The art of cookery

Our groceries are so crowded with the products of canning establishments that the canning, preserving, and pickling of fruits and vegetables is almost a neglected art in the average family. But as nearly all fruits and vegetables are finer flavored and give better satisfaction when properly canned, preserved, pickled, or made into jams and jellies at home than when done at canning establishments, a few general directions are given in regard to doing such work, and the principles that underlie the canning, preserving, and pickling of various fruits and vegetables are illustrated by a number of select and well-tested formulas. General Directions. — To retain the color and flavor of fruit or vegetables most effectually in canning or preserving— and to do this should be a prominent aim — the fruit or vegetables should be cooked slowly, in small quantities, in granite-ware or porcelain-lined vessels, and be stirred with a wooden or a silver spoon. Hard, tough fruit that is to be canned or preserved should be cooked in water until tender before any sugar is added ; but soft fruit should be cooked in a syrup made from sugar and water, or sugar and the juice of the kind of fruit to be canned or preserved. It is not necessary to use sugar in canning fruit, as nearly all fruits, when 164 The Art of Cookery. properly canned, will keep perfectly without it. Some fruits retain their color and flavor best when canned with sugar, others when canned without it. If fruit is canned without sugar, it can be sweetened to taste at the time of serving. The use or non-use of sugar is therefore an open question and largely a matter of individual opinion. All canned fruits and vegetables should be put up boiling hot, in air-tight cans ; and all fruits and vegetables put up in glass — whether canned or preserved — should be wrapped in paper to exclude the light, and be stored in a cool, dry closet. Many seedy fruits, such as strawberries, blackberries, etc., retain their color and flavor better when crushed and made into jams than when kept whole and canned or preserved. In making jams only the quantity of sugar that will render them most palatable need be used ; but in making preserves it is often necessary to use an equal weight of sugar and fruit. To Can Strawberries. — Crush one fourth of the berries selected for canning, strain out the juice, and put it in a preserving kettle. To each pint of juice add one pint of granulated sugar and one half pint of water, let simmer twenty minutes, and remove the scum. Fill glass cans with the remaining berries and set on racks or rests in a boiler containing sufficient warm water to cover the racks. Fill the cans of fruit with the prepared syrup and screw on the caps loosely. After all the cans have been filled, add hot water to that in the boiler until it comes half way to the top of the cans, put the lid on the boiler, let the water boil half an hour, then screw the caps tightly on the cans, cover them with a towel to Cannings Preservings and Pickling. 165 protect them from exposure to cold air, remove from the boiler, and set away to cool. When perfectly cold tighten the caps, if necessary, wrap the cans in paper, and keep in a cool, dry closet. Other berries may be canned in a similar manner, either with or without sugar.