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Strawberry Jam
Cap and was the berries, and put them on to stew with a very small quantity of water. Stir constantly. When thoroughly done and mashed to a soft pulp, add one pound sugar to each pound fruit. The advantage of adding sugar last is that it preserves the color and flavor of the fruit. Stew till sufficiently thick, scraping constantly from the bottom with a batter-cake turner.--Mrs. S. T.
A plain, sugar-heavy jam with one useful idea in it: the sugar goes in after the fruit has broken down. The method works, but the recipe gives no yield, no set test and no storage instructions.
- Weigh the fruit before cookingEqual weights of fruit and sugar is the classic proportion. The recipe does not say whether the fruit is weighed before or after stewing; weighing hulled berries at the start is the simplest reading. No yield is given, and it will vary with how far the jam is reduced.
- "Cap and was" is a typesetter's slipIt should read cap and wash \. \ that is, hull the berries and rinse them. Drain well; wet berries add water you will only have to boil off.
- Very little waterA quarter cup for two pounds is plenty, and with ripe fruit you can often skip it entirely. Strawberries release a great deal of juice as soon as they warm through.
- Why sugar goes in lastSugar added at the start draws juice out and firms the fruit, so the berries hold their shape and take longer to break down. Adding it after the pulp has softened does give a fresher color and flavor, as Mrs. S. T. says, though it also means the finished jam is looser and more spreadable than a whole-fruit preserve.
- Strawberries are low in pectinThis jam will set softly at best. Cooking to 220F on a candy thermometer, or until a spoonful wrinkles on a chilled saucer, is the reliable test; the original's "sufficiently thick" leaves it to judgment.
- The batter-cake turnerA flat metal griddle spatula, and the right tool for the job \. \ its straight edge scrapes the whole pan bottom. Sugar-heavy fruit scorches quickly once it thickens, and a wooden spoon rides over the corners.
- StorageNo sealing method is given, which was normal in 1879 when jam often went into crocks under paper and brandy. Refrigerate and use within a few weeks, or process in a boiling-water bath following current tested guidance for times and headspace.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree, gathered contributions from named and initialed Virginia housewives, which is why so many entries end with a signature like "Mrs. S. T." rather than a house style. Jam-making in that period sat at the point where cane sugar had become cheap enough for ordinary households to preserve fruit in quantity \. \ a shift from earlier eras when preserved fruit was a luxury measured out by the spoonful. Nineteenth-century cookbooks seem to have differed over when to add sugar: early sugar for firm whole preserves, late sugar for a bright, soft jam. Strawberries, being the first real fruit of the Virginia season and notoriously poor keepers, were among the first things a household would put up each year.