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Grape Fruit Preserve
Remove outer, yellow rind and most of the white by peeling very thick. Halve the fruit and with sharp knife core and seed it. Then slice across and place pulp in granite vessel with very little water and cook at moderately quick heat. When at boiling point add three-fourths pint of sugar to each pint of fruit pulp and juice, then cook slowly fifteen minutes. This may be used at the moment as a luncheon or supper dish or sealed in jars.
A plain grapefruit preserve with nothing but fruit, sugar and a little water. The whole thing depends on getting the bitter white pith off before you start.
- Peel thick and mean itThe hinge of the recipe. Any albedo (white pith) left clinging to the segments will turn the finished preserve harsh and bitter, and cooking with sugar concentrates that bitterness rather than taming it. Cut down through the peel until you reach the pulp.
- Coring and seedingHalve the fruit, cut out the fibrous central column, and pick out the seeds; grapefruit seeds are intensely bitter. If you want the cleanest result, also strip the tough segment membranes and use only the pulp.
- "Granite vessel"Graniteware, the speckled enamel-on-steel pans of the period. The point was a nonreactive surface. Use enamelled cast iron or stainless steel; unlined copper or bare aluminium will react with the citrus acid.
- Sugar measured by the pintSugar was sold and measured by volume here. Three-fourths pint is 1 1/2 cups, about 10 1/2 oz or 300 g, for each pint (2 cups) of pulp and juice. That is a lower sugar ratio than most modern jams.
- Heat levels"Moderately quick heat" means a brisk simmer to soften the pulp and drive off the small amount of added water. Once the sugar goes in, drop to a slow boil so it does not scorch on the bottom.
- Fifteen minutes gives a loose preserveNo pectin is added and the peel and membranes, which carry most of the pectin, have been discarded. Expect something between a syrupy compote and a soft spoon preserve, not a set jam. Cooking longer will thicken it but also darken and caramelise the flavour.
- Sealing in jarsOpen-kettle sealing, filling hot jars and simply closing them, is no longer considered adequate. If you want to keep it on the shelf, follow current water-bath canning directions for citrus preserves; otherwise treat it as the recipe suggests first and refrigerate it, where it will keep a few weeks.
- YieldTwo large grapefruit yield roughly a pint and a half of pulp and juice.
Grapefruit was still something of a novelty in American households when books like this were written; it had been established commercially in Florida only in the later nineteenth century and was generally eaten halved and sugared at breakfast. The instruction that the preserve "may be used at the moment as a luncheon or supper dish" reflects the period habit of serving sweet fruit preserves as a course in their own right, not only as a spread. The insistence on a granite vessel is a small technical detail worth noticing: enamelled ware was one of the era's genuine kitchen improvements, giving cooks an affordable nonreactive pan for acid fruit.