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Peach Conserve
2 oranges (rind and juice) 1 C chopped dates Mrs. Chas. Greenwood. 1/2 C walnut meats 2 C sugar 1/2 C raisins Add nuts ten minutes before taking from fire. Seal.
Mrs. Mattie Swan.
This entry is a casualty of the two-column typesetting common to church cookbooks: two contributors' recipes have collided, and the peaches the title promises are nowhere in the ingredient list. Read the points below before you start, because the recipe as printed cannot be followed straight through.
- The missing fruitNo quantity of peaches is given, and any figure would be a guess. For reference, conserves of this era often used sugar at roughly half to three-quarters the weight of prepared fruit, which would put 2 cups of sugar (about 14 oz) alongside somewhere between 1 1/4 and 1 3/4 lb of peeled, pitted, chopped peaches. Treat that as a reconstruction, not the original.
- Two cooks, one paragraph"Mrs. Chas. Greenwood" appears mid-list and "Mrs. Mattie Swan" at the end. The ingredients and the two instructions almost certainly belong to a single conserve whose column got scrambled in printing, but it is possible that a second, unrelated recipe has been folded in.
- C means cupStandard shorthand in American community cookbooks by this date. The cup is the 8 fl oz measure we still use.
- Oranges, rind and juiceUse the zest only, removed with a peeler or grater and finely shredded; the white pith turns the conserve bitter. Two average oranges give about 2/3 cup juice and 2 tablespoons of zest.
- Why the nuts go in lastWalnuts simmered the whole time go soft, and their tannins tint the syrup grey-brown. Ten minutes at the end is enough to warm them through without wrecking the texture.
- Judging the finishThe original gives no cooking time because the cook watched the pot. A conserve of this sugar-to-fruit ratio sets at about 220F, or when a spoonful on a chilled plate wrinkles rather than runs. Peaches are low in pectin, so expect a loose, spoonable set.
- "Seal"At the time this would have meant filling hot jars and closing them at once, often with melted paraffin poured over the top. Paraffin sealing is no longer recommended. Either refrigerate the finished conserve and eat it within a few weeks, or follow a current tested boiling-water-bath procedure for soft spreads.
- YieldWith the fruit quantity above, roughly two to three half-pint jars.
"Conserve" was a distinct category in American cookery of this period: a preserve carrying whole or chopped fruit, often with citrus for acid and brightness, and frequently finished with nuts and raisins or dates — the features that tended to separate it from plain jam or jelly. Peaches, oranges, dates and walnuts all point to a kitchen with access to a well-stocked grocery; by the early twentieth century dates and citrus were no longer luxuries. The double attribution is characteristic of the genre: church cookbooks were assembled from handwritten slips by volunteers, and printers set them in narrow columns with little chance to catch a line that had wandered into the wrong recipe.