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Greengage Jam
Select sound ripe greengages, split them down the sides and remove the stones; put the fruit in a preserving-pan with a little water, stew them until quite tender, then rub the fruit through a sieve, put the pulp in the preserving-pan again, and for every six pounds of fruit, put in four and a half pounds of sugar. Stir with a wooden spoon and boil very fast, skimming off the scum as it rises. When the jam drops from the spoon like a thick jelly, it is done. Fill jars with it, let it cool, then cover with rounds of writing paper, dipped in brandy, and then with bladder. This jam should be kept in a dry cupboard until wanted.
A straightforward sieved plum jam, written when jars were sealed with brandy-soaked paper and a piece of bladder rather than a lid. The fruit ratio is sound; the sealing is the part to replace.
- The set point is the whole recipe"drops from the spoon like a thick jelly" is a version of the sheet or flake test, and it works, but a thermometer is faster: about 220F at sea level, a degree or two lower if you prefer a softer set. Sieved pulp scorches easily, so keep the spoon moving across the bottom of the pan once it thickens.
- Sugar ratioSix pounds fruit to four and a half pounds sugar is 3 parts fruit to 2.25 parts sugar by weight, noticeably less sugar than a modern equal-weight jam. Greengages carry enough acid and pectin that it should set, but it will keep less aggressively than a 1:1 jam and wants refrigeration once opened.
- Preserving-panAny wide, heavy, non-reactive pan with a large surface area. Width matters more than depth; a tall stockpot traps steam and the jam takes far longer to reach setting point, which dulls the green colour.
- GreengagesA small green-gold plum, sold briefly in late summer and rarely stocked in supermarkets. Other yellow-fleshed plums or damsons work with the same method, though damsons are tarter and set harder.
- The stones and the sieveSplitting and stoning before cooking is worth the trouble, since stones make sieving miserable. The sieve step removes the skins, which is what gives this jam its smooth, almost purée texture rather than the chunky preserve most people expect.
- Paper and bladder are not a sealBrandied paper laid on the surface and a bladder tied over the top was the standard nineteenth-century mould barrier, not an airtight closure. Use sterilised jars with two-piece lids and process in a boiling water bath, or treat the jam as a refrigerator preserve and eat it within a month.
- YieldA large batch, on the order of ten to fourteen half-pint jars, depending how far you boil it down.
The greengage takes its English name from Sir William Gage, the Suffolk baronet whose family is generally credited with introducing the plum to England in the early eighteenth century; in France the same fruit is the reine-claude, named for Claude of France. Its short season and reluctance to travel made it a preserving fruit above all, and a smooth sieved jam like this one was the standard way to hold a glut through the winter. Oscar Tschirky's Cook Book (1896) includes a long run of such household preserves alongside the Waldorf's restaurant cookery, a reminder that the recipes it gathered came from the same domestic tradition as those in any family manuscript book. The brandy-dipped paper and bladder covering, already old-fashioned by 1896, survived in print for decades after screw-top jars had made it unnecessary.