FoodNetArchive

The household (of the Detroit free press)

1886

Page 490

Presented as published in 1886. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
The following tables gives the time or number of minutes that each kind of fruit should be boiled : Boil cherries moderately five minutes ; boil raspberries moderately six minutes ; boil blackberries moderately six minutes ; boil plums moderately ten minutes ; boil strawberries moderately eight minutes ; boil whortleberries five minutes ; boil pie plant, sliced, ten minutes ; boil small sour pears, whole, thirty minutes ; 592 PRESERVES AND MARMALADE boil Bartlett pairs, in halves, twenty minutes ; boil peaches, in halves, eight minutes ; boil peaches, whole, fifteen minutes ; boil pineapples, sliced half an inch thick, fifteen minutes ; boil Siberian or crab apples, whole, twenty-five minutes ; boil sour apples, quartered, ten minutes ; boil ripe currants six minutes ; boil wild grapes ten minutes ; boil tomatoes twenty minutes. The amount of sugar to a quart jar should be — For cherries, six ounces ; for raspberries, four ounces ; for Lawton blackberries, six ounces ; for field blackberries, six ounces ; for straw- berries, eight ounces ; for whortleberries, four ounces ; for quinces, ten ounces ; for small sour pears, whole, eight ounces ; for wild grapes, eight ounces ; for peiches, four ounces ; for Bartlett pears, six ounces ; for pineapples, six ounces ; for Siberian or crab apples, eight ounces ; for pie plant, ten ounces ; for sour apples, quartered, six ounces ; for ripe currants, eight ounces ; for plums, eight ounces. When fruit which is white and clear in color is wanted as a preserve, such as quinces or pears, the whole operation must be carried on as rapidly as possible. Everything must be ready. Just as soon as the fruit is pared or sliced it must at once be cooked. The contents in a jar cannot be too hot. A very easy method of doing this is to place the clean jars, when empty, in a vessel of water which is kept on the full boil while the fruit is being introduced into these jars from the pre- serving kettle. To take the hot fruit from one vessel to the other with- out this precaution is to run a useless risk. Take out the jar from the boiling water containing the preserve just as rapidly as possible, and when it is piping hot screw on the lid. Many think that a crust of mold found on the top of a preserve does no harm, as it can be removed. Moldy preserves are not always ruined, but it gives a bad taste to the preserves. A sure prevention of mold is to take white of an egg and wet slightly both sides of a piece of letter paper, sufficiently large to cover over the top of the preserves snugly. Plums' and fruit of which the skin is liable to be broken do better to be put in little jars, with their weight of sugar, and the jars set in a ket- tle of boiling water till the fruit is done. See that the water is not high enough to boil into the jars. When you put preserves in jars lay a white paper, thoroughly wet with brandy, flat upon the surface of the preserves, and cover them carefully from the air. If they begin to mold scald them by setting them in the oven till boiling hot. Glass is much better than earthen ware for preserves ; they are not half as apt to fer- ment.