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Pineapple Preserve
Pare the pineapples, and with a sharp, pointed knife extract the eyes; then with a silver fork tear the fruit off the cores in pieces of moderate size. Weigh when all is stripped from the cores, and allow a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit; place in a kettle alternate layers of fruit and sugar until all is used, adding a scanty cup of water to every pound of sugar. Heat slowly to the boiling point, and when the fruit has been scalded three minutes, skim it and spread on a platter, returning to the kettle all the syrup that drains from the fruit. Boil the syrup half an hour, skimming frequently; then add the pineapple, and boil fifteen minutes, when it should be done. If the syrup is not as thick as you wish, skim out the fruit, again, and boil the syrup down to the desired consistency, cooling a little in a saucer to test its thickness, and always remembering that it will become much richer in color after it has been set away a short time. Return the fruit again for a final scalding, and set it away for use. PEACH PRESERVE, No. I-Weigh the peaches after they have been pared and pitted, and allow a pound of sugar to each pound of fruit. Save all the pits. Crack a quarter of them, cut the kernels in pieces, cover with water, and steep slowly in a covered vessel until the flavor is extracted-about ten minutes is sufficient. Place the fruit and sugar in alternate layers in the preserving-kettle, until all of both is used; then add the strained water from the kernels, and heat all very slowly to draw out the juice of the fruit; this is the only wetting required. Boil until the fruit is tender, stirring frequently to prevent burning, but being careful not to break the peaches. When boiled sufficiently, skim out the fruit and lay it on a platter, returning to the kettle the syrup that drains from it. Put the remaining pits in the syrup, and boil until it is as thick as desired, skimming off any froth that may appear. Skim out the pits and set them aside, and return the fruit to the syrup for a final heating; then place the peaches in glass jars, distributing the pits through them. The stones add much to the flavor and color, but they should, of course, be removed before the preserves are sent to the table. Twelve pounds of peaches will make eight quart jars of preserve.
PEACH PRESERVE, No. 2-For this variety of preserve use the clingstone peaches, paring them and leaving in the stones. Allow three-fourths of a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit. Place in the kettle a teacup of water for every four pounds of fruit and then the fruit and sugar in alternate layers. Boil until the peaches can be pierced with a steel fork, after which skim out the fruit and boil down the syrup to the same consistency as in the preceding recipe; then return the fruit for a final heating. This preserve should be kept in wide-mouthed glass jars or a small stone jar. *TOMATO PRESERVE-Select the little yellow tomatoes that are but little larger than small plums; pour boiling water over them and cover tightly for two minutes, then quickly drain and cover with cold water. This will generally loosen the skins. Peel the tomatoes, being careful not to break them; and if any are found with the skins still unloosened, set them aside, to be again treated with boiling water. Weigh the tomatoes, and allow a pound of sugar to each pound of fruit. Place the sugar and tomatoes in the preserving-kettle, in layers as previously directed, but do not add any water. Heat very slowly, and boil until the tomatoes look withered, being careful to keep them whole. Now skim them out lay them on a platter, and boil down the syrup to the desired thick-, ness. Return the fruit to the kettle; when scalded it is ready to be set away in glass jars. Have in readiness some thin slices of lemon cut crosswise of the fruit (do not peel the lemon nor remove. the seeds); place two of these slices in a jar, then a cup of preserve, then two more slices of lemon, and SO on until the jar is running over; then screw on the top. This preserve is remarkably piquant in flavor. Four quarts of tomatoes and at least five lemons will be needed to make two quarts and a pint of preserve.
Four preserves run together here, and all of them end with the same instruction: pack the hot fruit into jars and set it away. That is open-kettle canning, abandoned by every current canning authority, and one of the four recipes also flavours the syrup with cracked peach kernels. The notes below explain the terms and why the method fails rather than repairing it.
- No processing, no seal you can trustEvery one of these preserves is finished by ladling hot fruit into jars and screwing on a top, with no boiling-water bath and no stated time or temperature. A high-sugar preserve is hostile to bacteria, but the vacuum from an unprocessed jar is unreliable and mould and yeast spoilage from air drawn in during cooling is common. Use a current tested preserving recipe with a measured water-bath time.
- The peach kernelsPeach Preserve No. 1 cracks a quarter of the pits, steeps the kernels and puts the whole pits back into the syrup. Peach kernels contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide when the kernel is crushed and wetted — the same chemistry that makes bitter almonds dangerous. The quantity is set only as a proportion of the pits from the fruit used, with no weight and no steeping strength given, so the dose is not controlled. This is why the recipe is flagged.
- The yellow tomatoesTomato Preserve relies on sugar and unpeeled lemon slices layered into the jar for acidity, with no measured acid addition. Tomatoes sit near the borderline pH for safe unpressurised canning and older varieties vary widely, so the lemon here is a flavouring rather than a controlled acidification.
- "A scanty cup" and "a teacup"A scanty cup is just under 8 fl oz; period teacup measures are not standardised and are given variously, from about 4 to 6 fl oz, smaller than a modern measuring cup. Both are approximations by design — the water is only there to start the sugar dissolving before the fruit gives up its own juice.
- Why a silver forkTearing pineapple from the core with a silver fork rather than a steel one was standard advice because ordinary carbon steel of the period discoloured acid fruit and left a metallic taste. Modern stainless steel raises no such problem.
- "Eyes" and coresThe eyes are the tough fibrous nodes left in the flesh after paring; a pointed knife digs them out individually. The recipe calls for tearing rather than cutting the flesh off the core, which leaves a ragged piece; the cores are tough and fibrous and the recipe does not use them.
- Scale and yieldThe book gives figures only where it chooses to: twelve pounds of peaches yields eight quart jars of Peach Preserve No. 1, and four quarts of small yellow tomatoes with at least five lemons yields two quarts and a pint. The pineapple recipe gives no yield at all.
- Testing the syrupCooling a spoonful in a saucer is a legitimate test and still the quickest one. The recipe gives no temperature; modern jam-making treats about 220F at sea level as the setting point, though here the syrup is only boiled to a chosen consistency. The remark that the syrup deepens in colour after standing is the book's own observation.
The Butterick Cook Book belongs to a period when home preserving occupied a substantial part of a general cookbook, because a household's winter fruit depended on it. Pound-for-pound preserve — equal weights of fruit and sugar, the fruit lifted out so the syrup can be reduced without breaking it — was a standard high-end method, distinct from jam, in which the fruit is deliberately broken down. Pineapple appearing beside peaches and tomatoes reflects the steamer traffic that brought fruit from the Caribbean and, increasingly, Hawaii to Eastern cities cheaply enough for a middle-class cook to buy several at once and preserve them. The tomato preserve belongs to an older habit of treating the tomato as a fruit for sweetmeats, a use found in nineteenth-century American cookbooks; small yellow varieties were used for it because they held their shape and were less watery than the large red kinds. The peach-kernel trick is likewise old, and kernel-flavoured cordials such as noyau use the same flavouring.