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Strawberry Jam, Superior
Strawberry jam, although very delicious, is, if anything, too luscious. If made according to the following recipe, this fault will be corrected. Take the juice of three pints of ripe white or even red currants. Put this into a preserving-pan, and throw in four pounds of freshly-gathered ripe strawberries which have been picked and carefully looked over. Let the fruit boil, remove the scum, and add four pounds of refined loaf sugar. Boil the jam quickly until done enough. Put it into jars, and cover these in the usual manner. Time to boil the jam, from thirty to forty minutes.
A jam recipe built around an old trick: currant juice supplies the pectin and acid that strawberries lack, giving both a firmer set and a sharper edge. A few of the terms and timings need translating.
- The hinge: the currant juiceStrawberries are low in both pectin and acid, which is why strawberry jam so often stays syrupy. Three pints of currants crushed and strained yields something over a pint of juice, and that is what makes this set. Do not substitute water, and do not skip it in favour of commercial pectin without reducing the boiling time accordingly.
- Loaf sugarRefined loaf sugar was sold in solid cones and broken up for use; it was simply the purest sugar available. Ordinary granulated white sugar is the direct equivalent, pound for pound.
- Preserving-panA wide, shallow copper or brass pan. Any wide heavy-bottomed stainless or enamelled pan works; width matters more than depth, because evaporation is what concentrates the jam. A narrow deep pan will lengthen the cooking time and stew the fruit.
- Boiling timeThirty to forty minutes is long by current practice and reflects wide pans over uneven coal heat. Judge by temperature rather than clock: 220F (105C) at sea level, or a wrinkle on a spoonful chilled on a cold saucer. With this much currant juice a hard rolling boil often reaches setting point in 15-25 minutes, and overshooting turns the colour brown and the flavour caramelly.
- Sugar added after the boilThe instruction to boil the fruit first, skim, then add sugar is deliberate: skimming is far easier before the sugar goes in. Stir until the sugar has fully dissolved before returning the pan to a hard boil.
- "Cover in the usual manner"In this period this meant a disc of brandy-soaked paper on the hot surface and a parchment or waxed cover tied over the top, stored in a cool dry larder. For modern storage, ladle boiling-hot jam into sterilised jars and either process in a boiling-water bath for 10 minutes for shelf storage, or seal and keep refrigerated and use within a month or two.
- YieldFour pounds of fruit plus four pounds of sugar gives roughly five to six pounds of finished jam, about eight half-pint jars.
- White currantsWhite currants are a pale cultivar of the red, milder and less staining; the recipe lists them first, which may be to keep the jam's own colour clear. Red currants work identically; the finished jam is simply a shade deeper.
The recipe demonstrates a rule rather than a dish: the low-pectin fruit borrowed from the high-pectin one. Redcurrant juice was the standard Victorian corrective long before pectin was isolated and sold in bottles. The opening judgement, that plain strawberry jam is "if anything, too luscious," is very much of its period. Loaf sugar, still being sold in cones at the time, is itself a marker of the shift toward cheaper refined sugar, affordable enough for a household to spend four pounds of it on a single batch of jam without comment.