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Preserved Citron
Boil the citron in water until it is clear and soft enough to be easily pierced with a fork; take out, put into a nice syrup of sugar and water, and boil until the sugar has penetrated it. Take out and spread on dishes to dry slowly, sprinkling several times with powdered sugar, and turning until it is dried enough. Pack in jars or boxes with sugar between the layers.
A candied-peel method with no quantities at all, which was normal in 1877 — the cook was expected to know that syrup work is done by ratio and by eye. Here is what the blanks stand for.
- Which citronIn an American cookbook of this date, "citron" often means the citron melon (Citrullus lanatus var. citroides), a hard, pale-fleshed field melon grown for preserving, rather than the Mediterranean citron fruit whose thick peel becomes fruitcake citron; the recipe does not say which. Either works with this method: cut melon flesh into strips or fancy shapes about 1/2 inch thick and discard seeds and rind; with true citron, use only the white pith and peel.
- The syrup"A nice syrup" is not defined in the recipe. A workable starting point is about 2 lb sugar to 2 cups water for every 2 lb of prepared fruit — a heavy syrup by weight. Heat until the sugar dissolves before the fruit goes in.
- The hinge: go slowlySugar has to move into the fruit faster than water moves out, or the pieces shrivel and toughen. Traditional practice is to hold the fruit in the syrup at a bare simmer, then let it stand off the heat overnight and reboil, adding sugar each day for two or three days until the syrup is heavy and the pieces look translucent all through. Rushing it at a hard boil is the usual failure.
- First boilingPlain water first, until a fork slides in with no resistance — 20 to 40 minutes depending on the melon's density. Citron melon is stubborn; undercooked pieces will never take up syrup properly.
- Drying"Spread on dishes to dry slowly" assumed a warm kitchen and several days. A wire rack in an oven set to its lowest temperature (150-170F) with the door propped, or a dehydrator at 135F, does the same in 6 to 12 hours. The pieces should be tacky, not wet, before the sugar goes on.
- Powdered sugarNineteenth-century powdered sugar was simply finely ground sugar, without cornstarch. Modern confectioners' sugar is fine here — the starch actually helps keep the pieces from sticking. Superfine or caster sugar gives a less chalky finish.
- KeepingPacked dry in sugar, candied citron will keep for months in a tin at cool room temperature. It is preserved by its own sugar concentration, so any pieces still damp in the centre will mould; if in doubt, dry them longer.
Candying in syrup is one of the oldest ways of keeping fruit, and by the 1870s it was standard autumn work in American farm kitchens — Buckeye Cookery (compiled in Marysville, Ohio, and first published in 1876 to raise funds for a Methodist parsonage, with the enlarged Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping following in 1877) sits squarely in that tradition of putting up everything the garden produced. The citron melon was grown largely, it is often said, for this purpose: too bland and firm to eat raw, it holds its shape through long boiling and takes sugar well, which made it a cheap domestic substitute for imported candied citron peel. Homemade citron of this kind was destined chiefly for the fruitcakes, mincemeats and boiled puddings of the Christmas season, and its near-disappearance from American gardens is generally attributed to the growing cheapness of commercial candied peel, though the connection is hard to pin down precisely.