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PEACHES PRESERVED WHOLE (another way)
Wipe off the bloom from some peaches which are perfectly sound and not over-ripe, and put them into a deep jar; pour boiling water over them, throw a cloth over the bowl to keep in the steam, and let them remain until the water is nearly cold. Lift them carefully out of the water, drain, and peel them. Place a single layer of the fruit at the bottom of a deep earthenware jar, cover the peaches thickly with finely-powdered and sifted sugar, and place another layer of fruit and sugar upon the top of the last; repeat until the jar is full, being careful that the sugar is strewn very thickly over the fruit, and that the topmost layer is composed of sugar. Close the jar immediately, and fasten it securely, either with a large cork and resin, or with bladder, and keep the fruit in a dark, cool, dry place. Time, an hour to soak the peaches. Probable cost of peaches, 2d. to 6d. each.
This is a raw-pack sugar preserve: the fruit is never cooked, the jar is never heat-processed, and the quantity of sugar is left entirely to the cook's judgement. The notes below explain the archaic language and why the method falls outside modern preserving practice.
- No heat process at any stageThe peaches are only steeped in water hot enough to loosen the skins, then packed raw. Nothing in the sequence brings the sealed jar to a temperature that would destroy yeasts, moulds or bacterial spores, and the jar is then stored for months at cellar temperature.
- The sugar is unmeasuredPreservation here depends wholly on sugar drawing enough water out of the fruit to make the syrup inhospitable. "Covered thickly" and "strewn very thickly" give no ratio, so there is no way to know whether the finished syrup reaches a concentration that actually inhibits spoilage. Under-sugared jars ferment.
- Peaches sit near the acidity borderlinePeaches sit at the low-acid end of the acid range -- Peaches commonly test around pH 3.3-4.0, which normally places them below pH 4.6, the line above which Clostridium botulinum can grow; very over-mature fruit tests toward the upper end of that range. The likelier problem with a sealed, unprocessed jar kept at cellar temperature is fermentation and mould growth, which is what modern processing guidance is designed to prevent.
- Cork-and-resin and bladder sealsA bladder seal is a piece of cleaned animal bladder tied wet over the jar mouth, shrinking tight as it dries; resin means molten pine rosin poured round a cork. Both were intended to exclude air, but neither gives a sterile closure, and neither vents pressure if the contents begin to ferment.
- Reading the old measuresReading the old terms -- 'Bloom' here most likely means the dusty film on the skin rather than the fuzz. 'Finely-powdered and sifted sugar' is roughly comparable to modern caster sugar. The costing of 2d. to 6d. per peach is Victorian pence and points to expensive fruit rather than a bulk crop.
- If you want preserved whole peachesUse a current tested recipe with a measured syrup, a stated processing time in a boiling-water canner, and modern two-piece lids. Do not adapt the method above.
Cassell's belongs to a generation of English household books written before heat-processed canning became standard domestic practice, and this entry preserves the older logic: sugar, exclusion of air, and a cool dark cupboard were the whole of the technique. Layering raw fruit with dry sugar in a crock is an old approach, comparable to the confectioner's practice of drawing syrup out of fruit before candying it, and bladder was a common domestic jar cover in the nineteenth century. The prices are telling. At twopence to sixpence apiece, in a period when a labourer's weekly wage was commonly under twenty shillings, peaches were costly fruit -- which may be why a book of this kind offers more than one method for keeping them whole rather than simply making jam.