To make clear, good preserves requires: 1st. No economy of trouble; 2d.
That the fruit be perfectly fresh, _alive_ from the tree or bush, or, as
a friend says, “tasting of the sun.”
The French make the clearest, best preserves, because they spare no
pains. They first prepare their sirup or clarified sugar; then, after
neatly and carefully paring or dressing their fruit, cook a few pieces
at a time, or only as many as they can oversee, carefully lifting each
piece out of the sirup the moment it is done. How they preserve
strawberries in bottle (each little bottle of which sells for
seventy-five cents), retaining the full flavor and almost the firmness
of the fresh strawberries, is something for me to investigate.
I consider the peach marmalade the most valuable preserve, as it is
useful in preparing desserts. It is a good sauce for almost any kind of
pudding, especially corn-starch and rice puddings. Preserves are
generally made too sweet. Before hermetically sealed cans or jars were
in general use, it required a large quantity of sugar to keep the
preserves from fermenting. Now, in using cans, one can suit the taste as
to the sweetness of the preserve. I prefer tin cans to glass bottles, as
sometimes the bottled jelly or preserves will ferment, requiring a
second cooking. Tin cans have never failed me. Others prefer bottles,
having no trouble, they say, in tightening them perfectly. The citron
preserve, flavored with root ginger and lemon, is a success. It has the
flavor of the ginger preserve from the West Indies, which is so
fashionable, expensive, and serviceable as an accompaniment for
ice-cream, etc.; it is also inexpensive.
Apples preserved with a flavor of lemon and ginger are particularly nice
also; of course, they are not as firm as citron, and do not imitate so
well the ginger preserve. The outside of the water-melon (skinned) makes
a clear, pretty preserve, flavored in the same manner. The next in favor
is the greengage preserve, which is as clear and beautiful as it is
delicate in flavor. Peaches, unless made into marmalade, are better when
canned with very little sugar than when preserved. Canned peaches,
half-frozen when served, make a delicious dessert with cake.
First, then, for preserves the sirup must be made. I give the old rule;
yet, as before remarked, if canned, they may be made less sweet. I
generally use half a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit.