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Rhubarb and Orange Jam
With a pint of rhubarb skinned, cut, small, and shaken down, put three oranges, and three-quarters of a pound of loaf sugar. Peel the oranges, and cut half the rind into thin strips, as if it were to be made into marmalade. Pare the white pith from the oranges, and cut them into thin slices, carefully removing the pips. Put the cut-up oranges, the rhubarb, and the requisite quantity of sugar into a preserving-pan, and boil the jam over a moderate fire until a little will jelly when laid on a plate. Remove the scum as it rises, and stir the fruit to keep it from burning. Put the jam into jars, and when it is cold cover in the usual way. Time, three-quarters to one hour from the time the jam boils. Probable cost, 6d. to 8d. per pound.
A short-boiled, modestly sweetened preserve from a period when jam was covered with waxed paper and eaten within the season. The proportions work, but the set is soft and the keeping qualities are not what a modern jam recipe assumes.
- The hinge: the plate testEverything depends on the cold-plate test the recipe names. Chill two saucers in the freezer first, take the pan off the heat while you test, and look for a skin that wrinkles when pushed. On a thermometer that point is 220F/105C at sea level.
- A pint of rhubarbRhubarb here is measured by volume, cut small and settled into the measure — roughly 12 oz / 350 g of trimmed stalks. "Skinned" means stripping the coarse outer fibre from thick late-season stalks; young forced rhubarb needs nothing but trimming.
- Loaf sugarSugar was sold as a hard cone to be broken and crushed; loaf sugar simply means highly refined white sugar. Ordinary granulated is the equivalent. Three-quarters of a pound is 12 oz / 340 g.
- The sugar ratio is lowModern jam runs at roughly equal weights of fruit and sugar. At about half that, this boils longer to reach a set, tastes sharper, and will not keep at room temperature for months. Treat it as a refrigerator preserve and use it within a few weeks.
- Pectin comes from the orangesRhubarb has almost none; what set there is comes from the oranges, chiefly the shredded rind and the flesh membranes. Note that the recipe itself pares away the white pith and removes the pips; if you want a firmer set you can depart from it and tie the pips in muslin to boil with the jam, lifting the bag out before potting.
- Moderate fire, wide panA "preserving-pan" is a wide, shallow, heavy pan that lets water escape fast. Anything narrow and deep is more likely to scorch the fruit before the jam sets; the original asks that the fruit be stirred to keep it from burning.
- TimingsThree-quarters of an hour to an hour is a long boil by current practice and will dull the fresh rhubarb flavour. Expect 25-40 minutes in a wide pan, and trust the plate test over the clock.
- Yield and pottingAbout 1 to 1 1/4 lb of jam — two small jars. Pot into clean jars that have been heated in a 275F oven, fill while the jam is hot, and seal at once rather than leaving it to cool as "the usual way" implies.
Rhubarb reached British kitchens by an odd route: the root was imported for centuries as a purgative drug, and only in the later eighteenth century did the stalks become food — a shift often attributed to sugar becoming cheap enough to tame its acidity, though the connection is inferred rather than documented. By the time Cassell's dictionary appeared in the late Victorian decades, forced rhubarb from the Yorkshire triangle was beginning to reach markets early in the year, though the large-scale forcing trade and its January-onward supply became prominent nearer the turn of the century; it was reckoned the first "fruit" of the year and a natural partner for the winter Seville and sweet oranges then in season — the orange supplying both the pectin and the shred of rind that rhubarb alone cannot give. The note of probable cost, 6d. to 8d. per pound, is characteristic of the book: it was written for households budgeting to the penny, and jam made at home from a cheap garden crop was a straightforward economy against the manufactured preserves then filling grocers' shelves.