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Gooseberry Jam, White or Yellow
Choose sound ripe gooseberries, which have been gathered on a dry day. Pick off the tops and stalks, and take equal weights of fruit and sugar. Put the sugar into a preserving-pan, with a cupful of water of every pound. Boil for ten minutes, then add the fruit, and when the berries have once boiled, simmer gently until they are sufficiently cooked. This may be ascertained in the usual way by putting a little of the syrup on a plate, and, if it jellies it is done enough. Pour into jars, cover with brandied or oiled paper, and tissue-paper dipped either in gum-water or the unbeaten white of an egg. Time, three-quarters of an hour to boil the fruit. Sufficient, a pint and a half of fruit for a pound of jam.
A plain syrup-first jam: the sugar is cooked to a syrup before the fruit goes in, which keeps the berries whole rather than breaking them to pulp. Two things need adjusting for a modern kitchen — the boiling time and the sealing method.
- The hinge: watch the set, not the clockGooseberries are among the highest-pectin fruits in the garden, and the stated three-quarters of an hour will usually take the jam well past setting into something dark and toffee-like. Start testing the cold-plate set at 15 minutes, and expect it to be done between 20 and 30.
- Setting point in numbersThe plate test in the recipe is sound: a spoonful chilled on a cold saucer should wrinkle when pushed with a fingertip. If you prefer a thermometer, 220F/105C at sea level is the equivalent.
- "White or yellow"This refers to pale-skinned dessert gooseberry varieties, ripe rather than the hard green cooking fruit. Ripe gooseberries hold slightly less acid and pectin than green ones.
- A cupful of water to the poundA Victorian "cupful" is not a fixed measure; reckon somewhere between 8 and 10 fl oz (240-285 ml) per pound of sugar. Generous by modern standards, but the initial ten-minute boil drives some of it off before the fruit goes in.
- The preserving-panAny wide, heavy pan with a large surface area and depth to spare; the mixture rises sharply when it comes to the boil. Victorian preserving pans were commonly copper or brass, but stainless steel is fine.
- SealingBrandied or oiled paper, gum-water and egg white were the Victorian answer to airtight covers, and they worked only against mould rather than as a true seal. Use hot sterilised jars with two-piece lids and a 10-minute boiling-water bath, or refrigerate and eat within a month.
- YieldThe note reads oddly but means what it says: about a pint and a half of prepared fruit is reckoned to a pound of finished jam.
Gooseberries were a British obsession in the nineteenth century — Lancashire and the Midlands had competitive gooseberry clubs where growers showed single berries for weight, and hundreds of named varieties circulated, sorted by colour into greens, reds, whites and yellows. It may be no accident that a general dictionary of cookery like Cassell's carries separate entries for green gooseberry jam and for white or yellow: they were understood as different fruits for different purposes, the hard green ones for tarts and vinegar-sharp preserves, the ripe pale ones for eating out of hand and for a milder, sweeter jam. The instruction to gather on a dry day is not sentiment; surface water dilutes the fruit. The elaborate covering — oiled or brandy-soaked paper under tissue stuck down with gum-water or egg white — belongs to the era before the screw-band jar reached ordinary kitchens, when a preserve's survival to the following spring depended on the sugar concentration and a mould-proof lid improvised from the stationery drawer.