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Cranberries, to Preserve
Pick the cranberries (reject the injured berries), and to every pound of fruit allow two pounds of sugar. Pour a cupful of water into the preserving-pan, and place in it alternate layers of cranberries and sugar. Boil gently and skim carefully. The preserve must be kept in closely-covered jars. Time, twenty minutes after it comes to a boil. Sufficient, one pound of fruit for one pound of jam.
A very plain high-sugar preserve that works because cranberries bring their own acid and pectin. Two things need attention: the set point, and how the finished jam is stored.
- The hinge: watch the set, not the clockTwenty minutes at a gentle boil is a rough guide from a period coal range. Cranberries are so rich in pectin that a 2:1 sugar batch often sets well before that; work to 220F on a sugar thermometer, or until a spoonful wrinkles on a chilled plate. Overboiling turns the preserve dark and stiff.
- Sugar ratioTwo pounds of sugar to one of fruit is far heavier than a modern jam, which usually runs equal weights or less. That sweetness is doing preservative work, and cutting it substantially will give a looser, more perishable product.
- Preserving-panA wide, heavy pan, in period kitchens often copper or brass. Use the widest heavy-bottomed stainless or enamelled pan you have; a large surface speeds evaporation and reduces the boiling time.
- A cupful of waterTake it as somewhere between about 5 and 8 fl oz; period 'cupfuls' were not standardised. It is only there to stop the bottom layer catching before the sugar dissolves and the berries burst; the fruit supplies the rest of the liquid.
- LayeringAlternating layers of berries and sugar lets the sugar draw juice out as the pan heats. Give it half an hour to stand before you light the burner and the mixture will come together without scorching.
- SkimmingCranberry skins throw a pink foam. Skim it off near the end of cooking rather than continuously, or you will lose a good deal of fruit with it. A very small knob of butter stirred in at the finish also settles the foam.
- Storage"Closely-covered jars" is not enough on its own. Either fill sterilised jars and process them in a boiling water bath by current guidance, or treat this as a refrigerator preserve and use it within a few weeks.
- YieldThe final line is confusing as printed. In practice one pound of berries plus two pounds of sugar gives roughly two and a half to three pounds of finished preserve, about three or four half-pint jars.
Cranberries reached British cookbooks largely as an import: the large American cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) was shipped across the Atlantic in barrels of water during the nineteenth century, and tinned and bottled cranberry sauce followed. Britain had its own smaller native cranberry and the closely related cowberry, gathered from bogs and moors, but the American berry was firmer, larger and travelled well, which is why a general household reference work could assume a reader would have a pound of them to hand in winter. The heavy sugar and the short list of steps mark this as a keeping preserve rather than a sauce for the table -- the same fruit, cooked briefly with less sugar, was served with turkey and game, while the jam was put by for tarts, puddings and the tea table.