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Citron Preserve
6 pounds citron rind 6 pounds sugar 1½ quarts water 4 lemons 1/4 pound ginger root Peel and cut the rind into pieces of uniform size, rejecting all the seeds. Tie the ginger root in a piece of muslin so that it can be readily removed. Put the sugar, water, lemon juice and ginger in a kettle; stir until the sugar is dissolved and the syrup clear. Remove any scum that rises and take out the bag of ginger. Add the citron and cook until it is clear but not soft enough to fall apart. Pour into sterilized jars and seal while hot. The ginger may be omitted if the flavor of ginger is not liked.
A straightforward high-sugar preserve, but two things need pinning down before you start: what "citron" means here, and how far to cook the fruit.
- Which citronThis is most likely citron melon (also sold as preserving melon or pie melon), a hard-fleshed watermelon relative grown for preserves rather than the citrus fruit of the same name, though the recipe says only "citron rind" and does not settle the question. If it is the melon, the firm white flesh is what you want; the green skin and the pink seedy centre are discarded, which fits the recipe's "peel" and "rejecting all the seeds."
- If you cannot find itWatermelon rind, thickly cut with all pink flesh removed, behaves much the same way. Candied citrus citron peel is a different product entirely and will not work in this quantity.
- The hinge: cook until clear, not softThe fruit is done when the pieces turn translucent all the way through and the syrup has thickened. Push past that and the melon collapses into shreds; stop short and the centres stay chalky and the syrup stays thin. Keep it at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil.
- Uniform piecesCubes of about three quarters of an inch, all the same size, matter more than they usually do. Ragged pieces finish at different times and you will overcook half the batch waiting on the rest.
- GingerThe recipe does not say whether the quarter pound is fresh or dried whole root; a quarter pound of fresh ginger is a large hand. Bruise it before tying it in muslin so it gives up its flavour. Note that the recipe pulls the bag before the citron goes in, so taste the syrup at that stage if you want the ginger lighter.
- The lemonsOnly the juice of the four lemons goes in, roughly half a cup; it supplies the acid that keeps the syrup from crystallising and brightens an otherwise bland fruit.
- KettleA wide, heavy preserving pan rather than a tall stockpot. Surface area is what drives off the water and gets the syrup to setting point without stewing the fruit to mush.
- Sealing"Seal while hot" is open-kettle canning, once ordinary practice and no longer recommended even for sugar-heavy preserves; failed seals and surface mould are the usual outcome. Fill hot sterilised jars, leave a quarter inch of headspace, and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.
- YieldConsiderably more than a small batch: six pounds of fruit with six pounds of sugar and a quart and a half of water will fill something on the order of eight to ten pints. The preserve is very sweet and firm.
Citron melon was a kitchen-garden staple in nineteenth and early twentieth century America partly because it was almost inedible raw: hard, dry and nearly flavourless, it kept for months in a cellar and took on whatever it was cooked with, which made it useful for preserves, mincemeat and mock candied peel in fruitcake. Recipes like this one, sugar for sugar with the fruit and flavoured with ginger and lemon, turn a cheap keeping crop into something that tasted expensive. The canning section of a book like this reflects a period when a home preserving shelf was still an economic necessity rather than a hobby, which may be why the sealing instructions are so brief.