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Peach Preserves
Take any fine peaches that do not mash readily in cooking, pare carefully and remove pits; take sugar equal in weight to fruit, (or if to be sealed, three-quarters pound sugar to the pound of fruit), and water in proportion of a half pint to each pound of sugar. Boil pits in the water, adding more as it evaporates, to keep the proportion good, remove pits, add the sugar, clarify, and when the scum ceases to rise, add the fruit, a small quantity at a time; cook slowly about ten minutes, skim out into a jar, add more, and so on until all are done, and then pour the boiling syrup over all. The next day drain off and boil syrup a few minutes only, and pour back, repeating daily until the fruit looks clear. Two or three times is generally sufficient. The last time put up the preserves in small jars, and secure with paper as directed for jellies. If to be sealed in cans, the first boiling is sufficient, after which put into cans and seal immediately. The latter plan is preferable, as it takes less trouble and less sugar, while the natural flavor of the fruit is better retained. Many think peach preserves much nicer if made with maple sugar. Clingstone peaches are preserved in the same way whole, except that they must be put on in clear water and boiled until so tender that they may be pierced with a silver fork before adding the sugar.
A weight-based preserve rather than a jam: the fruit stays in recognizable pieces because the syrup is strengthened around it over several days instead of being boiled hard in one go. Two things in the method need translation, and one needs a flat warning.
- Weights, not cupsSugar equal in weight to the fruit means exactly that rue pewait weigh the pared, pitted peaches and match them. The reduced version, three-quarters pound sugar to the pound of fruit, is about 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar per pound of peaches.
- A half pint of waterHalf a pint is one cup, per pound of sugar. So 4 lb peaches and 4 lb sugar takes about 4 cups of water to start, topped up as it boils away.
- Do not crack the pitsThe pits go into the water whole, for a faint almond note, and are lifted out before the sugar goes in. Peach kernels inside the shell contain amygdalin, which releases cyanide when crushed or chewed; leave the stones intact, boil them briefly, and discard them.
- \"Clarify\"Here it simply means bring the sugar syrup to a boil and skim off the grey foam until no more rises. Nineteenth-century cooks sometimes clarified with beaten egg white; unrefined sugar of the period threw far more scum than modern granulated, so you may have almost nothing to skim.
- Ten minutes, in small batchesAdding the fruit "a small quantity at a time" helps keep the syrup at a boil, so the fruit sets its shape quickly. Crowding the pan drops the temperature and the peaches collapse into sauce — which is what the recipe's choice of firm fruit is meant to avoid.
- The daily reboilingDraining and boiling the syrup each day drives off water so the sugar concentration climbs gradually and the fruit takes it up without shriveling. Boil the syrup only a few minutes, as directed; overshooting turns it to candy around the peaches.
- Paper covers are obsolete\"Secure with paper as directed for jellies\" describes a paper-and-paste or paraffin seal, which admits mold over time and is no longer accepted practice. Follow current water-bath canning guidance for the jars — clean two-piece lids and a timed boiling-water process for your jar size and altitude.
- Maple sugar and clingstonesMaple sugar substitutes by weight and will color and flavor the syrup noticeably. Clingstones, cooked whole in plain water first, need to be genuinely tender before sugar goes near them; sugar firms fruit and a stone-in peach that goes into syrup underdone will stay tough.
Buckeye Cookery came out of Ohio in 1877, in the middle of the country's shift from open-kettle preserving to sealed glass jars, and this entry catches the change in progress. The author gives both methods side by side and openly prefers the newer one — less sugar, less trouble, "the natural flavor of the fruit is better retained" — which is an argument you could only make once reliable sealing jars, patented from the late 1850s onward, had reached ordinary kitchens. Before that, sugar itself was the preservative, and pound-for-pound preserves like the first version here were less a way of enjoying peaches than of making them last the winter at a concentration where nothing could grow. The suggestion of maple sugar is a regional detail: maple sugar was made and used widely in Ohio and the surrounding states.