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Quince Marmalade
When quinces emit their peculiar strong odour it is a sign that they are fit for use. Peel the quinces, core them, slice them into a preserving-pan, and pour over them as much water as will barely cover them. Let them simmer very gently until they are soft, stirring them occasionally to keep them from burning to the pan; then beat them to a pulp with a wooden spoon. Weigh the fruit, and for each pound allow three-quarters of a pound of sugar. Put the sugar into a preserving-pan, with as much water as will moisten it, and boil it to a clear syrup. Put in the fruit and boil it slowly till it is smooth and thick. Stir frequently whilst it is being boiled. The marmalade will be done enough when it will jelly when dropped upon a plate. Put it, whilst hot, into glasses or jars, and when it is cool, cover in the usual way, with paper dipped in the white of egg. Time, five hours or more.
A straightforward high-sugar fruit preserve that needs no adjustment to its proportions; only the sealing method and the vagueness of "boil till thick" want modernising.
- The hinge: sugar goes in as syrup, fruit afterQuinces are dense and slow to soften, and sugar added early sets the flesh so it never breaks down. Cook the fruit to a full pulp in water first, then weigh it, then marry it to the boiled syrup, exactly as written.
- Weigh after pulpingThe recipe puts the weighing after the fruit is beaten to a pulp, so the three-quarters of a pound of sugar per pound is calculated on the cooked pulp, not the raw quinces.
- Setting pointThe plate test is sound, but a thermometer is quicker: 220F/105C at sea level. Chill a couple of saucers in the freezer first so the drop cools fast enough to read honestly.
- Don't discard the peels and coresQuince skin and pips are extremely rich in pectin. Tie them in muslin and simmer them with the fruit, then squeeze and remove the bag before adding the sugar; the set will be firmer and faster.
- The colour changeLong slow cooking turns quince pulp from pale cream to amber, coral or deep ruby. This is desirable, not scorching.
- "Preserving-pan"A wide, heavy, unlined copper or stainless pan with sloping sides. Any wide heavy-bottomed pot works; depth is the enemy, since evaporation drives the set and a deep narrow pot scorches the bottom before the top thickens.
- SealingPaper dipped in egg white was the Victorian answer to an airtight cover and is not one today. Ladle hot into sterilised jars, seal with two-piece lids, and process in a boiling water bath (10 minutes for half-pints, adjusted for altitude) or else refrigerate and eat within a month.
- YieldRoughly 3 lb of quinces will give about four half-pint jars. The fruit loses a good deal in peel, core and evaporation.
Quince is the original marmalade fruit: the word comes through French marmelade from Portuguese marmelada, a stiff quince paste, from marmelo, quince. Boxes of Portuguese marmelada were imported into England from the late fifteenth century as an expensive sweetmeat, eaten in slices at the end of a meal rather than spread on bread, and only later did the English attach the word to citrus. Cassell's, compiling its dictionary in the 1870s, was recording a preserve that may already have been passing out of fashion: quinces are often said to have been giving way in English gardens as imported oranges made Seville marmalade cheap and universal. The fruit's virtues here are practical ones, high pectin and high acid, which is why a cook could rely on a set from nothing but fruit, sugar and long boiling, and why the astringent, rock-hard raw quince, inedible out of hand, has survived in kitchens chiefly as jelly, paste and marmalade.