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Currant Jelly
Pick ripe currants from the stem, and put them in a stone jar. Then set the jar in an iron pot and let the fruit boil till the juice is extracted. Pour in a flannel bag and let it drip through-without squeezing, however, as this makes it cloudy.
To each pint of juice add one pound good white sugar. Boil about twenty minutes and keep it well skimmed. Put in the glasses while hot, and sun daily.--Mrs. P.W.
A high-pectin fruit and a straightforward proportion make this one of the most reliable jellies in the book, once a few of its vessels and habits are translated.
- The jar in the pot is a water bathA stone jar set inside an iron pot of water is a bain-marie: the currants stew in their own juice without scorching on direct heat. A heavy stainless or enameled pot over low heat does the same work; add a few tablespoons of water only if the fruit looks dry at the start.
- Do not squeeze the bagThis is the hinge of the recipe. Pressing the flannel bag forces fine pulp through the weave and the jelly turns cloudy and dull. Hang the bag and let it drip on its own, which may take several hours or overnight.
- Flannel bagA modern jelly bag or four layers of damp cheesecloth in a colander does the job. Wet the cloth first and wring it out, or it absorbs a surprising amount of juice.
- Sugar proportionA pint of juice to a pound of sugar is roughly 2 cups juice to 2 1/4 cups granulated sugar. "Good white sugar" simply meant fully refined loaf or granulated sugar rather than the brownish, less consistent grades; ordinary cane sugar is what is wanted.
- Twenty minutes is a guide, not a ruleCurrants are rich in pectin and acid, so no commercial pectin is needed, but the setting point depends on the fruit and the pan. Boil hard and start testing at about 15 minutes: the jelly is done at 220F, or when it sheets off a cold spoon in a wobbling curtain rather than dripping.
- SkimmingSkim the foam off with a metal spoon as it rises and again just before filling. Foam left in the glasses sets as a cloudy, bubbly layer on top.
- "Sun daily"Jelly was commonly poured into open tumblers and set in the sun for a few days; the practice was said to help the jelly finish setting and to dry the surface, after which the glasses were covered with paper or, later, a paraffin round. Modern practice is to fill sterilized half-pint jars, leave 1/4 inch headspace, and either water-bath process for 10 minutes or simply refrigerate the sealed jars; skip the sunning entirely.
- YieldEach pint of juice with its pound of sugar makes roughly three half-pint jars of jelly, depending on how hard it is boiled.
Red currants were a staple of American kitchen gardens and farmyard hedges through the nineteenth century, valued precisely for the quality this recipe relies on: so much natural pectin and acid that juice and sugar alone will set firm, at a time when bottled pectin did not exist. Currant jelly was often less a preserve than a pantry tool, spooned onto biscuits but also melted into sauces for mutton and venison and used to sharpen gravies. Its near-disappearance from American cooking has a specific cause: Ribes species host white pine blister rust, and from the 1910s onward federal and state programs restricted or destroyed currant and gooseberry plantings to protect the timber industry. Many of those bans were lifted only in the later twentieth century, and some state restrictions remain, which is why a jelly a housekeeper could once make from her own bushes now usually means a trip to a farmers' market in July.