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Crab Apple Catsup
Scald crab apples and put through colander. Take 8 pounds crab apples, 3 cups sugar, 3 cups weak vinegar, 1 teaspoon pepper, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon cloves, 1 tablespoon salt. Boil until it is like jam.
A fruit catsup in the older sense: a spiced, vinegared purée cooked down to spreading thickness, closer to apple butter than to anything in a squeeze bottle. Two things in the original need translating — what "put through a colander" produces, and what "weak vinegar" meant.
- The hinge: it scorchesOnce the purée thickens it will catch on the bottom of the pan long before it looks done. Use a heavy wide pot, stir across the base every few minutes, and finish over low heat. A wide pan also drives off water faster, which is the whole point.
- Scald and colanderSimmer the whole crab apples in a little water until they collapse, then press them through a colander or food mill to leave skins, cores and seeds behind. A sieve gives a smoother result; do not use a blender, which pulverises the seeds and skin back in.
- 8 pounds of fruitThat is about 3.6 kg, which will give you several cups of pulp, depending on how much of the fruit is skin, core and seed. Note that the recipe gives the weight after the scalding instruction, so whether 8 pounds means whole fruit or strained pulp is not clear from the text.
- "Weak vinegar"Household vinegar of the period varied considerably in strength and was rarely measured; "weak" most likely meant a mild vinegar, or cider vinegar cut with water. Modern 5 percent cider vinegar used straight is a fair reading; if you want it gentler, dilute by a quarter.
- The spicesPepper here is most likely ground black pepper, though period recipes sometimes meant red pepper; cinnamon and cloves are presumably ground rather than whole, since nothing is strained out afterward. A teaspoon each in this volume is assertive but not overwhelming, and the tablespoon of salt balances the sugar.
- Cooking timeExpect 45 minutes to an hour and a half of active reduction after the sugar and vinegar go in, depending on pan width. "Like jam" means a spoon drawn through the bottom leaves a track that closes slowly.
- Yield and keepingAbout 4 to 5 pints. The original gives no instruction for sealing, so treat it as a refrigerator preserve — it keeps several weeks covered and chilled. If you want it shelf-stable, follow a current tested water-bath procedure for fruit catsups rather than simply sealing hot jars.
- ServingFruit catsups of this type were generally eaten with cold roast meats, pork and poultry, and used to sharpen gravies. Sweet-sour and spiced, it fills the place a chutney or cranberry sauce does now.
Fruit catsups were once common, and the word carried no implication of tomatoes at all. Catsup, ketchup, catchup are generally traced to a Southeast Asian condiment name — often said to have been a fermented fish sauce — that English cooks attached to any thin, keeping, spiced condiment: mushroom, walnut, oyster, grape, plum, crab apple. Crab apples earn their place in a Canadian book like this one because they grew where dessert apples struggled, cropped heavily, and were too sour and astringent to eat out of hand, so they went into jelly, pickles and catsup instead. Their high pectin and acid also help explain why the recipe works with nothing but boiling. Five Roses was published by Lake of the Woods Milling Company as a promotional book built from recipes contributed by Canadian housewives, which is why entries like this one are terse — a household that already knew how to cook down a preserve needed only the proportions.