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Lemon, Whole, to Keep for Use
Put a layer of dry fine sand, an inch in depth, at the bottom of an earthen jar. Place a row of lemons upon this, stalks downwards, and be careful that they do not touch each other. Cover them with another layer of sand, fully three inches in depth, lay on it more lemons, and repeat until the jar is full. Store in a cool dry place. Lemons thus preserved will keep good for a twelvemonth.
A storage method rather than a dish: whole lemons buried in dry sand to hold them through a season when citrus was imported and intermittent. It works on sound principles, though the results are less reliable than the confident closing sentence suggests.
- The hinge: the fruit must be dry and unblemishedAny nick in the peel, any damp left on the skin, and rot will start under the sand where you cannot see it. Choose thick-skinned, unbruised lemons, wipe them dry, and let them air a few hours before burying.
- What kind of sandClean, dry, fine silica sand — horticultural or kiln-dried builder's sand. Not beach sand, which carries salt, shell and organic matter, and not damp play sand. If in doubt, spread it on a tray in a low oven to drive off moisture and let it cool completely first.
- "Stalks downwards"Stem end down, as the recipe directs; the blossom end faces up. The reason is not given, though the usual explanation is that the stalk scar is the vulnerable point and is best not left uppermost.
- Layer depthsAn inch of sand beneath the first row, then a full three inches over each layer of fruit. The recipe insists the fruit must not touch its neighbours; the sand is there to keep every lemon in its own dry pocket.
- The earthen jarA glazed stoneware crock or any wide vessel. The recipe says nothing about sealing or covering, but an unsealed pot in a cool dry place seems to be what is intended; a loose cover keeps out dust and mice.
- "Cool dry place"An unheated cellar, larder or garage. Citrus keeps best somewhere cool but above freezing; warmth speeds deterioration and frozen flesh collapses once thawed. The recipe itself gives no temperature.
- A twelvemonth is optimisticExpect rather less than the year promised, with steady losses over time. Dig down and inspect every few weeks, and remove anything soft or weeping before it spreads.
- Using themBrush and rinse off the sand, then dry the fruit before zesting, or grit finds its way into the zest. Stored lemons yield less juice than fresh and the peel dries; they are better for juice and cooking than for garnish.
Cassell's belongs to a period when lemons reached British kitchens by ship from Sicily, Spain and Portugal in irregular consignments, arriving cheap and abundant and then vanishing, so the household problem was not buying lemons but holding them. Sand storage was one domestic answer for things that wanted dryness and darkness — root vegetables were often bedded down that way — because dry sand holds fruit apart, buffers temperature swings and wicks away the surface damp that starts mould. That a general dictionary of cookery gives the method a full entry says something about how much a Victorian kitchen depended on lemon: for punches and negus, for jellies and blancmanges set with isinglass or gelatine, for sauces, and for the acid that stood in for much of what a modern cook takes from a bottle. The advice was made largely obsolete by refrigeration and year-round air freight rather than by anyone deciding it did not work.