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Vegetable Marrow, Preserved
Peel the marrows, take away the seeds, and cut the vegetable into small pieces. To every pound of marrow add half a pound of sifted loaf sugar, the rind and juice of a lemon, and half an ounce of grated ginger. Put the whole into a basin, and let it stand all night; next day pour the juice into a pan, and let it boil; then add the vegetable. Boil all together for an hour and a half, or until it becomes thick and transparent. If preferred it may be put into a mould, and the preserve will look very nice when turned out for use. Most vegetables may be prepared in the same way.
A classic garden-glut preserve: marrow has almost no flavour, no acid and very little pectin of its own, so the lemon and ginger do all the work. The instructions below fill in what the original assumes.
- What a vegetable marrow isA marrow is a summer squash left on the plant until the skin hardens and the seeds mature — in practice an overgrown courgette or zucchini. Look for one 12 inches or longer; peel it, scoop the seedy core, and use only the firm pale flesh.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined cane sugar sold in a solid cone and broken up at home; "sifted" means crushed and passed through a sieve. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct replacement, weight for weight.
- The sugar ratio is lowHalf a pound of sugar to a pound of marrow is about half what a keeping jam needs. Expect a soft, lightly sweet preserve rather than a shelf-stable one.
- GingerHalf an ounce grated per pound of marrow is assertive — roughly a one- to two-inch knob of fresh root. Grate it fine so it disappears into the syrup; the original may equally mean grated dried root, and modern ground dried ginger is not the same thing and would need far less.
- The overnight stand mattersSugar and lemon juice draw a surprising amount of water out of the marrow, and boiling that liquid before the pieces go in should help keep them from collapsing. Do not shortcut it.
- Judge by the syrup, not the clockAn hour and a half is a guide. Cook until the marrow cubes are translucent and the syrup falls thickly from a spoon — around 220-222F on a sugar thermometer. Stir often once it thickens, as low-pectin preserves scorch easily.
- The mouldWith this little sugar and no added pectin the preserve may not set firmly enough to turn out cleanly, though the original plainly expects it to. If the moulded version does not hold, reduce it further or simply pot it as jam.
- Yield and storageTwo pounds of prepared marrow gives roughly two to three half-pint jars. Cassell's gives no sealing or sterilising instructions, so treat this as a fresh preserve: cover, refrigerate, and use within a few weeks.
Vegetable marrow was a Victorian kitchen-garden staple, and its problem was always the same — one plant produced more than a household could eat, and the flesh tasted of very little. Preserves like this one were the standard answer, with lemon and ginger supplying the character the vegetable lacked; marrow-and-ginger jam remained a familiar British preserve well into the twentieth century, and cheaper versions of shop-bought ginger preserve and candied citron were often said to lean on the same trick. The closing line — "Most vegetables may be prepared in the same way" — is characteristic of Cassell's, which was compiled as an alphabetical reference rather than a set of tested formulas, and expected the cook to extend a method rather than follow it slavishly. The recipe's call for loaf sugar, to be broken and sifted at home, records a choice of grade rather than the only sugar a cook could buy.