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Grapes, to Preserve
Take four pounds of grapes before they are fully ripe. Put them on the fire in a saucepan of cold water, and let them remain until the water nearly boils, then drain them and put them into cold water. Boil four pounds of sugar in two quarts of water, skim it carefully, and, when cold, put the fruit in an enamelled saucepan, pour the syrup over it, and let all stand for twenty-four hours. Put the grapes on the fire, heat them till the syrup is scalding hot, and put them aside until the next day, then drain off the syrup, and boil it gently for twenty minutes. Pour it over the grapes, which should be arranged in a clean saucepan, and bring them once more to the point of boiling. Put the preserve into jars, and pour a little dissolved apple jelly over it. Probable cost of grapes, when plentiful, 10d. or 1s. per pound.
This is a slow osmotic preserve spread over three or four days, not a quick jam. The point of the repeated heating-and-standing is to let sugar move into the fruit gradually so the grapes stay whole rather than collapsing.
- The hinge: never let the fruit boilEvery heating stage stops at scalding or "the point of boiling" — roughly 180-200F. A rolling boil bursts the skins and you end up with grape jam, which is a decent thing but not what this recipe is for.
- Choosing grapesUnderripe is specified for a reason: firmer flesh and more natural acid and pectin. Thick-skinned varieties hold up best; seedless modern table grapes work, and larger seeded grapes are worth halving and pipping unless you want guests picking seeds out of syrup.
- The first hot-water dipBringing them up in cold water to just below boiling, then plunging into cold, sets the skins and helps them take syrup without splitting. Do not walk away — a minute past the mark and they slip.
- Syrup strengthFour pounds of sugar to two quarts of water works out at roughly four parts sugar to five parts water by weight, a little under half sugar. That is deliberately thin at the start; it concentrates over the successive boilings as water evaporates.
- "Enamelled saucepan"Nineteenth-century shorthand for non-reactive. Acid fruit in bare copper, iron or aluminium picks up metallic flavour and dulls colour. Stainless steel or enamelled cast iron is the equivalent.
- The apple jelly sealA thin layer of pectin-rich apple jelly poured on top was a period substitute for a proper airtight seal, later replaced by paraffin wax. Neither is now considered adequate. Fill hot into sterilised jars with two-piece lids, or treat it as a refrigerator preserve and eat it within a few weeks.
- Yield and useFour pounds of grapes plus the syrup makes a generous quantity, enough to fill several jars; how much depends on how far the syrup is reduced. Serve it as a compote with cream or rice pudding, alongside cold ham or game, or drain the grapes for decorating cakes and reserve the syrup for soaking sponge.
- The cost note10d. to 1s. a pound was not cheap fruit in the period; it points to grapes grown under glass or imported rather than a common garden crop. Ignore it as a guide to anything but the period economy.
Cassell's belongs to the era when dessert grapes were a costly item in Britain — hence the editor's careful note on cost "when plentiful." The multi-day method here, with syrup drained, reboiled and returned to the fruit each day, resembles the confectioner's approach to candied fruit: sugar is raised in stages so the fruit's cells are not shocked into shrivelling. Sealing a preserve with a film of apple jelly rather than wax or a screw lid was common before reliable home canning closures reached ordinary kitchens; apples were valued in the period precisely because their juice sets firmly, though the word pectin was not yet part of the household vocabulary. Preserves like this were kept for the dessert course and for the winter sideboard, when fresh fruit had run out.