th century France somebody discovered cooked fruit “helped.”
They cooked fruit in sugar syrup. When cooling, they added extra sugar and spices, along with perhaps lemon or orange peel, cinnamon sticks or powder, cloves, ground almonds, grated coconuts, and candied fruits or raisins.
As far back as the 15th century, the French served compotes at the end of supper. In the 17th century it became necessary for two matching dishes. One for the fruit cooked in sugar. One for the toppings, whipped cream or sour cream and biscuits. In the the 18th century people topped fruit compote with whipped cream, vanilla sugar, or cinnamon. Sometimes a fine cook added dried fruit soaked in Kirsch, Rum, or Frontignan.
Passed Down Compote Dishes
You might think the compote died with the pair of vessels meant to hold the delicious mixtures. NO! Because you serve fruit with NO dairy, Jewish communities adopted the tradition of a compote. This led to the compote as a cultural heritage of many European Jews. I’ve seen pressed glass pairs of compotes dating to Pittsburg in the late 19th century.
This tradition continued in the Jewish communities and the Southern areas of the US. Families passed down wonderful glass pairs of compote dishes. V’s pair appears ultra-fine, because of the winding, hand blown snake feature on exquisite frosted French style glass.
National Compote Day Recipe
I find this hard to believe, but March 1 is US National Compote Day. Each year the National Day Calendar selects a favorite compote recipe. This year’s recipe, of course, came from a Southerner, from ‘NC Gal:’
- canned pineapple chunks
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 Tb cornstarch
- 1 cup orange and lemon juice
Heat on stove with a can of mandarin oranges, and when cooling, add four unpeeled apple slices, and banana slices, and refrigerate. Serve over ice cream!!! Or yogurt, or on a piece of cheese!
Is a compote like a fruit preserve? No!
Fruit preserves, originally called fruit fool, was for preservation, and the compote was not a preserve. People cooked it daily, but only in the South, and in Jewish East Coast communities.
The Culinary Institute of America acknowledged two kinds of American Compotes: coulis, pureed fruit, and compote classical, chunky fruit.
When V’s family in New Orleans used these wonderful pair of snake wrapped compotes, they took fruit, cream, and biscuits in the afternoon. Today, we don’t see many of these footed messengers of fruit and toppings, but compotes are made for cheese platters, yogurt, custard, on toast, sconces, as a side to meat, atop cheesecake…and the compote lives on, sans elegant pairs of dishes.
There’s a form of French and American South compote glass dishes with covers for HOT compotes. V’s are even nicer in that the quality of glass is HIGH French taste, as befitting New Orleans.
I put the value of V’s exquisite compotes at $800 for the pair.