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Cherry Jam
Pick off stems and stone twenty-five pounds fresh, sound, ripe cherries, place in copper basin with a quart pure currant juice and sixteen pounds granulated sugar, mix well, set basin on brisk fire and cook for thirty minutes, frequently mixing meanwhile. Remove from fire, dip some jelly glasses in hot water for a few minutes, take up and wipe, then fill up with prepared cherries, etc., and let thoroughly cool off. Place a piece of wax paper lightly dipped in brandy on top of each glass, tightly cover, place in a cool place and use as directed.
A commercial-scale preserve written for a hotel kitchen: twenty-five pounds of cherries will fill a household stockpot to the brim. Scale it down by four or five and the method holds up well.
- Scale it downDivide by five for a manageable batch: 5 lb pitted cherries, generous 3/4 cup currant juice, and 3 lb 4 oz (about 7 cups) granulated sugar. The full recipe yields roughly 20 to 24 pints; the fifth-batch about 4 to 5 pints.
- Why currant juiceCherries are low in pectin, and sweet cherries are low in acid as well, so they set poorly on their own. The currant juice supplies both. Fresh or bottled unsweetened red currant juice works; if you cannot find it, commercial pectin plus lemon juice is the modern substitute, though the flavour is flatter.
- The copper basinAn unlined copper preserving pan conducts heat evenly and its sloping sides speed evaporation. Any wide, heavy, non-reactive pan does the same job. Depth matters less than surface area, and a wide pan will reach the set faster than a tall one.
- Thirty minutes is a guide, not a ruleBoiling time depends on your pan and your fruit. Test for set rather than watching the clock: 220F on a candy thermometer at sea level, or a spoonful chilled on a cold plate that wrinkles when pushed.
- Sweet or sour cherriesThe recipe says only 'ripe cherries'. Sour varieties (Morello, Montmorency) give a better balance against 16 lb of sugar. Sweet cherries will make a cloying jam unless you cut the sugar and add lemon juice for acid.
- PittingThere is no shortcut for twenty-five pounds. A hand pitter saves considerable time; the old kitchen trick of a hairpin or a paper clip works but is slow. Save the juice that runs out and add it to the pan.
- Sealing is the outdated partBrandy-dipped wax paper under a lid was the standard antique seal and it relies on the alcohol and the sugar to hold off surface mould. It is not a vacuum seal. Fill sterilised half-pint jars, leave 1/4 inch headspace, and process in a boiling-water bath for 10 minutes; otherwise treat the jam as a refrigerator preserve and use it within a month.
- "Use as directed"A stock closing phrase. This is a breakfast and tea-table jam, and serves as a filling for jam tarts and a rolled sponge.
The International Cook Book (1906) was compiled by Alexander Filippini, long the chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its proportions give the game away: twenty-five pounds of cherries at a time is restaurant work, put up in high summer for a house that would serve jam every morning of the year. The reliance on currant juice rather than commercial pectin is characteristic of the moment just before packaged pectin became widely available, when preservers reached for a second, sharper fruit to supply the setting power that cherries lack. The brandy-dipped paper laid over the surface is older still, a technique found throughout eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English and American household books, where the alcohol was understood to discourage the mould that formed on any preserve stored in an unheated larder over the winter.