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French Jam
The addition of one pound of raisins to each gallon of currant jam converts this into very fine French jam. - Mrs. S. C., Paris, Ky.
A one-line variation rather than a standalone recipe: it assumes you already have currant jam in the pot. The only real decisions are ratio, timing and what kind of raisin.
- The ratioA gallon of jam is 16 cups, a very large batch by modern standards. Working proportionally, 1 lb raisins per gallon comes to about 1 oz raisins per cup, or roughly 4 oz for a 4-cup batch.
- Which raisinsRaisins of the period were commonly seeded muscatels or Malaga raisins, which had to be stoned by hand and were larger and more perfumed than today's Thompson seedless. Dark raisins or seedless muscats give the closest flavour; sultanas are milder and disappear into the currants.
- When to add themStir the raisins in near the end of the boil. Added at the start they are liable to overcook and to soak up syrup; added off the heat they may stay hard and dry.
- Chop or leave wholeWhole raisins float and pack into the top of the jar. A rough chop distributes them and lets them plump properly in the hot syrup.
- SetRed currants are among the highest-pectin fruits there is, so this needs no added pectin — but raisins dilute the acid and pectin slightly. Test on a chilled saucer before jarring rather than trusting a fixed boiling time.
- CurrantsThese are ribes currants — red, white or black — not dried Zante currants, which are a small grape. Fresh currants are seasonal and often easier to find frozen; frozen work as well as fresh for jam.
- Putting it upPeriod practice would have been hot jam into hot jars under a paper or paraffin seal; the recipe itself says nothing about sealing. Use a current water-bath canning guide for processing times, or simply refrigerate and eat within a month.
"French jam" here is a marketing name more than a geographic one — in American cookbooks of the period, attaching "French" to a preserve, a dressing or a way of cutting beans signalled refinement and a little extra trouble taken. Red currants were a fixture of the nineteenth-century kitchen garden, prolific, intensely acidic and so full of pectin that they set almost by themselves, which is why currant jelly and jam appear in nearly every regional cookbook of the period. Adding raisins is a thrifty enrichment: it stretches the yield, softens the currant's sharpness with concentrated grape sugar, and gives the jam body. Note that the contributor is credited only as Mrs. S. C. of Paris, Kentucky — The Dixie Cook Book was assembled from reader contributions in the pattern of Estelle Woods Wilcox's other compilations.