HOME PRESERVING AND CANNING 



163 



thick syrup and drying rapidly in the open air. 

 The syrup remaining is worked up into various 

 confections. Housekeepers frequently use up their 

 orange and lemon skins in this way, and keep them 

 in salt water until enough accumulate to make it 

 worth while to prepare them. The salted skins are 

 first boiled in fresh water to remove the salt and 

 make them tender, then they are cooked in the 

 syrup. Sweet flag and ginger roots should be 

 cooked in several waters, to remove the too in- 

 tense flavor before they are candied. The yellow 

 plum tomatoes make a fair substitute for figs, if 

 treated in this way. In all cases care must be 

 taken not to cook the fruit at too high tempera- 

 ture or to dry it too much. 



Fruit butter. 



Fruit butters seem to be of Dutch or German 

 origin. They are smooth pastes made by long-con- 

 tinued stirring. They are given their name from 

 being used as or in place of butter. Sometimes 

 several fruits are combined. Skins and seeds are 

 removed, but the mass is not sifted. Sugar may or 

 may not be used. The apple butter of Pennsylva- 

 nia and Ohio is closely akin to the cider apple 

 sauce of New England, but is usually a smoother 



To make apple butter, sweet cider is boiled 

 down one-half, then pared and cored apples are 

 put in it. There should be rather more apple than 

 cider, but if too thick add more cider ; if too thin 

 add more apples. Stir with a wooden paddle till a 

 rich, dark color and the desired consistency are 

 secured. Further evaporation may be secured by 

 putting the butter in stone jars in a slow oven. 

 Spice may be added for variety, or when the apples 

 are of inferior flavor. The better the apples and 

 the more care given to every detail, the better 

 will be the result. This product has had a market 

 value, but is used mainly for home consumption, 

 always ready as a relish for any meal. Apple-but- 

 ter "frolics" once ranked with corn-huskings 

 among the autumn festivities. (Fig. 239.) 



Jam. 



Jam is the general English term for any fruit 

 conserve. The origin of the word seems evident, 

 but it is also traced to words meaning t-> congeal 

 or thicken. Jams are usually made from the 

 smaller fruits and berries, which may be jammed 

 or mashed without previous cooking and which do 

 not require the straining and longer process in- 

 volved in jellies, marmalades or fruit butter. The 

 fruit is cleaned, put into the kettle and jammed 

 with a wooden masher as it heats, enough juice 

 flowing out at once to prevent burning. Since no 

 water is added, less time is required for evapora- 

 tion, and in most cases cooking for half an hour 

 is enough before the sugar is put in ; then cooking 

 should continue five or ten minutes more. As com- 

 monly known, jams are seldom as firm as jellies 

 and marmalades. Similar compounds are some- 

 times called fruit purees. 



Currants, if clean and thoroughly mashed, may 

 be combined with an equal amount of sugar, and 



will keep without cooking if packed in sealed jars, 

 their natural acid being enough to repel bacteria. 



Marmalade. 



"After a good dinner, left Mrs. Hunt and my 

 wife making a marmalett of quinces," says Mr. 

 Pepys in his Diary, November 2, 1663 ; so mar- 

 malade is no new product. The derivation of the 

 word shows that the quince was probably the first 

 fruit used in this way. Its modern form is usually 

 made from acid and semi-bitter fruits, and has a 

 texture between the fruit butter or jam and jel- 

 lies. The fleshy fruits with much pulp are desira- 

 ble for this purpose, and those too ripe to keep 

 their shape if preserved whole may be used. 



Some fruits may yield material for both jelly 

 and marmalade. The cleaned fruit is cooked, with 

 water enough to prevent burning, until soft. The 

 clear juice is then drained off for jelly, and the 

 pulp while still warm is sifted through coarse 

 cheese-cloth (or a hair sieve, a purSe strainer, or 

 potato ricer) for marmalade. To avoid burning, 

 the fruit pulp may then be cooked until thick 

 before adding sugar, which is generally used in a 

 smaller proportion than for jelly. Fruit lacking 

 flavor may be improved by moderate use of spice. 



Firm, solid marmalade, cut in strips and rolled 

 in sugar, may form an agreeable addition to a 

 box of homemade candy. In England, experiments 

 have been tried of packing fruit pulp, cooked with 

 sugar, in brick form, when it will keep indefinitely 





Fig. 239. Making apple butter. (Adarted from " Rural 

 New-Yorker.") 



in a wrapping of waxed paper. For use, these 

 fruit bricks may be reduced with water as desired. 



JeUy. 



The ideal jelly is transparent, of uniform con- 

 sistency throughout, firm enough to come from the 

 glass in one mass and retain its shape, but with a 

 quivering texture which divides readily and with- 

 out any approach to gumminess. Some fruits are 

 not adapted to jelly-making, though ambitious 

 housewives, wishing to display a great variety, 

 attempt to utilize all kinds of fruits. This effort 

 is often the cause of failure to secure perfect 



