To each pound of prepared marrow allow 1 lb. sugar, | lemon, and 4 oz. whole ginger, water✪ Vegetable Marrow Jam. The vegetable marrows should be medium-sized and fresh. Wash, dry, and peel them. Then cut them in slices an inch thick. Stamp out the seeds with a round cutter, and cut the rings in blocks an inch in width. Weigh the marrow and put it into a large basin with the proper proportion of sugar, the grated rind and juice of lemon, and the ginger broken in small pieces and tied in muslin. Put the skins and seeds into a saucepan with water to cover them, and boil i hour. Then strain, and allow 1 gill of this liquid to each pound of marrow. Pour this into the basin, cover, and stand for 24 hours. Next day boil all together, stirring almost constantly until the pieces of marrow look transparent, and the liquid will jelly when tested on a plate. From | to 1 hour will be required. When ready, lift out the ginger and pour into pots. PART III THE BOTTLING OF FRUIT The valuable notes following have been quoted by kind permission from “ The Book of Fruit- Bottling,” by Edith Bradley and May Crooke, published by John Lane. Fruit bottling is by no means laborious, but it demands the utmost nicety, cleanliness, and atten- tion to details. All fruits may be bottled, and the method is admirably suited to those particular fruits which are least in favour when freshly gathered, as black currants and damsons. These, when bottled and kept from six to eighteen months (or even longer) are vastly improved. They lose that element of roughness, almost acridity, which in the fresh fruit sometimes runs round the mouth and makes one shudder. The process is not new ; in the “ good old times ” of stillrooms, herbs, and simples, and decoctions of all sorts, there is no doubt that bottled fruit was “ laid down ” in dozens in the capacious cellars and store rooms which occupied so large a space in the old-fashioned English home. The apparatus was of the very simplest — the fruit was packed into bottles, covered 474 COOKERY FOR EVERY HOUSEHOLD with water, and steamed in a large saucepan or kettle with bands of straw or hay between, to prevent the bottles touching each other. Pieces of bladder were afterwards used to cover the bottles, or they were corked and covered with resin. With the changed surroundings of domestic life a more systematic and up-to-date method is required, and sterilisers or steam cookers, simple in con- struction and moderate in price, and in which the temperature can be gauged accurately by means of a thermometer, have been put on the market, along with jars or bottles with special air-tight lids, and these make the operation of fruit bottling a very simple one, besides doing away with any haphazard results. The following simple directions for using the Mercia Steriliser (and in general terms the same will hold good for other kinds) may be of use to those who are tempted to take up this fascinating occupation. First of all the fruit must be sterilised, and for this a special steriliser must be used.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

To each pound of prepared marrow allow 1 lb. sugar, | lemon, and 4 oz. whole ginger, water. The vegetable marrows should be medium-sized and fresh. Wash, dry, and peel them. Then cut them in slices an inch thick. Stamp out the seeds with a round cutter, and cut the rings in blocks an inch in width. Weigh the marrow and put it into a large basin with the proper proportion of sugar, the grated rind and juice of lemon, and the ginger broken in small pieces and tied in muslin. Put the skins and seeds into a saucepan with water to cover them, and boil i hour. Then strain, and allow 1 gill of this liquid to each pound of marrow. Pour this into the basin, cover, and stand for 24 hours. Next day boil all together, stirring almost constantly until the pieces of marrow look transparent, and the liquid will jelly when tested on a plate. From | to 1 hour will be required. When ready, lift out the ginger and pour into pots. THE BOTTLING OF FRUIT The valuable notes following have been quoted by kind permission from “ The Book of Fruit- Bottling,” by Edith Bradley and May Crooke, published by John Lane. Fruit bottling is by no means laborious, but it demands the utmost nicety, cleanliness, and attention to details. All fruits may be bottled, and the method is admirably suited to those particular fruits which are least in favour when freshly gathered, as black currants and damsons. These, when bottled and kept from six to eighteen months (or even longer) are vastly improved. They lose that element of roughness, almost acridity, which in the fresh fruit sometimes runs round the mouth and makes one shudder. The process is not new ; in the “ good old times ” of stillrooms, herbs, and simples, and decoctions of all sorts, there is no doubt that bottled fruit was “ laid down ” in dozens in the capacious cellars and store rooms which occupied so large a space in the old-fashioned English home. The apparatus was of the very simplest — the fruit was packed into bottles, covered with water, and steamed in a large saucepan or kettle with bands of straw or hay between, to prevent the bottles touching each other. Pieces of bladder were afterwards used to cover the bottles, or they were corked and covered with resin. With the changed surroundings of domestic life a more systematic and up-to-date method is required, and sterilisers or steam cookers, simple in construction and moderate in price, and in which the temperature can be gauged accurately by means of a thermometer, have been put on the market, along with jars or bottles with special air-tight lids, and these make the operation of fruit bottling a very simple one, besides doing away with any haphazard results. The following simple directions for using the Mercia Steriliser (and in general terms the same will hold good for other kinds) may be of use to those who are tempted to take up this fascinating occupation. First of all the fruit must be sterilised, and for this a special steriliser must be used.

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Vegetable Marrow Jam

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