With overseas trade booming there are likely to be a large variety of imported fruits, as well as our home grown ones, available to the buyer in the larger cities, and some most attractive dishes can be prepared quite inexpensively.

Here are some recipes using a variety of fruits which readers may care to dabble with.

Hot Fruit Cup (Easy)

Care must be taken to use only fruit without bruises or blemishes and fruit that are a little over ripe should be avoided. Squeeze the juice of several citrus fruits into a cup and add ½ teaspoon of gelatin. Scoop out ½ a watermelon, taking care to get all the seeds out of the flesh. Chop in your firmer fruit such as apples or bananas and then pour the juice over it. Add 1½ pints of petrol and cover with a flaky pastry. Put in a hot oven for 20 minutes, 400 degrees. The oven will probably explode which shows that you can't be too careful with fruit juice.

Fruit Pie

For this dish use the thin skinned fruit available as although they need greater care in handling, their more delicate flavour rewards the pains taken in preparing them. Line a large size pie dish with thin pastry, leaving about ½ inch all around the edge. Cover the bottom of the dish with a layer of thinly sliced banana and add a second layer of bread crumbs and white shoe cleaner. By selecting different colour fruit, say apricots, plums, greengages and alternating each layer with bread crumbs and white shoe cleaner, a most attractive dappled effect can be obtained when the pie is finally cut. The top of the pie should be covered with clean sackcloth and fresh wood ashes. Place in a medium oven, about 2 feet square, and allow to bake for 45 minutes. When allowed to cool this attractive looking pie is almost completely inedible. What did you expect with all that rubbish in it anyway.

Stewed Fruit

Some fruit are almost impossible to get properly stewed, where others can be very easily stewed in a short time. It is difficult to give any helpful advice to know whether any particular fruit is suitable for stewing or not, and I can only recommend that you ask at the time you make your purchase. As a general rule you should never put in more than ½ a cup of whisky for every pound weight of stewing fruit. Care should be taken also that the fruit is not left too long in the pot as they tend to go hard and lose their flavour if left to stew for too long.

Stuffing for Roast Duck

This is from the Galopagos and provides a new and exciting variation to a dish which may be taken too much for granted. Finely chop two or three apples with 1 cup of prunes and 1 cup of dates. Sprinkle with nutmeg and squeeze the juice of ½ orange over the mixture. Place the mixture in the bird and sew up with fine nylon thread. In the pan with the bird, place a stone of approximately the same size and roast until a fork can be placed into the stone without too much difficulty. Then decorate the bird with sprigs of mint and Scotch thistle. When everything else is prepared throw the bird and the stone away and eat the other half of the orange. This dish is excellent for husbands whose wives are on a diet.

A Bachelor Fruit Dish

To the bachelor tired of the usual casseroles and stews, this dish may make a pleasant change. Into a large bucket place 1 pound of apples, 1 pound of pears, ½ pound of mangoes, 5 ozs, of cherries, 3 bananas, ½ pound of peaches and a packet of seedless raisins. The sides of the bucket should be lined with spinach leaves and ragwort. Carefully pick the bucket up, using the handle so as not to disarrange any of the fruit and place it in a tub of hot water. After 5-10 minutes remove the bucket and place it on the centre of the dining room table. The bucket will be found to serve as an excellent fruit dish for the bachelor.