Quince Jelly
Make the same as apple jelly, only do not pare or core the fruit, as much of the jelly is contained in those parts. Or, you may take the sound parings and cores, stew them and strain the liquor twice, and you will have a jelly as nice as that made from the fruit. To each pound of juice allow one pound of sugar. Boil fifteen minutes.--Mrs. M.B.B.
A two-line jelly recipe that assumes you have already read the apple jelly entry above it: fruit cut up and simmered in water until soft, the pulp drained through a cloth, then juice and sugar boiled together. The instruction that matters here is the one about not paring or coring.
- Why the peel and core stay inQuince pectin is concentrated in the skin, core and seeds as well as in the flesh. Discarding them throws away a good part of the setting power; that is the point of the note, and the reason the second sentence offers to make a jelly from parings alone.
- Handling the fruitRipe quinces are hard enough to be awkward. Wipe off the grey down, quarter them with a heavy knife, and simmer in barely enough water to cover, 45 minutes to an hour, until the pieces collapse. Do not squeeze the straining bag or the jelly turns cloudy.
- A pound of juiceSome nineteenth-century preservers weighed juice rather than measuring it by volume, as this recipe does. A pound of quince juice is roughly two cups, so the 1:1 ratio works out near enough to a pound of sugar per pint. Weighing both is more accurate and takes no longer.
- Fifteen minutes is a guide, not a ruleBoiling time depends on the pan, the batch size and how much water went in at the start. Test for set instead: 220F on a thermometer at sea level, or a spoonful chilled on a cold saucer that wrinkles when pushed. Fifteen minutes of hard boil in a wide pan will often get there; in a deep narrow pot it will not.
- Skim, and use a wide panQuince throws a good deal of foam. Skim it off as it rises or the finished jelly will be dull. A wide preserving pan evaporates faster and keeps the boil short, which protects the colour.
- ColourQuince juice starts pale and turns anywhere from amber to deep rose as it cooks, depending on the fruit and the length of the boil. Both are correct; long boiling pushes it darker.
- Second extractionThe parings-and-cores jelly described here is a separate batch made from the trimmings rather than a second boiling of the same pulp, and it will likely be lighter in flavour. Straining the liquor twice, as directed, helps keep it clear.
- Yield and keepingFour pounds of quinces give roughly three to four cups of juice. The recipe gives no sealing or storage instructions. For storage at room temperature, follow current water-bath processing guidance for jellies; otherwise refrigerate and use within a few weeks.
Before commercial pectin was available, cooks relied on high-pectin fruits such as quince, apple and currant to set weaker ones, and quinces were a common fruit in Southern kitchen gardens in the period this book records. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879) was compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by Virginia and Southern housekeepers, which is why this entry ends with initials rather than a byline, and why it is brief and leans on the apple jelly recipe above it. The word jelly traces back through French gel ee to the Latin for freezing, describing the set rather than the fruit, and the frugality on display here, using the parings and cores, is in keeping with much of the book.