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Preserve
I quart "Cape Goose- 3 pounds sugar berries," brushed I quart pineapple picked from core with silver fork 2 lemons Cook the pineapple in barely enough water to cover until tender; add part of the sugar, the little tomatoes, and sprinkle over the rest of the sugar and the grated rind and juice of the lemons. Let cook slowly until a thick syrup is formed; store in glasses as canned fruit.
The ingredient list has been mangled by the two-column typesetting of the original page; read it as 1 quart Cape gooseberries (brushed clean), 1 quart pineapple picked from the core with a silver fork, 3 pounds sugar, and 2 lemons. What follows is a straightforward two-fruit preserve, and the only real skill in it is knowing when to stop cooking.
- Cape gooseberriesThese are Physalis peruviana — goldenberries — sold today in papery husks, not the green European gooseberry. Husk them and rub off the sticky film with a cloth; that is most likely what "brushed" means here. If you cannot find them, husk cherries or tomatillos are botanical relatives but sharper and less fragrant.
- The silver forkPicking pineapple flesh from the core with a fork rather than cutting it gives ragged shreds that break down into the syrup. Silver was specified because ordinary steel of the period discoloured acidic fruit; stainless steel or a plastic fork is fine now.
- QuantitiesA quart here is a quart by volume of prepared fruit, roughly 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lb of each. Three pounds of sugar to about 3 lb of fruit is a full-sugar preserve — that ratio is what makes it keep, so do not cut it without expecting a softer, shorter-lived result.
- PanUse a wide, heavy, non-reactive pan. Depth slows evaporation and encourages scorching once the syrup thickens; width is worth more than capacity.
- Judging "a thick syrup"Cook to 220F at sea level, or until a spoonful chilled on a cold saucer wrinkles when pushed. Pineapple has little pectin, so this preserve sets loosely — expect fruit suspended in heavy syrup rather than a firm jam.
- StirringOnce the sugar is all in, stir often and scrape the bottom. Pineapple shreds sink and catch, and a scorched batch takes on a caramel bitterness that cannot be cooked out.
- "Store in glasses as canned fruit"That meant hot jars sealed with wax or a screw top and left in the pantry. Follow current practice instead: fill hot sterilised jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace and process in a boiling-water bath, timed to your altitude, or skip processing and keep the jars in the refrigerator for a few weeks.
- YieldSix to eight half-pint jars. Good with cold ham or on toast; the lemon rind keeps it from being merely sweet.
Cape gooseberries are native to South America but their common English name is generally traced to the Cape of Good Hope, where they were widely grown by the early nineteenth century and from which they spread through the British colonial world; the plant naturalised readily in Australia and South Africa. Their pronounced acidity made them a preserving favourite, and pairing them with pineapple — which by the 1900s was reaching American kitchens in cans as well as fresh from Cuba — gave a preserve with body from one fruit and perfume from the other. The recipe's sugar-heavy method and its casual closing instruction, "store in glasses as canned fruit," place it squarely in the era before processing times were standardised, when a preserve was judged safe because it was sweet enough and hot enough going into the jar.