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Quinces, Preserved
Pare, core, and quarter the fruit. Boil in clear water until tender, but not broken. Take out the fruit carefully, and throw away the water. Make a syrup by taking half a pound of sugar to each pound of fruit, and a pint of water to every three pounds of sugar. When the syrup is boiling hot put in the fruit, and let it cook as slowly as possible for an hour. It should then be a bright red colour, and the syrup should be jelly-like. Put into glass jars, and cover tightly.
A plain nineteenth-century fruit preserve that depends almost entirely on patience: the colour and set both come from cooking the quinces slowly rather than hard.
- The hinge: keep it barely tremblingThe hour of "as slowly as possible" is what turns pale quince flesh red — heat and time convert the fruit's tannins and anthocyanin precursors. A brisk boil will break the quarters and leave them straw-coloured; you want the surface of the syrup moving only occasionally.
- Imperial pintCassell's is a British book, so its pint is 20 fl oz, not 16. A pint of water to three pounds of sugar is about 570 ml to 1.35 kg.
- Don't throw all the water awayThe instruction to discard the poaching liquid loses much of the pectin. Peels and cores simmered in that water, then strained, give a liquid you can use in place of the plain water in the syrup, which will help it set.
- Preparing the fruitRaw quinces are hard enough to be genuinely awkward. Use a heavy knife on a stable board, halve them stem to base before quartering, and rub the cut surfaces with lemon to slow browning while you work through the rest.
- Judging the set"Jelly-like" means the syrup sheets off a spoon; on a thermometer that is about 220F/105C at sea level. Test a spoonful on a chilled saucer rather than guessing from the pan.
- Sugar ratioHalf a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit is a modest ratio by preserving standards — closer to a compote than a jam. Expect a soft, spoonable preserve rather than a stiff one.
- Jars and keeping"Cover tightly" on its own will not give you a shelf-stable jar. Fill hot sterilised jars and either refrigerate and eat within a few weeks, or process by a current tested water-bath method.
- Yield and servingServing -- Traditionally eaten with cold roast pork or game, or with thick cream and a plain cake.
Quince was for centuries the preserving fruit par excellence in Europe, valued for its keeping quality and its enormously high pectin content. The Portuguese word for it, marmelo, gives us marmalade, which originally meant a stiff quince paste rather than anything to do with oranges; the same fruit survives as membrillo in Spain and cotignac in France. By the time Cassell's dictionary appeared in the late nineteenth century the quince seems to have slipped from the centre of the English fruit garden to a corner of it, kept on, it is often said, mainly for its perfume and its habit of turning that improbable ruby colour under long slow heat.