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Rhubarb and Orange Jam
Wash, scrape, and slice the rhubarb; to each pint add 3/4 pound of sugar, and the rind and pulp of 3 oranges. Discard the pith and seeds. Cook slowly for 2 hours. Put into jars and seal. This and the one above, made with lemons, are excellent to eat for breakfast, with hot cakes.
A two-ingredient spring preserve written for a coal range, where "cook slowly for 2 hours" was a realistic description of a pan sitting at the back of the stove. On a modern burner the same jam sets in well under an hour.
- "To each pint" of rhubarbThe measure is volume of sliced stalks, not weight: one pint of 1/2-inch slices is roughly 1/2 pound. Against that, 3/4 lb of sugar is about 1 3/4 cups -- more sugar than fruit by weight, sweet even by the standards of a soft-set jam.
- Three oranges to a pintThat is a great deal of orange for one pint of rhubarb; the flavour will read as marmalade with rhubarb in it. Scale the citrus to the whole batch rather than multiplying it per pint if you are working with several pounds of stalks.
- Rind and pulp, no pithPare the zest with a peeler and shred it fine, then segment the oranges over the pan to catch the juice. Discarding the pith removes bitterness but also the best source of pectin, which is why the set here depends on long reduction.
- Cut the timeTwo hours over a slow fire was how a range-top preserve reduced. In a heavy pan over medium heat, rhubarb collapses in ten minutes and the jam reaches setting point in 25 to 40; past that it darkens to brown and tastes scorched.
- Test the setRhubarb is low in pectin, so judge by behaviour rather than the clock. Chill a saucer, drop a teaspoon of jam on it, and look for a surface that wrinkles when pushed; 220F on a thermometer is the same point.
- Scrape means peel"Wash, scrape, and slice" refers to stringier field rhubarb than most supermarket stalks. Thin forced stalks need no peeling; thick late-season ones benefit from having the outer skin pulled off.
- Sealing"Put into jars and seal" most likely meant paraffin wax poured over the top, which does not exclude mould reliably. Either process filled half-pint jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes, or skip canning and keep the jam refrigerated and eat it within a month.
- YieldA pint of rhubarb with its sugar and oranges gives roughly two half-pint jars.
Rhubarb was the first thing out of a northern kitchen garden, which is why nineteenth-century American cookbooks call it pie plant and pair it with whatever preserved citrus was on hand at the end of winter. Combining it with oranges or lemons does two jobs at once: the peel supplies aromatic bitterness and the fruit supplies a little of the pectin that rhubarb lacks, so the jam sets without commercial pectin, which only became available to home cooks in the early twentieth century. The note that this and its lemon twin are "excellent to eat for breakfast, with hot cakes" places it in the tradition of a sweet preserve served alongside griddle cakes rather than as a bread spread.