Home › Preserves › Grape Preserves
Grape Preserves
Pick grapes from the stems, pop pulps from the skins, doing two at a time, one in each hand between the thumb and forefinger. Put pulp in a porcelain kettle and stew gently until the seeds are loosened then strain and rub it through a sieve, weigh it with the skins, and to every pound of this allow one pound of granulated sugar. Put skins and juice in kettle, cover closely, and cook slowly until the skins are tender; while still boiling add the sugar, and move the kettle back, as it must not boil again; keep very hot for fifteen minutes, then, seeing that the sugar is thoroughly dissolved, pour the fruit in cans, and screw down the covers as soon as possible.
A classic slip-skin grape preserve, made by separating pulp from skins so the seeds can be sieved out and the skins cooked tender on their own. The instructions are sound; only the vessel, the sealing method and the vague heat cues need translating.
- The hinge: do not let it boil after the sugar goes inOnce the sugar is added the kettle is moved off the heat and held just below a boil for fifteen minutes. The recipe gives no temperature; something in the region of 180-190F answers to 'very hot' without boiling. Stir until every grain has dissolved.
- Which grapesThis only works with slip-skin varieties -- Concord, Niagara, Catawba, muscadine -- where the pulp pops free of the skin under thumb pressure. Modern seedless table grapes such as Thompson or red globe will not separate and have no skin flavor to contribute.
- Porcelain kettleThat means an enameled cast-iron or enamelware pot, i.e. a nonreactive one. Use enameled or stainless steel; bare aluminum and unlined copper react with the fruit acid and dull both color and flavor.
- Weighing, not measuringThe sugar is matched pound for pound to the combined weight of sieved pulp and skins, so a kitchen scale is essential.
- Stewing the pulpThe pulp needs only a few minutes over gentle heat -- until it breaks down and the seeds are loosened, roughly 5-10 minutes. Push it through a sieve or a food mill while hot. Discard seeds only, not the strained pulp.
- Cooking the skinsSkins may need a good while covered with the juice -- on the order of 15-25 minutes -- before they are genuinely tender. Test one between your teeth; underdone skins stay leathery in the finished jar.
- SetConcord-type grapes are high in pectin and acid, so this preserve thickens on cooling rather than in the pot. Do not judge consistency while hot or you will overcook it.
- Sealing"Screw down the covers as soon as possible" describes open-kettle sealing on the hot fill alone, which is no longer considered reliable. Follow current canning guidance for fruit preserves -- two-piece lids, headspace, and a boiling-water process -- or simply refrigerate the filled jars and use them within a few weeks.
Preserves of this kind depend entirely on the American slip-skin grape, whose skin separates cleanly from the pulp -- a trait that European wine grapes lack and that shaped a whole family of nineteenth-century recipes built around separating, sieving and reuniting the two parts. The Concord, selected in Concord, Massachusetts, and introduced commercially in 1854, had spread widely by the time compilations like The Dixie Cook Book appeared in the 1880s, and the fruit ripened all at once in early autumn. That glut may well explain the recipe's place in the Preserves chapter: pound-for-pound sugar was the standard keeping ratio, high enough to hold a jar through the winter, and the fussy two-handed popping of pulps from skins was simply what an afternoon's work looked like when the alternative was letting the crop fall.