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APRICOTS, TO PRESERVE (Whole or in Halves)
Take four pounds of fine apricots which are not fully ripe. Let them be gathered, if possible, in the morning, when the sun is on them, as the flavour is then much the best; make a small slit with a knife at the end where the stalk has been, and push the stone gently out. If they are to be preserved in halves, the stone can be easily removed. Throw them into cold water, and simmer them gently until they feel soft when a pin is pushed through them. Take them out and put them in fresh cold water. Put into a preserving-pan one quart of water and four pounds of loaf sugar. Put it on a moderate fire, and stir it until the sugar is dissolved. When it boils, put in a table-spoonful of cold water; when it boils up again, take it off the fire and let it stand for a few minutes to settle; take off the scum, and boil it again. Drain the fruit, and put it into the syrup; let it boil up four or five times, every time taking it off to cool, when it must be well skimmed. The last time, let it remain until the fruit is quite clear, which will be in about fifteen minutes. Just before it is taken from the fire, blanch and slice a few of the kernels and add them to it; or they may be blanched and put into a little spirit until the jars are ready to be tied up, and then a few strewn at the top of each. This plan may be followed in preserving whole many of the better kinds of fruit--such as peaches, nectarines, greengages, pears, etc.
A nineteenth-century whole-fruit preserve, built on repeated short boils rather than one long one. Two features of the method are out of step with current practice, and one of them is the reason for the caution above.
- The kernelsApricot stones contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide when the kernel is chewed or digested. Blanching does not remove it. Victorian cooks used a few kernels as a bitter-almond flavouring; the practice is no longer considered safe at any casual, unmeasured quantity, and there is no way to judge the dose from "a few of the kernels."
- Sealing the jars"Tied up" means a disc of paper, brandied paper or bladder tied over the mouth of the jar -- a dust cover, not a seal. Nothing here is processed after filling and nothing is sterilised, so the preserve depends entirely on its sugar concentration and on cool, dry, dark storage. A current tested preserving recipe should be used instead.
- Loaf sugarRefined sugar sold in a hard cone, broken and crushed before use. Granulated white sugar is the direct equivalent by weight; the nipped-loaf sugar was prized because it dissolved clean and threw less scum.
- A quart of waterCassell's is a British book, so this is an imperial quart, 40 fl oz, or about 4.8 US cups rather than 4. Against 4 lb of sugar that is a heavy syrup: the water weighs about 2.5 lb, so roughly 1.6 parts sugar to 1 part water by weight.
- "A moderate fire" and "a preserving-pan"Both refer to the hob, not an oven -- a steady medium heat under a wide, shallow, unlined copper or heavy brass pan. A wide stainless or enamelled pan gives the same fast evaporation and even boil; the width matters more than the metal.
- The table-spoonful of cold waterAdded to knock the syrup off the boil so the scum rises and settles rather than being churned back in. The same effect is had by simply lifting the pan off the heat, which is what the recipe then tells you to do repeatedly.
- Why the repeated boil-and-coolSuccessive short boils let sugar migrate into the fruit gradually instead of collapsing it. This is the hinge of the method: rush it with one long boil and whole apricots split and turn to pulp. "Quite clear" means the flesh has gone translucent right through.
- Pricking with a pinTesting with a pin -- the pin is used to judge when the fruit has softened, not to prick it. The pre-boil in plain water softens the fruit enough for the syrup to penetrate. Underripe fruit is specified deliberately -- it holds its shape and carries more pectin and acid than fully ripe apricots.
Whole-fruit preserving of this kind sat between jam and confectionery, and in a Victorian household it was the showpiece end of the still-room year: fruit kept in recognisable form, in clear syrup, to be served alone with cream or used to dress a mould or a tart. The closing sentence hands the same procedure to peaches, nectarines, greengages and pears, which is how these dictionaries taught method rather than dishes. The instruction to gather the fruit in the morning with the sun on it reflects a kitchen attached to a garden or orchard wall, where apricots were often trained on brick and picked slightly hard on purpose. The kernel garnish belongs to an older European habit of using apricot and peach stones as a cheap substitute for bitter almonds in flavouring ratafias, creams and preserves; it appears throughout eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cookery books, and it is the one part of the recipe that has not survived scrutiny.