Home › Preserving › Plum Conserve
Plum Conserve
6 pounds plums 2 oranges, sliced pounds large table raisins, seeded pound pecan or walnut meats, broken 3 pounds sugar Cook the plums without water till soft and press the pulp through a sieve. Prepare the oranges as for marmalade, let stand in water to cover over night, cook until tender, add with the raisins to the plums and sugar, let cook until the mixture is like marmalade. Add the nuts near the end of the cooking.
IOI Ripe Tomato Conserve (Mrs. Benedict) Remove the skin from six tomatoes, then cut the flesh in pieces. Weigh the tomato and take three fourths a pound of sugar to each pound tomatoes. Add the juice of two lemons and two oranges, a level teaspoonful of cinnamon and half a teaspoonful of cloves, and let cook until thick. When nearly done, add one cup of seeded raisins and one fourth a pound, each, of candied orange peel and candied ginger cut in narrow strips.
A plum-based conserve in the old sense: fruit cooked down with sugar, dried fruit, citrus and nuts to a thick marmalade consistency. The working instructions survive intact; the proportions of plums and oranges do not, so treat the quantities below as a starting frame.
- QuantitiesThe ingredient list gives 3 pounds sugar plus raisins and nut meats, but the weights of plums and oranges are not stated in this text, and the numerals before "pounds large table raisins" and "pound pecan or walnut meats" have dropped out as well. Nothing in the surviving text fixes the fruit-to-sugar ratio.
- "Table raisins"Large dessert raisins sold on the stem or loose for eating rather than baking. Muscat or jumbo flame raisins are the closest modern equivalent. Seedless varieties save you the seeding step the original calls for.
- Preparing the oranges"As for marmalade" means slicing the whole fruit thin, peel and all, discarding pips. The overnight soak softens the peel and draws out pectin; without it the rind is slower to cook tender.
- Cook the peel before the sugar goes inThe oranges must be simmered tender in their soaking water before joining the plums and sugar. Sugar firms citrus peel, and rind that goes in underdone is very slow to soften once the sugar is in the pan.
- Plum pulpCooking the plums dry, without added water, then sieving removes skins and stones in one operation. A food mill does the same job faster than a sieve and wooden spoon.
- Judging "like marmalade"The recipe gives no time; expect a stretch of open simmering with frequent stirring once the sugar is in. The mixture is ready when a spoonful chilled on a cold saucer holds a soft mound and a spoon drawn across the pan bottom leaves a track that closes slowly.
- Nuts lastPecans or walnuts added early go soft. Stir them in near the end of the cooking, as the recipe directs.
- Yield and keepingThe yield cannot be worked out from this text, as the fruit weights are missing. Current practice is to fill clean hot half-pint or pint jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace, and process in a boiling water bath; an unprocessed jar should be refrigerated and eaten within a few weeks.
Conserve, in American preserving books of the early twentieth century, meant something distinct from jam or jelly: a fruit preserve carried well past plainness with raisins, citrus and nutmeats, meant for the tea table or to eat with meat rather than spread on toast. Plums were a natural base because they are relatively high in both acid and pectin. Books of this kind were often compiled from contributed household receipts, which is why neighboring entries carry their donors' names -- the tomato conserve on this same page is credited to Mrs. Benedict.