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Strawberry Jam
Gather the fruit after two or three days of dry weather, when it is fully ripe, but not over-ripe, or it will be flavourless, and may be tainted with bitterness and the elements of decay. Pick the berries, and discard all that are at all unsound. Weigh the strawberries, and take three-quarters of a pound of loaf sugar for each pound of fruit. Put a layer of berries into the preserving-pan, then a layer of sugar, and repeat until the pan is a little less than three-parts full. Set it at the side of, but not upon, the fire, and keep stirring gently to prevent burning; but be careful not to crush the fruit. Very carefully remove the scum as it rises, and let the jam boil gently until a little put upon a plate will set, or be stiff. Take the pan from the fire, let its contents cool for a few minutes, then pour the jam into jars. Cover in the usual way. The flavour of strawberry jam depends a great deal upon the season. When the summer is cold, wet, and sunless, it is difficult to make jam with the real perfume of the fruit, although it may be made to keep by long boiling and an extra allowance of sugar. Time to boil, three-quarters of an hour or more. Probable cost, strawberries, 4d. to 8d. per pound. The fruit can generally be bought cheaper by the peck.
A straightforward boiled preserve, but two things in it are out of step with current practice: the length of the boil and the way the jars are sealed.
- The hinge: stop at the set, not at the clockThree-quarters of an hour of boiling will give you a dark, caramelised jam with little fresh strawberry flavour. Boil hard in a wide pan and start testing the cold-plate set at around 10 minutes; most modern strawberry jams reach 105C/220F within 8 to 20 minutes depending on pan width and fruit ripeness.
- "At the side of, but not upon, the fire"A gentle heat that dissolves the sugar and draws the juice from the fruit without scorching. The original keeps the pan there throughout, asking only that the jam "boil gently". On a modern hob, use the lowest setting until no sugar crystals are left on the spoon, then raise the heat for the boil.
- Loaf sugarSold as a hard cone to be nipped into lumps, it was simply high-grade refined cane sugar. Ordinary granulated sugar is the equivalent; jam sugar, which has pectin added, will give a firmer set (preserving sugar is just large-crystal sugar, with no pectin).
- The sugar ratio is lowThree-quarters of a pound of sugar per pound of fruit is about 75 per cent, below the roughly equal weights most modern recipes use. Strawberries are also low in both pectin and acid, so expect a soft set. The juice of a lemon per 2 lb of fruit, or a proportion of slightly underripe berries, helps it firm up.
- "Cover in the usual way"At the time that meant a waxed paper disc and a paper or parchment cover tied over the top, sometimes with melted mutton suet or paraffin wax poured on. Use sterilised jars with two-piece or lacquered metal lids, filled hot to within 1/4 inch of the rim; for storage beyond a few months at room temperature, process the filled jars in a boiling-water bath.
- A peckA dry measure of two gallons, which for strawberries works out at roughly 12 lb, though it varies with how the fruit is heaped. The prices quoted, 4d. to 8d. a pound, place this firmly in pre-decimal Britain.
- YieldThe original gives none. Reckon on about 1 1/2 lb of finished jam, or two half-pint jars, for every pound of fruit and its sugar.
- SkimmingThe scum is air and protein driven out of the fruit, not spoilage. A very small knob of butter stirred in near the end of the boil disperses most of it and saves you skimming away good jam.
Strawberry jam was a late arrival among English preserves, partly because the fruit itself was. The large garden strawberry, Fragaria x ananassa, is a hybrid of two American species that emerged in European gardens in the eighteenth century, and it was cheap sugar in the nineteenth that made jam a working household staple rather than a confectioner's luxury. The recipe belongs to a moment when strawberries were sold by the peck from market gardens ringing the growing cities and had to be dealt with in a day or two. The insistence on dry weather before picking, and the frank admission that a cold, sunless summer yields jam that keeps but does not taste of much, reflect a kitchen with no way to correct for watery fruit except more sugar and a longer boil - the very thing that costs the jam its perfume.