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Gooseberries and White Currant Jam
Use equal weight of gooseberries, and currants and sugar equal to their combined weight. Simmer together slowly, crushing and cooking till tender and thick.
A two-fruit preserve with a 1:1 fruit-to-sugar ratio and no added pectin, because it needs none. The original assumes you know what jam looks like when it is done; here is the rest of it.
- Read the proportions carefullyEqual weights of gooseberries and white currants, then sugar equal to the combined weight of both fruits. So 1 lb gooseberries plus 1 lb currants takes 2 lb sugar.
- Pick the fruit underripeGreen, firm gooseberries and just-turned white currants carry the most pectin and acid, which is what sets this jam without any commercial pectin. Fully ripe fruit gives a syrupy result.
- Preparation the recipe skipsTop and tail the gooseberries. The recipe says nothing about the currant strigs; stripping them off before cooking is the usual course, since the stalks do not break down in a jam.
- Set point, in numbers"Thick" is conventionally taken as 220F (105C) on a sugar thermometer at sea level, or a spoonful that wrinkles when pushed on a chilled saucer. The recipe calls for a slow simmer, and timing will vary with the pan and the fruit.
- Dissolve before you boilWarm the fruit gently until it collapses and its juice runs, then add sugar and stir until no grit remains on the pan bottom. Sugar that boils before it dissolves scorches and makes the jam grainy.
- Pan and skimmingUse a wide, heavy pan filled no more than a third; jam climbs. Skim the foam that rises, or the finished jar will look cloudy.
- YieldTwo pounds of fruit and two pounds of sugar give roughly five half-pint jars.
- Keeping itThe recipe says nothing about storage. Refrigerate and use within a month, or follow current boiling-water-bath processing times for jam if you want it shelf-stable.
White currants are an albino sport of the red currant, sweeter and less astringent, and they were a common garden fruit in Britain and the northeastern United States through the nineteenth century before currant cultivation was curtailed in parts of the US over white pine blister rust. Pairing them with gooseberries is a gardener's economy as much as a cook's: both ripen in high summer, both belong to the genus Ribes, and both are loaded with the pectin and acid that let a preserve set with nothing but sugar and heat. The one-to-one sugar ratio here is standard for the period and is doing preservation work, not just sweetening.