Home › Pickles-Relishes › Rhubarb Conserve
Rhubarb Conserve
1 medium sized can grated pineapple 2 seedless oranges, sliced ¼ lb. dried figs 3 lbs. rhubarb 3½ lbs. sugar ¼ lb. seeded raisins Juice of 1 lemon 1/4 lb. ground almonds Chop all together in medium sized pieces. Cook over moderate surface burner. Cook one hour. Add almonds ground after heat is cut off. Put in glasses or jars and cover with parafin.
Mrs. Arthur Meyers. 2½ lbs. rhubarb 2 lbs. sugar
A community-cookbook conserve of the 1920s-30s type: fruit, sugar and nuts cooked down together and sealed under wax. The quantities have suffered in transcription, and the sealing method has been abandoned.
- The broken fractions"14 lb. seeded raisins" is a mangled ¼ lb, and "4 lb. dried figs" is almost certainly ¼ lb as well — four pounds of figs would swamp three pounds of rhubarb and turn the whole thing into fig paste. Read both as a quarter pound.
- The stray last lineThe closing "2½ lbs. rhubarb 2 lbs. sugar" appears to be a fragment of a neighbouring entry that has run into this one in printing; it does not fit the conserve above.
- Canned grated pineappleA "medium sized can" of the period is a No. 2, about 20 oz or 2½ cups with juice. A modern 20 oz can of crushed pineapple, undrained, is the direct equivalent.
- Moderate surface burnerMedium heat on a gas or electric hob — enough for a slow, steady bubble, not a rolling boil. Rhubarb and figs both catch and scorch readily, so use a wide heavy pan and stir the bottom every few minutes.
- The hourAn hour is a guide, not a rule. Cook until a spoonful dropped on a cold plate mounds rather than runs; on modern thin-bottomed pans it may thicken sooner, and a thermometer reading of about 220F at sea level is the reliable check.
- Almonds off the heatFollow it: stirring the ground almonds in after the heat is cut keeps them from cooking down in the hot syrup, so they retain some texture.
- ParaffinSealing with melted wax is no longer considered safe practice — the wax shrinks and cracks, letting mould in below a seal that still looks intact. Refrigerate the finished conserve and use it within a few weeks, or follow a current water-bath canning procedure for jars meant for the shelf.
- YieldWith the fractions read as quarter pounds, expect roughly seven to eight half-pint jars.
Conserves sit a step above jam in the old preserving hierarchy: a jam is generally one fruit, a conserve several, often with raisins, nuts and a citrus, and such mixtures were commonly served at the tea table or alongside cold meat as well as on toast. This one is a period piece in its ingredient list — canned pineapple, seedless oranges and dried figs were shelf goods from the grocer, and their appearance beside garden rhubarb is the sort of thing a community cookbook records: home produce stretched with bought staples. Rhubarb, cheap and among the earliest things ready in spring, was a common base for such mixtures.