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Green Gage Jam
Wash the fruit, and to each pound allow 1 pound of sugar. Remove the stones, cover with the sugar, and let it stand for 6 hours. Simmer until it is thick, press through a colander, cook 1 hour more, and put in jars.
A plain equal-weight preserve of the old school: fruit and sugar, no pectin, no thermometer. Two things need updating, the total cooking time and the way it is sealed.
- The hinge: cook to a set, not to a clockIgnore the stated hour of second cooking and work to a set point instead, about 220F on a candy thermometer, or until a spoonful chilled on a cold saucer wrinkles when pushed. Greengages are reasonably high in pectin and acid, and a full hour of extra boiling after the puree stage will usually take the jam past a set into something dark and caramelised.
- Equal weightsOne pound of sugar to one pound of stoned fruit is the classic preserving ratio and is what makes the jam keep. Reducing the sugar substantially changes the chemistry and the shelf life; if you want a lower-sugar jam, use a modern recipe written for it.
- The six-hour standNot idle time. The sugar draws juice out of the fruit so it starts in syrup rather than sticking dry to the pan. Cover and leave at room temperature, or overnight in the refrigerator if the kitchen is warm.
- Pressing through a colanderThis is the step that separates the skins from the pulp and gives a smoother jam. A food mill with a fine plate does it faster; a colander alone will let some skin through. If you like skins in your jam, skip it and simply cook the fruit down.
- Stoning greengagesThe stones cling. Halve along the natural seam and twist, or, easier, simmer the fruit briefly first and lift the stones out as they loosen. Do not crack the stones for the kernels, as some old preserving books suggest.
- ScorchingOnce the puree is thick it burns readily. Use a wide, heavy pan, stir down to the bottom corners, and drop the heat as it approaches the set.
- Sealing"Put in jars" meant hot jam into hot jars under a paper or wax seal. Current practice is to fill sterilised jars to within a quarter inch of the rim, wipe the rims, apply two-piece lids and process in a boiling-water bath for ten minutes. Unprocessed jars keep in the refrigerator for a few weeks.
- YieldRoughly four to five half-pint jars per two pounds of stoned fruit, less if you cook it hard.
- If you cannot find greengagesTheir season is short, high summer into early autumn. Any small, firm, honeyed green or yellow plum behaves the same way here; damsons work but give a much sharper, darker jam.
The greengage is a plum, Prunus domestica subsp. italica, known in France as the Reine Claude after Claude of France and in England by the surname of the Gage family of Suffolk, who are traditionally credited with introducing it in the early eighteenth century. It has dense flesh, a high sugar content and enough acid and pectin to set without help, which is exactly why this recipe needs nothing but fruit and sugar. Recipes of this kind sit naturally in a chapter on preserves and confections, where the summer glut was the point and a shelf of sealed jars was ordinary domestic economy rather than a hobby.