Macerating, and other ways to preserve fruit

When faced with, say, four quarts of fresh-picked strawberries, some people eat what they can of them and stick the rest in the fridge.

Certainly they will keep better that way than they will at room temperature, though they will also dry out because air circulates inside the refrigerator. My preference is to macerate them.

This fancy-sounding word just means soaking or steeping the fruit. I sprinkle sliced strawberries or whole raspberries (or sliced peaches) lightly with sugar - or lately, sometimes agave syrup, a low-glycemic sweetener - as I layer them in a dish. They make their own sweet syrup, which helps to keep them from spoiling for a few days. (Salt and sugar are the main two ways to preserve things - other than pickling and fermenting.)

Serve the syrupy fruit on ice cream, cake or yogurt. If the fruit breaks down too much, you can still toss it into smoothies. On the other hand, tart or unripe fruit is often improved and tenderized by macerating it.

Maceration, when you think about it, is what often happens in making red wine; grape skins macerate, making their own juice and turning the wine rosy. Maceration is the secret of cookbook author Marcella Hazan's fabulous and easy sliced oranges, soaked in fresh orange and lemon juice and a hint of sugar. That dish is an elegant and easy showstopper in winter when other fruit is scarce.

In a sense, even though cooking on the stove is not involved in maceration, it is a way of letting fruit "stew in its own juices."

Other favorite ways to salvage fruit that will otherwise not last long are roasting, stewing and poaching. Plums or nectarines, halved and lightly sprinkled with sugar, are particularly good roasted in the oven, then served over thick Greek yogurt. These stone fruits, too, create their own gorgeous syrup for serving over ice cream or yogurt. I'm partial to the tart thrill of rhubarb, stewed with sugar and a little water and then chilled. Apples and pears can be stewed, too, and poaching is almost certain to improve an underripe pear.

STRAWBERRIES MASHED WITH MAPLE CHEESE

The late and masterful author Roy Andries de Groot understood that fruit must be treated differently at stages: when underripe, when perfectly at its peak, when just slightly past its peak and, as in this slightly adapted strawberry recipe, when so soft they "have to be mashed."

1 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese

1 cup sour cream

Pure maple syrup, to taste (about 6 tablespoons), divided

1 quart strawberries

2 tablespoons sugar, or to taste

2 tablespoons French Calvados brandy

1. The day before serving, soften cream cheese to room temperature and mash in the sour cream and 1/4 cup of the maple syrup. Blend vigorously with a wooden spoon until smooth. Spoon into individual custard cups or ramekins, filling each not more than 2/3 full. Refrigerate, covered, overnight.

2. About 15 minutes before serving, take custard cups out of refrigerator and check texture of maple "cheese." It should be a little stiffer than a baked caramel custard. If too stiff, blend about 1 more teaspoon of maple syrup into each cup. A little untidiness does not matter.

3. Lightly mash the strawberries with sugar to taste and fill each cup, piling it up. Dribble on a few drops more maple syrup and about 1 teaspoon of the Calvados per cup. Serve at once, still slightly chilled. Makes about 8 servings.