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Grape Conserve
2 pints grapes 2 oranges 1 cup seeded raisins 2 2/3 cups sugar 1 cup walnut-meats Wash, stem, and seed the grapes. Slice the oranges very thin, and add to the grapes. Add the raisins and sugar and cook until the mixture is transparent and thick. Add the chopped walnut-meats. Pack while hot in hot, clean jars and seal.
A conserve is a jam carried a step further with dried fruit, citrus and nuts. This one relies entirely on the grapes' own pectin and acid, so the cooking stage is where it succeeds or fails.
- Cook to a set, not to a clockNo time is given because none can be: cook until a spoonful cooled on a chilled plate wrinkles and holds, around 220F at sea level. "Transparent and thick" is the visual cue for the same point, but the plate test is more reliable in a wide pan.
- The grapesTwo pints means about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lb. The instruction to seed points to seeded fruit, most likely a slip-skin American grape such as Concord, though the recipe does not say. With slip-skins you can squeeze the pulp from the skins, simmer the pulp briefly and sieve out the seeds, then return the skins; picking seeds from whole grapes by hand is possible but slow. Seedless table grapes will work but give a thinner, blander conserve with less natural pectin.
- Oranges, peel and allSlicing them very thin means peel is going into the pot. Use thin-skinned fruit, slice paper-thin, and if the peel tastes harsh, blanch the slices in boiling water for a minute or two and drain before adding. Unblanched thick peel can stay tough after the sugar goes in.
- Sugar2 2/3 cups is about 18 1/2 oz or 530 g. It is well under the weight of fruit, which is why the mixture needs real reduction to set and why the finished conserve will not keep as long as a full-sugar jam.
- Nuts lastChopped walnuts go in after the cooking is finished so they stay crisp and do not tint the conserve grey. Toasting them first improves the flavour and helps them hold up in the jar.
- SealingPacking hot into hot jars was the standard method in 1929, but current practice is a boiling-water bath: 10 minutes for half-pints, adjusted for altitude. Without it, treat the jars as refrigerator preserves and use them within a few weeks.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; expect roughly four to five half-pint jars, a little more if the mixture is taken off early on the soft side.