How to Decorate with Fruits

What could be more glorious than a holiday table laden with fruit? Fruit is nature’s bounty and an eloquent symbol of its richness. The Dutch and Flemish masters immortalized fruit, as well as flowers, in their prettiest still lifes. But it was the French, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who refined fruit centerpieces into soaring pyramids of glistening cherries and grapes; elaborate epergnes whose branches were filled with strawberries, figs, and miniature apples; or a single golden pineapple served up on a pedestal.

The French built centerpieces in a variety of vessels, mixing real fruit, flowers, and leaves with ceramic fruit. Sometimes the fruit was meant to be eaten, and other times not, since some of the techniques to make a pyramid stable, like drizzling warm caramel over the arrangement or pouring water over it so it would ice, made the display purely decorative. But then a fruit centerpiece was designed less to be tasted than to dazzle and to amuse.

The best fruits for creating table decorations have sturdy skins and can thrive without being refrigerated. Apples, oranges, and lemons, for example, may last several weeks; grapes stay pretty for four or five days. Combining fruit is as rich an art as arranging flowers, and just as rewarding, if you learn to appreciate fruit for its color, shape, texture, and size, as you do your favorite blooms. Be simple or be grand.

A single pear crowning a slender candlestick can be as eloquent as a lily in a bud vase—or a tower of plums, pears, and grapes can have the intricacy of a lavish bouquet.

You can make delectable arrangements with surprising ease. Construct a tall cone of fruit simply by piercing each piece of fruit with a toothpick, then piling the fruit in circles on a Styrofoam form. Create sparkling table ornaments with a coat of spray-on adhesive and a frosting of granulated sugar. A single piece of fruit can shine, dressed with a ribbon at each place setting.

For still richer arrangements, combine fruit with greenery. Sprigs of princess pine or boxwood can enliven a fruit pyramid. Red fruit will look even more vivid against bluish evergreens, like eucalyptus or white pine. Wired to a wreath or garland, apples and plums will resemble luscious Christmas-tree balls. And don’t forget artificial fruit: A swag garnished with polystyrene fruit is both lightweight and long-lasting.

Fruit is so vibrant it can provide a color theme for your table or the decoration of an entire dining room. To dress up a serene green-and-white dining room for the holidays, you can gather the reddest apples, pomegranates, litchi, and viburnum berries, and place them atop the mantel and table. Fruit can also spin a mood. A spiky pineapple and the bright, sunny hues of oranges, lemons, and limes may call to mind the tropics. But what fruit does best is help you welcome the holidays, and your guests, with one of nature’s sweetest, most prized gifts.

©2007, Kathy Burns-Millyard