Apple and pear stroop

Another traditional source for sweetness was, and still is, apple and pear stroop, made with 100 per cent fruit since medieval times in the Pays de Herve in Wallonia, Belgian and Dutch Limburg, and the German Rhineland. Before the industrial revolution and the switch from tall fruit trees to the more manageable dwarf trees, fruit harvests included a high proportion of windfalls. Those windfalls would go into the copper kettle steaming away in a barn by the orchard with a woodfired pit underneath.