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Guava Preserve
Peel and halve ripe guavas, removing seeds with pointed spoon. For each pint of fruit add one pound of sugar and three-fourths pint of water. Cook together until the syrup candies slightly in cold water, then add fruit and cook till translucent.
A short, old-style preserve that relies on the cook reading the syrup by eye rather than by clock. The proportions are generous with sugar, which is what makes it keep.
- Proportions in plain termsA pint of prepared fruit halves is in the neighbourhood of a pound, so this is close to equal weights of fruit and sugar, with 1 1/2 cups water (three-fourths pint). Yield will be somewhere around two to three half-pint jars, depending on how far the syrup reduces.
- Which guavaMost likely the common tropical guava (Psidium guajava) rather than the small strawberry guava, though the recipe says only "ripe guavas." Choose fruit that is fragrant and yields slightly to a thumb; hard green guavas tend to stay woody and resist turning translucent.
- SeedingThe "pointed spoon" is a grapefruit spoon or the tip of a teaspoon. Guava seeds are extremely hard and do not soften in syrup, so scoop the entire seedy core out rather than picking at individual seeds. The scooped centres can be simmered with water and strained for guava jelly.
- "Candies slightly in cold water"This is the old cold-water sugar test, somewhere in the soft-ball region: a dropped bead holds together and flattens when pressed. Take the syrup no further before the fruit goes in or it risks setting hard as the batch cools.
- Cooking the fruitSimmer gently and do not stir hard once the halves are in; guava flesh collapses easily. Translucency is the only signal the recipe gives, and how long it takes will depend on ripeness and the thickness of the pieces.
- Syrup thicknessIf the syrup thins out as the fruit gives up juice, lift the halves into a bowl, reduce the syrup back to a coating consistency, then return the fruit for a minute or two.
- Keeping itThe recipe stops at the cooking and gives no instruction for jars or sealing. For shelf storage today, follow a current tested water-bath processing time for fruit preserves; otherwise keep the jars refrigerated and use within a few weeks.
- ServingTraditionally eaten with fresh white cheese or cream cheese, or spooned over plain cake. The syrup is worth saving for soda water or for basting ham.
Guava reached North American cookbooks largely through the Caribbean and Florida, and the fruit's high natural pectin made it a reliable subject for preserving: the same fruit yields a firm jelly, a paste (Spanish-language guayabate, Portuguese goiabada), and whole-fruit preserves like this one. The instruction to test syrup in a cup of cold water rather than with a thermometer was standard in home kitchens well into the twentieth century; candy thermometers existed but were not yet common household equipment.