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Greengages, to Preserve in Syrup
Proceed exactly as in the last recipe, with the exception of removing the stones before putting the fruit into the syrup. Boil the fruit for three days-eight minutes each day--and be careful to skim the syrup well, both before and after the fruit is put in. Blanch and slice a quarter of the kernels on the last day, and put them into the pan. Turn the plums into jars, cover them with the hot syrup, and tie them down securely in the usual way. A pound of fruit is enough for a pound jar.
A three-day syrup preserve of the old school, written as a variation on the recipe printed above it in the book, which means the sugar proportions are not stated here. The essentials are recoverable.
- The missing syrup"The last recipe" carries the syrup quantities, so this page alone does not give them. A common proportion in preserving syrups of this period is roughly a pound of sugar to something under half a pint of water per pound of stoned fruit, boiled and skimmed clear before the fruit goes in, but the figure is a reconstruction and not from this page.
- Omit the kernelsGreengage stones, like apricot and bitter almond, contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide. The instruction to blanch and slice a quarter of them is there for the almond note, not for nourishment. Leave them out and add a few drops of almond extract at the end if you want that flavour.
- Why three daysEight minutes of boiling a day, with the fruit resting in the syrup between, lets sugar move into the fruit gradually. Cooked through in one long boil, greengages collapse into a slurry and the skins slip. The staged method is the hinge of the recipe and is worth keeping.
- SkimmingSkim the syrup before the fruit goes in and again as it returns to the boil each day, as the recipe directs. The scum was understood to be impurities carried in with the sugar; left in, it clouds the syrup and settles as a grey film in the jar.
- StoningSlit each gage along its seam with a small knife and lever the stone out, rather than halving the fruit. The plums stay whole-looking in the jar, which is the point of a syrup preserve as opposed to a jam.
- Sealing"Tie them down in the usual way" means a waxed disc and a paper or bladder cover tied with string, which relies wholly on the sugar for keeping. For storage at room temperature use proper canning jars and process them in a boiling-water bath to a current tested time; otherwise keep the jars in the refrigerator and eat within a few weeks.
- YieldThe book's own rule is the useful one: a pound of fruit fills a pound jar. The recipe does not say whether that pound is weighed before or after stoning, and the stones account for only a small fraction of the fruit's weight either way.
- The fruit itselfGreengages are a green-gold dessert plum, firm and very sweet. Choose them slightly underripe for this; fully soft gages will not survive three days of boiling intact.
The greengage is generally traced in Britain to Sir William Gage of Hengrave Hall in Suffolk, who is said to have received the French plum Reine Claude in the early eighteenth century with its label lost, so that gardeners called it simply "green Gage." The French name honours Claude of France, queen to Fran"cois I. The greengage season is short and the fruit does not keep, and a Victorian household with a garden tree faced a glut of a few weeks. Preserving whole fruit in heavy syrup, rather than boiling it down to jam, kept the gages presentable enough for the dessert course. The touch of kernel in the pan is an old confectioner's habit, borrowed from ratafia and noyau flavouring, and one that later food chemistry gave good reason to abandon.