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Syrup of Raspberry
Mash your raspberries a little immediately after they are gathered. Put them into a stone jar with half a pint of the best white-wine vinegar to each pound. Let them stand in a cold cellar during two days. Run the liquor through a hair sieve, but without forcing through any of the raspberry-pulp, and to every pint put a pound and three-quarters of sugar. When the sugar is dissolved, clarify it with white of egg, only heating, not boiling it; then put it on again to boil over a clear brisk fire; skim it as it boils up; let it boil ten minutes, then stir it till it is quite cold. By mixing a couple of table-spoonfuls of this syrup in half a tumbler of water, and stirring in as much carbonate of soda as will cover a shilling, the famous effervescent raspberryade is formed. The pulp of the raspberries may be converted into raspberry jam, the slight flavour of vinegar forming an agreeable variety. (See also RASPBERRY SYRUP.)
A raspberry drinking vinegar in all but name, thickened into a keeping syrup with a great deal of sugar. Two details govern the result: the pulp must never be pressed, and the syrup must be stirred as it cools.
- Do not force the pulpSqueezing the fruit through the sieve pushes fine solids into the liquor and the finished syrup is likelier to turn cloudy. Let it drip through the hair sieve, or a jelly bag or a double thickness of muslin, unhurried, and keep the pulp for the jam suggested at the end.
- The measures are imperialA pint here is 20 fl oz, so half a pint of vinegar per pound of fruit is a scant 1¼ US cups to 450 g. The sugar is heavier than it looks: 1¾ lb to the pint works out at about 4 cups of sugar to 2½ cups of juice.
- Vinegar"Best white-wine vinegar" meant a clean-tasting wine vinegar, probably somewhere in the region of 5 to 6 per cent acidity, broadly comparable to a supermarket white wine vinegar today. Distilled white vinegar is harsher and will flatten the fruit.
- A cold cellarRead this as 50-55F. The refrigerator is the modern equivalent and does no harm over two days; the vinegar, not the cold, is what keeps the fruit sound while it steeps.
- Clarifying with egg whiteWhisking a little egg white into the syrup and heating it without boiling raises a scum that carries the haze with it, to be lifted off; the recipe then has you skim again as it boils up. If the juice has dripped clear this step can be skipped.
- Stirring it coldThis is the hinge. A syrup this dense will throw sugar crystals as it cools, and stirring keeps it smooth and pourable. Ten minutes of boiling is enough for a syrup, not a jelly, so do not extend it hoping for thickness.
- The raspberryade"As much carbonate of soda as will cover a shilling" is perhaps an eighth to a quarter of a teaspoon; a shilling was a little under an inch across. The soda fizzes because it neutralises the acid of the vinegar, so a heavy hand leaves the drink soapy and salty rather than sharp. Add it last and drink at once.
- Yield and keepingKeeping -- Keep it refrigerated once opened; the sugar and acid together do most of the preserving work.
Fruit vinegars of this kind sat on the shelf between the medicine chest and the drinks tray. Raspberry vinegar was a standard nineteenth-century sickroom draught, given diluted for fevers and sore throats, and it was also poured over puddings and stirred into water as a cooling summer drink for households that wanted no wine or spirit in it. Its instinct to clarify with egg white and skim over "a clear brisk fire" belongs to the confectioner's trade rather than the family kitchen. The effervescent trick at the end reflects the mid-Victorian enthusiasm for manufactured mineral waters: carbonate of soda was cheap and newly domestic, and any acidic syrup could be made to imitate a bottled fizzy drink for a fraction of the price. The final note, that the leftover pulp makes a jam with an agreeable trace of vinegar, is the same economy that runs through the whole book.