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Currant Syrup
Take three pounds of red and three of white currants. A pound of cherries or a pound of raspberries would be an improvement, but they can be dispensed with. Bruise the fruit slightly, and put it into an earthen jar. Cover this closely, put it into a saucepan of cold water, put it on the fire, and let the fruit simmer gently until the juice flows freely. Strain it once or twice if necessary, and leave it until the next day in some very cool place, being careful to guard it from dust. If the juice is very clear it may then be poured off, leaving any sediment at the bottom of the vessel. Weigh the juice, put it into a clean saucepan, and add an equal weight of good sugar broken into small pieces. Let it simmer, and stir it to prevent the sugar sticking to the bottom, but do not let it boil. Remove the scum carefully, and when no more rises, put the syrup into an earthen jar to cool. In twelve hours it may be put into small-sized dry bottles, corked and sealed, and stored in a cool but dry place. This delicious preparation, retaining as it does so completely the flavour of the fruit, is most useful for making isinglass jelly and sauce for sweet puddings; when mixed with cold water it makes a refreshing summer drink, and is especially suited to invalids. It is also very nice poured over or round blancmanges or rice moulds. Time, two days. Probable cost of currants, 4d. to 6d. per quart.
A straightforward fruit syrup made by juicing currants over gentle heat, then cooking the juice with an equal weight of sugar just below the boil. The whole method turns on that last point.
- Never let it boilCurrants are among the most pectin-rich fruits in the garden, and a hard boil with equal sugar will set the mixture into jelly and dull the fresh flavour the recipe is chasing. Hold it at a bare simmer, stirring, until no more scum rises.
- The jar in the saucepanThis is a water bath, not a boiling-water canning step. Stand a heatproof bowl or jar of bruised fruit in a pan of water and heat until the juice runs freely; the recipe gives no timing, only 'simmer gently' until that happens. The indirect heat keeps the fruit from scorching and the juice bright.
- QuantitiesSix pounds of currants (about 2.7 kg), plus the optional pound of cherries or raspberries. The recipe gives no yield, and how much juice you get will depend on ripeness and on how much clear juice can be poured off the sediment. Sugar is measured by weight against the juice, so weigh the strained juice and match it exactly.
- StrainingDrip through a jelly bag or several layers of muslin and resist squeezing, which pushes fine pulp through and clouds the syrup. The overnight rest in a cool place lets the last of the sediment fall so the clear juice can be poured off.
- IsinglassIsinglass is a setting agent made from fish swim bladders, long since replaced in domestic kitchens by powdered or leaf gelatine. Use gelatine at the maker's stated ratio if you want the jelly the recipe mentions.
- StorageA syrup cooked below the boil and poured into corked bottles is not shelf-stable by modern standards; it will ferment or grow mould in a warm cupboard. Refrigerate it and use within a few weeks, or freeze in small portions.
- Uses and dilutionDilute with cold water to taste for the summer drink referred to here; the recipe gives no proportion. Undiluted, it is a sauce for sweet puddings, blancmange or rice moulds.
- The costing"4d. to 6d. per quart" is pre-decimal British currency and reflects a period when currants were a cheap garden glut. It tells you the dish was considered thrifty, not that the price means anything now.
Red and white currants were a staple of British kitchen gardens through the nineteenth century, cropping heavily in July and needing to be used at once, which is why household books of the period are thick with currant jellies, cordials, shrubs and syrups. A bottled fruit syrup was treated as a building block: the base for a jelly, a pudding sauce, a colouring and flavouring for moulds, and a diluted drink. The note that it is "especially suited to invalids" points to invalid cookery, a distinct branch of Victorian domestic writing concerned with feeding the sick, where cool, acidic, sweetened drinks were among the few things reliably offered to someone with a fever. The suggested pound of cherries or raspberries is the same instinct that shapes modern blended cordials, rounding out the acidity with something more perfumed.