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Gooseberry Jam, Green
Allow a pound of sugar and half a pint of water to every pound of fruit. Boil the sugar and water together for fifteen minutes. Skim carefully, put in the gooseberries, and let them simmer gently, stirring all the time, until the jam will set when a little is put on a plate. This will be in about forty-five minutes after it has come to the boil. Pour into jars. Cover with brandied or oiled paper, and place tissue paper, dipped in strong gum-water, or in white of egg, over the jars. On an average, a pound of jam may be obtained from a pound of fruit. Probable cost, 8d. per pound.
A straightforward sugar-syrup jam that relies on the high pectin and acid of unripe gooseberries. The only genuinely outdated part is the sealing.
- The hinge: pick the fruit green"Green" here means hard and underripe, not a green-skinned variety. Unripe gooseberries carry far more pectin and acid, which is what makes this set in forty-five minutes without added pectin. Ripe, soft fruit will give a syrupy jam that never firms up.
- Half a pint of waterAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 US cups per pound of fruit. That is generous by modern standards and accounts for the long boil; expect to reduce for the full forty-five minutes or longer.
- Setting pointThe plate test is sound: chill a saucer, drop on a little jam, and push it with a finger after a minute — it should wrinkle. A thermometer reading 220F (105C) tells you the same thing faster.
- Top and tailThe original assumes it. Snip off stems and blossom ends before cooking; the tough little tails do not soften and are unpleasant in the finished jam.
- Stirring and scorching"Stirring all the time" matters more in a thin modern pan than in the cook's heavy preserving pan. Use the widest heavy-bottomed pot you have — the greater surface area speeds evaporation and reduces the risk of caramelising the sugar on the base.
- The paper covers are obsoleteBrandied paper (a disc soaked in spirit laid on the hot jam), oiled paper, gum-water and egg white were all attempts to exclude air and mould before screw-top jars. They do not sterilise anything. Fill sterilised jars to within 1/4 inch of the rim while the jam is above 190F and seal with proper two-piece lids, or water-bath process according to a current preserving guide.
- Yield and costAbout 1 lb of jam per pound of fruit, so 3 lb of gooseberries and 3 lb of sugar gives about 3 lb of jam, roughly four half-pint jars. The "8d. per pound" is Victorian pence and is of historical interest only.
Gooseberries were a British obsession long before they were a British commonplace: by the early nineteenth century northern industrial towns ran gooseberry clubs and prize shows, with growers competing on the sheer weight of a single berry. The fruit's appeal to a household cook was practical — it ripens early, before most other soft fruit, and the hard green stage is so high in pectin and acid that it sets reliably without the addition of lemon or commercial pectin, which was not on the market when Cassell's was compiled. That is also why gooseberry appears in Victorian books both as jam and as the classic accompaniment to oily fish and rich pork. The elaborate sealing instructions here — brandied paper, tissue dipped in gum-water or egg white — belong to the period just before the vacuum-sealed jar became universal in the domestic kitchen, when the whole battle of preserving was fought against mould at the surface.