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Sour Cherry Conserves
Three pounds of cherries, three pounds of granulated sugar, one pound of seeded raisins, three oranges, one lemon, three-fourths of a pound of walnuts; squeeze juice of oranges, grate rind of lemon, then cook one and one-half hours; cut walnuts in small pieces and put in after taking from fire. This is good made from any fruit.
— Miss Helen L. Dunn
A classic sugar-heavy conserve: fruit, dried fruit, citrus and nuts cooked down together. The instructions are terse even by 1900 standards, so a few decisions are left to the cook.
- Cook to the set, not the clockAn hour and a half of boiling is a rough proxy for reaching the jell point. On a modern burner, work in a wide heavy pot and cook until the mixture reaches 220F, or until a spoonful chilled on a cold plate wrinkles when pushed. That may well come before the full 90 minutes, and boiling much past the set will give you something closer to candy.
- Seeded raisins"Seeded" here means the seeds have been removed, which was once a laborious step done by hand or with a special raisin seeder. Any ordinary seedless raisin does the job now.
- Sour cherriesMontmorency or Morello. The receipt never mentions pitting, though it plainly assumes it; 3 lb whole cherries yields roughly 2 3/4 lb pitted. Frozen sour cherries work; drain them but keep the juice and add it to the pot.
- The citrus is ambiguousYou are told to squeeze the oranges and grate the lemon rind, with no word on the orange rind or the lemon juice. Other conserve receipts of the period often call for both zest and juice. Adding the lemon juice is worth doing regardless, since acid helps the set.
- Walnuts last, off the heatThis is the hinge. Walnuts stirred in during the boil turn soft and can darken the syrup. Stirring them in after the pot leaves the fire keeps them distinct. Toasting them first is an improvement the original does not mention.
- Yield and storageAbout 4 to 5 pints. The recipe gives no sealing directions; refrigerate what you will eat within a few weeks and follow current boiling-water-canning guidance for anything you intend to shelve.
- SugarEqual weights of fruit and sugar is standard for the era and is what makes the conserve keep. Cutting the sugar substantially will give you a loose, quick-spoiling sauce rather than a conserve.
A conserve, as distinct from a jam or jelly, is a whole-fruit preserve carrying raisins or other dried fruit, citrus, and nuts something to set out with cold meat or on tea biscuits rather than spread on the children's bread. The form was everywhere in American community cookbooks between about 1890 and 1930, when cheap granulated sugar, California raisins and year-round oranges reached even small villages by rail. Miss Dunn's closing line "good made from any fruit" suggests that the proportions, not the fruit, are the recipe.