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Canned Blackberries
4 quarts blackberries 2 pints sugar Place sugar and berries in preserving kettle, let stand several hours, then cook slowly until the boiling point is reached; boil five minutes; fill sterilized jars and seal.
A two-ingredient fruit pack from the era when a hot jar and a hot lid were considered seal enough. The berries and the sugar ratio are sound; the sealing method is the part current practice has replaced.
- The measurementsBlackberries are measured by volume here: 4 quarts is roughly 5 to 6 lb of berries. "2 pints sugar" means 4 cups by dry measure, about 1 lb 12 oz.
- The maceration is the pointLetting the sugared fruit stand several hours draws out juice so the berries cook in syrup rather than water, and they hold their shape instead of collapsing. Do not shorten this step, and stir as little as possible afterward.
- "Cook slowly until the boiling point is reached"Low heat until the sugar has fully dissolved and the mass comes up to a boil gradually. Rushing it scorches the sugar on the bottom of the pan before the juice has run.
- Preserving kettleA wide, heavy pan. Bare cast iron will react with the acid fruit and dull its colour; stainless or enamelled cast iron is the safe choice.
- Open-kettle sealing is obsoleteFilling sterilized jars with hot fruit and sealing, with no further processing, was standard in 1907 but is no longer considered a sound seal. Mold and yeast can enter as the jar is filled and the vacuum formed on cooling is unreliable. Blackberries are high-acid fruit, so follow a current tested procedure for boiling-water processing and headspace rather than the instruction as printed here.
- Five minutes at a boilThat is enough for a soft-set fruit pack, not a jam. The result is berries in thin syrup, meant for pies, puddings and spooning over cake, and it will not gel.
- YieldExpect roughly 6 to 7 pints of finished fruit, depending on how much juice the berries give up.
Lowney's was a chocolate company, and its cook book was published to put its cocoa in American kitchens; the preserving chapter is there because a general household manual was expected to cover the summer put-up whether or not chocolate came into it. Canned blackberries in this style belong to the wild-fruit economy of the period, when brambles along fences and railway cuttings were picked by the pailful in July and August and the whole point was to get the season into glass with the least fuss and the least sugar that would still keep. The open-kettle method printed here was the ordinary domestic practice of the day; the shift to processing filled jars in a boiling-water bath came over the following decades, which is why so many pre-1920 fruit recipes read as if the work ends when the lid goes on.