HOME PRESERVING AND CANNING 



165 



laws these will not be allowed to pass for the real 

 article. 



Homemade preserves for market. 



Notwithstanding the consolidation of industries, 

 there is a constant demand for high-grade home- 

 made preserves at prices as high as for other fine 

 hand-work. Every detail must be looked after to 

 secure perfection. The price-list of any first-class 

 grocery in our large cities mentions certain " spe- 

 cialties " of Miss or Mrs. at fifty 



cents per quart-jar and upward. Even at the low- 

 est figure, a woman may earn more money at home 

 than she can save from city wages, but she must 

 control her conditions to secure a regular income 

 in this way. Much cheap jelly has been made from 

 poor fruit sweetened with glucose and flavored 

 artificially, while in some sections of the country 

 fruit rotted on the ground. 



There are many combinations of fruits possible 

 which would be more attractive to customers than 

 some of the usual articles. Such are pears cooked 

 in grape- juice, currants with raspberries, barber- 

 ries with wild apples. Insipid fruits are improved 

 by combination with raisins, lemon-peel or spices. 

 Ground spices are easily added and are not objec- 

 tionable in a dark marmalade or ketchup. Whole 

 spices may be tied loosely in a bag, and cooked in 

 water from which syrup is to be made, while, in 

 some cases, oils and essences are preferred to either 

 whole or ground spice. 



Economies of preserving. 



There are many women who would do better to 

 employ some country friend to provide them with 

 a supply of canned fruits, jellies and the like, than 

 to do it for themselves if they must buy all the 

 fruit. Whether for ourselves or for sale, much 

 discretion is necessary to adapt the fruit at hand 

 to the many varieties in preserves. We can sel- 

 dom raise or buy perfect fruit, therefore it must 

 be sorted carefully. To preserve whole, select that 

 of uniform medium size and good shape. From 

 abnormal sizes and imperfect shapes parts may be 

 cut to preserve, and the remainder used for mar- 

 malades and the like, with the fully ripe fruit 

 which would not keep its shape to cook whole. 

 Clean skins and cores, undersized fruit and inferior 

 parts will yield ample material for jellies and fruit 

 syrups. This is the method we follow when cooking 

 meats : the large, tender, sections for roasts and 

 steaks, the smaller pieces of clear muscle for stews, 

 the bones and tough parts for soups. 



To keep its shape, fruit must be cooked slowly, 

 a few pieces at a time in syrup ; for other prepara- 

 tions it is better to add the sugar later. 



When a single variety of fruit must be the 

 main dependence, it should appear in as many 

 forms as possible, and with different flavors. 

 Peaches, for example, may be cooked whole, or in 

 halves, or in slices, with little sugar or much, with 

 cracked pits for the flavor, or in spiced vinegar, or 

 made into marmalade. 



About one pound of fruit will be required for 

 each pint-jar of preserve, and this pound will 



measure roughly, one quart before cooking. Thus, 

 a woman may estimate the number of jars to be 

 secured from a given quantity of fruit. In this 

 way she can decide whether to buy fruit and pre- 

 pare it for herself, to pay some one else for skilled 

 hand labor, or to depend on the factories. 



Evaporating. 



[The home evaporating of fruits under eastern 

 conditions is described on pages 174 to 177. A 

 note may be inserted here on the sun-drying of 

 fruit in dry regions. There is practically no evap- 

 orating in California as it is understood at the 

 East or in the moist-air sections of Oregon and 

 Washington. Evaporating machines and houses are 

 practically unknown as home devices, although 

 they are used in connection with large canneries 

 for the purpose of saving fruit which is a little too 

 ripe for the canning process. Not less than nine- 

 tenths of all the dried fruit produced in California 

 is cured by sunshine in the open air ; and by wise 

 use of sulfur fumes immediately after cutting dis- 

 coloration is prevented, so that California sun-dried 

 fruit sells as "evaporated." Thirty years ago many 

 evaporators were erected to apply the Alden and 

 other pioneer processes, but they were all abandoned 

 as soon as the proper, sun-drying process was 

 developed. Since then repeated attempts have been 

 made to introduce various styles of evaporators, 

 without success, because no artificial drying agency 

 is so cheap as sunshine acting under the very dry 

 summer air and practical absence of rains. Con- 

 sult 'Chapter XXXV, Wickson "California Fruits," 

 3d edition ; also bulletins of Oregon and Washing- 

 ton Experiment Stations. — Editor.] 



Canning. 



Although in some respects a simpler process 

 than those already described, the discussion of 

 canning has been left until the last because it 

 is a later discovery. 



When fruits and vegetables are freed from bac- 

 teria and packed in air-tight cans, little or no 

 preservative material need be combined with them. 

 Hence, canned fruits, being in a more natural form 

 and more dilute than jams and preserves, are con- 

 sidered to be more digestible than such prepara- 

 tions dense with sugar. 



Acid materials, as rhubarb or cranberries, may 

 be canned without cooking. The cut pieces are put 

 in glass jars, the spaces filled with fresh cold water, 

 and the jars sealed. Thus the sour juices act some- 

 thing like vinegar as a preservative. 



Usually, however, sterilization by heat is essen- 

 tial. The fresher and cleaner the article to be 

 canned, the more certain we are of securing com- 

 plete sterilization. Overripe fruit, or that exposed 

 in dusty markets, may harbor bacteria not easily 

 destroyed at the boiling-point. Here the home 

 canner cannot compete with the factory, as there 

 it is possible through steam under pressure to 

 secure a higher temperature. 



Firm fruits may be stewed or steamed and then 

 packed in jars. The softer fruits may be steamed in 

 thin syrup or, better still to preserve their form and 



