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Cherries, to Preserve
Take two pounds of sound, ripe Kentish cherries, weighed after they have been picked and stoned. Put a pound of sifted sugar into the preserving-pan with half a pint of red currant juice, or, if this is not at hand, water, and let it boil for five minutes. Throw in the cherries, which ought not to have been injured in the stoning, and let them boil for ten minutes, stirring them only just enough to keep them from burning, as it is very desirable not to break them. Pour all together into a bowl, and let it remain until next day, then drain the fruit, boil the syrup with eight ounces more sugar, and boil the cherries in it again for another ten minutes. Put the preserve into jars, and cover closely, as usual. In the preparation of cherries for preserving, it is necessary that the greatest care should be observed. The slightest deviation from the instructions given here will make the cherries unpalatable.
A two-stage sugar preserve of the old school: the fruit is cooked briefly, rested overnight, then finished in a reboiled syrup so the cherries stay whole rather than collapsing into jam. Nearly everything that can go wrong here is a matter of handling the fruit gently.
- The hinge: keep the fruit wholeEverything the recipe warns about comes down to not breaking the cherries. Use a wide pan so the fruit sits in a shallow layer, keep the boil moderate rather than furious, and move the fruit by shaking or tilting the pan instead of stirring with a spoon.
- Kentish cherriesIn this period the phrase usually meant cherries from the Kent orchards rather than one variety, and it is also attached to a tart red cherry of the Amarelle type. A tart pie cherry such as Morello or Montmorency suits the method; sweet Bing-type cherries will give a flatter, cloying preserve and benefit from a squeeze of lemon juice.
- MeasuresThis is an imperial half pint of currant juice, 10 fl oz, or about 1¼ US cups. Sifted sugar means ordinary granulated sugar passed through a sieve to break lumps, not confectioners' sugar; caster sugar dissolves fastest. Total sugar is 1½ lb to 2 lb of stoned fruit.
- Why red currant juiceIt contributes pectin, which cherries are low in, along with some extra acid. The recipe itself permits plain water instead, so it is not essential; with water the preserve may set more loosely, and the juice of a lemon can help.
- Preserving-panA wide, heavy, non-reactive pan — stainless steel or copper, not bare cast iron or aluminium, which will dull the colour and pick up a metallic taste.
- StoningA hand cherry pitter that pushes the stone straight through does far less damage than a knife. Work over a bowl and keep the juice that runs out; it belongs in the syrup.
- The overnight restThis is not idleness. Standing in syrup lets sugar move into the fruit slowly so the cherries plump instead of shrivelling when they are boiled the second time. Cover the bowl and leave it at cool room temperature.
- Sealing"Cover closely, as usual" meant a paper or wax disc and a cloth cover, which relied on the sugar alone. For anything you intend to store, follow current preserving practice: hot preserve into hot sterilised jars, proper two-piece lids, and a boiling-water bath. Otherwise treat it as a fresh preserve and keep it refrigerated.
- YieldRoughly 5 to 6 half-pint jars, depending on how much syrup boils away.
Cassell's belongs to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when cheaper refined sugar had made fruit preserving an ordinary annual household routine, and a general cookery dictionary was expected to cover every fruit in season. "Kentish" points to the orchards of north Kent, long the centre of English cherry growing and the source of cooking cherries sold into London markets; in practice the word was often used loosely, sometimes for the district's fruit in general and sometimes for tart red cherries of the Amarelle or Morello kinds rather than any single variety. The red currant juice is the telling detail: cherries are low in pectin, and before packaged pectin existed cooks could borrow set and a little sharpness from another fruit ripening at the same moment. A two-boil method with a rest between was a common way to produce whole preserved fruit for dessert and for tarts, as distinct from crushed jam made from the same crop.