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Save Money on Lemons
By purchasing several dozen lemons during the season when they are cheapest the housewife can save considerable money. All the juice should be squeezed from the lemons, strained through a cloth and placed in glass jars. To one part of juice two parts of sugar are added. Lemon-juice stored in this way is all ready to use for puddings, ices or fruit-drinks. -Mrs. J. L. E., Shawnee, Okla.
This is a lemon syrup in all but name: juice cut with twice its bulk of sugar, which both sweetens and preserves. A few points need pinning down before you scale up a bargain crate of lemons.
- The ratio is by volumeThe ratio -- The recipe does not say whether the parts are measured by volume or by weight; a household tip of this kind most likely means cupfuls. Two cups of granulated sugar to one cup of juice gives a very heavy syrup that will not pour cold until the sugar has fully dissolved.
- Dissolve the sugar properlyStir until no grit remains at the bottom of the jar, or warm the mixture gently without boiling. Undissolved sugar settles, leaving the top layer dilute enough to ferment or mold.
- YieldA dozen medium lemons give roughly 2 to 2 1/2 cups of juice; with twice that volume of sugar dissolved into it the finished syrup comes to a good deal more. "Several dozen" is a considerable amount of jar space.
- Strained through a clothThis means removing pulp and pips so the syrup stays clear. A fine mesh sieve does the same job; cheesecloth if you want it bright.
- Storage, then and nowThe recipe says only that the juice goes into glass jars; it specifies neither sealing nor where they were kept. Keep it in the refrigerator, where it holds for months, or freeze it in ice-cube trays and bag the cubes. Nothing here is heat-processed, so a room-temperature pantry is not the place for it.
- Using itBecause the syrup is two-thirds sugar, subtract the sugar you add elsewhere. For a lemonade, figure roughly one part syrup to five or six parts water and adjust; in a pudding or ice, reduce the recipe's sugar by about two-thirds of the volume of syrup used.
- Don't waste the peelThe recipe squeezes and discards, but the aromatic oil is in the zest. Grate it first and freeze it, or bury the peels in sugar to make a lemon sugar.
Buying citrus at the seasonal low and putting it up in sugar was ordinary thrift at a time when lemons arrived by rail from California and Sicily and were dear out of season; a heavy sugar syrup was the cheapest preservative in any kitchen, working by drawing water away from the microbes that would otherwise spoil the juice. Commercially bottled lemon juice and, later, frozen concentrate made the practice largely unnecessary, but the principle is the one behind every lemon cordial and sherbet syrup: acid plus a great deal of sugar keeps.