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RHUBARB JAM (another way)
Take as much rhubarb as is required, and cut it into small pieces; then take a pound of sugar to every pound of rhubarb, and let all steep together in a covered jar for three days. Put some sticks of ginger into a wine-glass, fill up the glass with whiskey, and let it also stand for three days. Add the whiskey to the rhubarb, taking care to keep back the sticks of ginger. Boil for forty minutes, put into jars, and cover in the usual way. A wine-glassful of ginger and whiskey is usually thought enough to flavour seven pounds of rhubarb, but more or less may be used according to taste. This is a Scotch recipe, and said to be an excellent one. It is to be observed that the latter part of the season is the best time of the year for preserving rhubarb; it does not then contain so much water.
A straightforward preserve whose only unusual steps are the three-day cold maceration and a ginger-flavoured whisky added at the end. A few of the original's measures and its final instruction need translating.
- A wine-glassfulIn Victorian cookery books a wine-glass is about 2 fl oz, roughly a quarter cup. The recipe reckons that much ginger-infused whisky flavours 7 lb of rhubarb, so scale accordingly.
- Sticks of gingerProbably dried whole ginger root rather than the fresh stem ginger of a modern greengrocer. Bruise the dried pieces before steeping; fresh ginger will work but gives a hotter, less resinous flavour and infuses faster.
- The three-day steepSugaring the rhubarb and leaving it draws out the juice and firms the pieces so they hold shape rather than collapsing. Keep the jar covered in the refrigerator rather than a cool larder, and stir once a day until the sugar has dissolved.
- Discard the leavesOnly the stalks are used. Rhubarb leaves contain high levels of oxalic acid and should never go into the pan or the compost-to-kitchen route.
- Forty minutes is a guide, not a ruleJudge by set instead: 220F on a sugar thermometer, or a wrinkle test on a chilled saucer. Rhubarb is acidic but low in pectin, so the boil works mainly by driving off water and concentrating the sugar; added pectin, or jam sugar, will bring the set on sooner.
- Watch for scorchingWith equal weights of sugar and a slack, watery fruit, the pan catches easily once the mixture thickens. Use a wide heavy pan and stir down into the corners for the last ten minutes.
- "Cover in the usual way"In the period this meant a disc of waxed paper on the hot surface and a parchment or brandy-paper cover tied over the top. For jam kept in a modern cupboard, fill hot sterilised jars, seal with two-piece lids and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes, or else refrigerate and eat within a month.
- YieldWith equal weights of sugar and fruit, expect appreciably more than a pound of jam per pound of rhubarb, so 7 lb of fruit will fill considerably more than seven 1 lb jars.
- Late-season fruitThe note about water content is sound. Thick summer stalks give a denser, less watery jam than the thin forced sticks of early spring, though the colour will be greener and duller.
Rhubarb reached British kitchens first as a medicinal root, imported dried from Asia through Russia and Turkey, and only became a culinary fruit in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, once cheap sugar made its sourness manageable. Forcing it under pots and sheds around Yorkshire turned it into the first "fruit" of the year, and it appears in books like Cassell's in dozens of guises because it grew freely in gardens and cost almost nothing. The whisky-and-ginger flavouring here is what marks it as Scotch: ginger was often paired with rhubarb in northern preserving, and a small measure of spirit carried the spice. The compiler's careful hedge -- "said to be an excellent one" -- leaves the recipe's merits to the contributor rather than vouching for them.