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Citron Preserves
Pare off rind, seed, cut in thin slices two inches long, weigh, and put in preserving kettle with water enough to cover; boil one hour, take out the melon, and to the water in kettle add as much sugar as there is melon by weight, boil until quite thick, replace melon, add two sliced lemons to each pound of fruit, boil twenty minutes, take out, boil syrup until it is very thick molasses, and pour it over the fruit.-Mrs. J. H. Robinson,
A straight 1:1 sugar preserve of the sort every late-nineteenth-century household put up in late summer. The recipe assumes you know what citron is, what a preserving kettle is, and how to judge a syrup by eye; here is the rest of it.
- What citron means hereNot the candied peel sold at Christmas. This is the citron melon (also called preserving melon or pie melon), a hard, pale, nearly flavorless watermelon relative grown specifically to be preserved. Green cooking pumpkin or an underripe watermelon rind is the usual modern stand-in; the flesh must be firm enough to survive an hour of boiling.
- The preserving kettleA wide, heavy, unlined copper or enameled pan. Use any wide nonreactive pot with a heavy base — width matters more than depth, since the syrup has to evaporate. Aluminum and bare cast iron will discolor the fruit and the lemon.
- Sugar by weightWeigh the pared, seeded, sliced melon before it goes into the water, and match that weight in sugar exactly. Roughly 2 cups of granulated sugar per pound. This 1:1 ratio is what makes the preserve keep.
- The lemon quantity is ambiguous"Two sliced lemons to each pound of fruit" would be an extraordinary amount of lemon — several pounds of citrus for a modest batch. A smaller quantity for the whole batch may be what was meant. If you scale it down, start with two lemons total for 4-5 lb of melon and taste.
- Judging the syrup"Very thick molasses" has to be judged by eye: a syrup that sheets off the spoon rather than dripping freely. The phrase "boil until quite thick" in the first stage means reduced but still pourable — do not take it too far before the melon goes back in, or the fruit will not absorb syrup.
- Why the melon comes out and goes backBoiling the fruit in plain water first softens it; candying it afterward in stages keeps the slices translucent instead of shriveled. Rushing the melon straight into heavy syrup toughens it.
- Yield and keepingThe recipe gives no sealing instruction, and paraffin or a covered crock were both in use at the time. Follow current water-bath canning guidance for a high-sugar fruit preserve, or refrigerate and use within a month.
The citron melon was a kitchen-garden crop grown for one purpose: it kept for months in a cool cellar, had no flavor of its own, and would take on whatever sugar, lemon and spice you gave it. That made it invaluable in a household economy where fresh fruit was seasonal and preserves were the winter dessert. The Dixie Cook-Book carries many of its preserves under contributors' names — Mrs. J. H. Robinson here — as a number of compiled cookbooks of the period did. The confusion between preserving citron and the true citron (Citrus medica, whose candied peel goes into fruitcake) is old and persistent, and it is often said that the melon took the name precisely because its finished preserve was used as a cheap substitute for the imported candied peel in cakes and puddings.