Conserve
Five pounds of currants, five pounds of sugar, three pounds of seeded raisins, six oranges; grate the rind of two, add the pulp, discarding seeds and membrane. Cook currants twenty minutes; add sugar, cook seven minutes; add raisins, cook three minutes; add oranges, cook seven minutes. After the currants are cooked, let it boil slowly thirty-five minutes.
Gooseberries may be used in place of currants and are very delicious.
A straightforward high-sugar fruit conserve, but the instructions are written for a cook who already knows what a preserving kettle behaves like. A few things need translating.
- Which currantsThese are red or white garden currants (Ribes), fresh and stemmed, not the dried Zante currants sold in the baking aisle. Five pounds is a large amount for a supermarket; expect to buy frozen, or use the gooseberries the recipe offers as an alternative.
- Seeded raisinsHistorically this meant large raisins, often muscats, with the seeds removed by hand or with a raisin seeder. Modern Thompson seedless raisins are the direct substitute, no preparation needed.
- The orangesGrate the zest of two only, then work over a bowl: peel all six, pull the segments free of the tough membrane and pith, flick out any seeds, and add the flesh with its juice. Including the membrane makes the finished conserve stringy and bitter.
- Read the timings as one continuous boilRead the timings carefully -- the staged additions total 37 minutes. The closing line, "After the currants are cooked, let it boil slowly thirty-five minutes," is ambiguous: it most plainly means a further slow boil after the additions, which would put the total near seventy minutes, though it may be intended as a restatement of the overall time. Judge by set rather than by the clock.
- Judge by set, not the clockSugar concentration, not elapsed time, decides whether this jells. Cook to 220F on a candy thermometer, or until a spoonful chilled on a cold saucer wrinkles when pushed. Currants are high in pectin and acid, so it will set readily once enough water has gone.
- The potThirteen pounds of fruit and sugar plus six oranges in one vessel scorches easily and boils over. Use the widest heavy-bottomed pan you own, fill it no more than a third, and stir often with a flat-edged wooden spoon; splitting the batch in two is more reliable than one deep kettle.
- SealingThe recipe gives no instructions for putting it up. Paraffin sealing, once common, is no longer accepted practice: follow a current water-bath canning guide for processing times and headspace, or refrigerate and use within a few weeks.
- YieldRoughly nine to eleven pints, depending on how far you reduce it.
In American cookbooks of this period a conserve was a specific thing rather than a loose synonym for jam: a preserve built on one main fruit but extended with raisins, citrus, and often nuts, cooked to a thick, chunky spoon-sweet. Currants and gooseberries recur through the preserve chapters of turn-of-the-century books because both were staples of the American kitchen garden and both are naturally rich in pectin and acid, which meant they set without the commercial pectin that only became widely available in the 1910s and 1920s. The oranges here are the luxury note; Florida and California fruit was by then reaching northern markets by rail cheaply enough that a housewife could put six of them into a summer batch of preserves. The interchangeability of gooseberries and currants, noted almost as an afterthought, reflects a household cooking whatever the bushes gave that week.