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Cattley Guava Jelly
The Cattley may be used in its mature or immature stages, its general tartness precluding the necessity generally of using lemon juice with it. Proceed otherwise as with any regular fruit jelly, using sugar pint for pint.
This is shorthand rather than a full recipe: the author assumes you already know the standard jelly method and only flags what is different about Cattley guava. Here is what the shorthand leaves out.
- What a Cattley guava isPsidium cattleianum, the strawberry or Chinese guava, a small red or yellow fruit an inch or so across, and noticeably tarter than the common tropical guava. If you substitute ordinary guava you will likely need lemon juice, which is precisely what this note says the Cattley makes unnecessary.
- "Pint for pint"Sugar is measured against the volume of strained juice, not the weight of fruit: one pint (2 cups) of sugar to each pint of juice. By weight that is roughly 14 oz sugar to 16 fl oz juice, a slightly lower ratio than the modern pound-for-pint standard, which suits a high-pectin fruit.
- The method being assumedCover halved fruit barely with water, simmer until soft (20-30 minutes), then drip through a jelly bag without pressing — pressing clouds the jelly. Measure the juice, boil it hard with the sugar, and skim.
- Judging the setWith no thermometer in the original, the test was the sheet or flake off a spoon. A thermometer is faster: 220F at sea level, or 8F above the boiling point of water where you are. Cattley juice is tart and sets readily, so begin testing early rather than boiling by the clock.
- Ripe versus green fruitThe point about immature fruit is a pectin point. Underripe Cattleys carry more pectin and more acid, so a mixture of just-ripe and slightly green fruit gives the most reliable set; fully ripe fruit alone can be soft.
- SealingPeriod practice was to pour hot jelly into glasses and seal with melted paraffin. Use current canning practice instead: hot jars, new two-piece lids, and a boiling water bath of five to ten minutes, or refrigerate and use within a month.
The Cattley guava is native to Brazil and was named for the English horticulturist William Cattley, an early nineteenth-century patron of plant collecting; it spread through Hawaii, Florida and elsewhere as an ornamental and promptly naturalised, becoming a serious invasive in Hawaii and the Mascarenes. Jelly-making was assumed knowledge in a household manual of this period, and the writer's only job was to say how this particular fruit differs from apple or currant: it brings its own acid, so skip the lemon.