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Watermelon Preserves
Pare off outside green rind, cut in pieces two inches long, weigh, throw into cold water, skim out, add a heaping tea-spoon each of salt and pulverized alum to two gallons of rinds, let stand until salt and alum dissolve, fill the kettle with cold water, and place on top of stove where it will slowly come to boiling point, covering with a large plate so as to keep rinds under; boil until they can be easily pierced with a fork, drain them from the water, and put into a syrup previously prepared as follows: Bruise and tie in a muslin bag four ounces of ginger-root, and boil in two or three pints of water until it is strongly flavored. At the same time boil in a little water until tender, in another pan, three or four sliced lemons; make a syrup of the sugar and the water in which the lemons and the ginger-root were boiled, add the rinds and slices of lemon to this and boil slowly half to three-quarters of an hour. Citrons may be prepared in the same way, by paring, coring and slicing, or cutting into fanciful shapes with tin cutters made for the purpose.
A thrift preserve that turns the pale inner rind of a watermelon into something translucent and gingery. The method is sound, but the original assumes you know the sugar ratio and how to put the jars up.
- The sugar is not statedThe instruction to weigh the rind is the clue, since preserves of this kind were commonly made to something near equal weights of prepared fruit and sugar, sometimes rather less. The book leaves it to the cook, so weigh the trimmed rind and decide before you start boiling the syrup.
- What part of the melonPare away all the green skin and every trace of pink flesh; only the firm white layer between them is used. A large melon yields surprisingly little, and two gallons of cut rind means several melons.
- AlumPowdered alum (potassium aluminium sulphate) was the standard crisping agent and is still sold for pickling, but a heaping teaspoon to two gallons of rind is a very light hand and it is easily left out. If you use it, drain and rinse the rind well after the soak, since excess alum leaves a puckering, metallic edge.
- The blanchBringing the rind up slowly from cold water, weighted under a plate, is what gives an even, glassy set rather than a rubbery outside and raw core. Test with a fork: it should give without collapsing, because the sugar boil will firm it again.
- Ginger rootThe book does not say whether the ginger is dried or green; four ounces bruised and tied in a muslin bag, simmered in two or three pints of water, makes a deliberately strong infusion either way, and that spiced water plus the lemon water is the entire liquid for the syrup. Fresh ginger is milder than dried, so use more and taste the water before you sugar it.
- CitronThe citron mentioned at the end is the citron melon, a hard white-fleshed relative of the watermelon grown specifically for preserving, not the citrus fruit sold as candied peel. It is rare in shops now; more rind, or a firm underripe melon, stands in.
- The final boilHalf to three-quarters of an hour at a slow boil is about right for the rind to go translucent and the syrup to thicken. Rushing it at a hard boil will candy the outside of the pieces before the centre clears.
- StorageThe recipe stops at the boil and says nothing about sealing. Treat the result as a refrigerator preserve, or follow a current tested water-bath canning process for high-sugar fruit preserves if you want it shelf stable.
- YieldTwo gallons of prepared rind is a large batch, enough to fill many jars. Scaling to a single melon is straightforward as long as the sugar stays proportional to the weighed rind.
Watermelon rind preserves are a classic piece of Southern household economy: the flesh was eaten in season and the rind, otherwise waste, was turned into a sweetmeat that kept through the winter. The alum soak reflects a nineteenth-century preoccupation with crispness in preserved fruit, a role now more often filled by pickling lime or simply by careful cooking. The Dixie Cook Book belongs to the family of large compiled American household manuals of the 1880s associated with Estelle Woods Wilcox, books assembled from contributed receipts and aimed at a cook who already knew her craft; the sugar quantity here goes unstated and the instruction is simply to weigh. The mention of citron melon and of tin cutters for fanciful shapes points to a garden crop and a bit of kitchen equipment that have both largely disappeared.