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Pineapple Jelly
1/2 pint cold water. 1 pint boiling water. 2 lemons. 1 cup pineapple juice. 1 cup pineapple cut in small pieces. 1 box gelatin.
Put pineapple juice, sugar and water on fire. When boiling pour over gelatin which has been soaked in cold water. When cool and before it begins to set, add fruit.
A short recipe with two real gaps: the sugar is listed nowhere in the ingredients, and the pineapple presents a chemical problem the original text does not anticipate.
- Fresh pineapple will not setRaw pineapple contains bromelain, a protease that digests gelatin and leaves the jelly permanently soupy. Canned or cooked-and-cooled juice and fruit work because heat denatures the enzyme; if you start from a fresh pineapple, bring both juice and cut fruit to a boil first.
- "1 box gelatin"A period box of granulated gelatin held about 1 ounce, roughly four modern envelopes. That is a firm, sliceable jelly for this quantity of liquid; use two to three envelopes for a softer spoonable set.
- Sugar is not quantifiedThe method calls for sugar but the ingredient list omits it. For the roughly one quart of liquid here, 3/4 to 1 cup is in the usual range for a fruit jelly of this era, adjusted to the sweetness of the juice.
- The lemonsTwo lemons means their juice, about 1/3 cup, added with the other liquids. It sharpens the pineapple and is not enough acid to interfere with setting.
- Soaking, then dissolvingSoften the gelatin in the 1/2 pint of cold water for five minutes, then pour the hot sweetened liquid over it and stir until no granules remain against the side of the bowl. Undissolved gelatin settles into a rubbery layer at the bottom of the mould.
- When to add the fruitWait until the jelly is cold and just beginning to thicken to the texture of raw egg white. Added sooner, the pineapple floats to the top; added later, it will not distribute at all.
- Chilling and yieldFour to six hours in the refrigerator for a mould of about a quart, or overnight. Serves eight to ten. Dip the mould briefly in warm water to turn out.
Mrs. Wilson's book belongs to the moment when powdered gelatin had become cheap and reliable enough for ordinary households, replacing the long labour of boiling calves' feet or isinglass for a clear jelly. Moulded fruit jellies were prestige food in the nineteenth century precisely because they were difficult; by the 1910s a box of granulated gelatin and a tin of pineapple put the same effect within reach of any kitchen, and cookbooks of the period are thick with them. Pineapple in particular arrived through the canneries: Hawaiian canned pineapple and its juice were widely distributed in the United States by this time, which is also why the recipe works at all, since the canning process disables the enzyme that would otherwise ruin the set.