FoodNet

Foods and home making

1928

Page 277

Presented as published in 1928. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Wash the pineapple, pare it. Remove the eyes. Cut into slices. With a fork tear the pineapple into shreds, discarding the core. Mix the fruits and sugar. Heat slowly. Let the mixture cook until it is stiff enough for marmalade. Pour into scalded glasses. Add paraffin. When cool, pour more paraffin over the fruit. Cover and label. Yield : 6 glasses. ORANGE MARMALADE 4 oranges V2- times as much water as fruit 2 lemons i as much sugar as cooked fruit mixture Wash the oranges and lemons. Without peeling, cut them into very thin slices. Remove the seeds when slicing the fruit. Measure the sliced fruit in a quart measure. Put the fruit in a granite or aluminum kettle. Add quarts of water for each quart of fruit. Cover the mixture and let it stand over night. Then cook it, uncovered and boiling gently, for i hour. Let the mixture cool and again let it stand over night. Measure the cooked mixture. For each quart of fruit, add \ quart of sugar. Cook slowly for about i hour or until the mixture drops from a spoon in thick drops. Pour into scalded glasses. Pour hot paraffin on top of the marma- lade. When cool, add more paraffin. Cover and label. Yield : 6 glasses. What makes some fruits jelly? Housekeepers have found that there are certain fruits from which jelly can be made. From other fruit, jelly cannot be made unless some substance 5 36 Food Preservation other than sugar is added. Let us see what fruits must contair in order to make jelly from them. Experiment 36: To test fruit for pectin. To £ cup of grapes or cranberries or a sliced apple, add a little water. Cook until the fruit is tender. Mash the fruit. Strain it through a cheese cloth. Put i teaspoon of the strained fruit in a test tube. Add i teaspoon of alcohol.1 Without shaking, set the mixture aside for 5 minutes. What change has taken place in the strained fruit juice? The solid substance formed in the fruit juice is a kind of carbohydrate, called pectin. All fruits do not contain enough pectin to jelly. Strawberries contain but little pectin. Orange and lemon rind are rich in pectin. The rind is used in making orange marmalade not only for flavor, but because it contains pectin. There is another substance which fruits must contain so that jelly can be made from them. The second substance is acid. Currants, crabapples, grapes, and apples contain pectin; we know that they contain acid because they taste sour. These fruits are all excellent jelly-making fruits. Can fruits containing no pectin be used for making jelly? It is possible to mix strawberries and currants and prepare jelly from the fruit mixture. The currants furnish enough pectin to stiffen the mixture. Other fruits rich in pectin can be added to fruits containing little pectin and jelly made from the combina- tion. Commercial pectin can now be purchased in liquid form. By adding this commercial product to a fruit containing but little pectin, jelly can be made. Commercial pectin is often added to fruits rich in pectin. The advantage of this is that the fruits do not require so much cooking as when no commercial pectin is 1 If wood or denatured alcohol is used, it should be handled carefully. Both these substances are very poisonous. Wash the hands thoroughly after doing this experi- ment Preserves, Conserves, Jelly, Spiced Fruit 537