CHAPTER XXIV.

=Preserves.= [Illustration: GENERAL REMARKS ON THE USE AND VALUE OF PRESERVED FRUIT. ] SIMPLE well-made preserves—especially those of our early summer fruits—are most valuable domestic stores, as they will retain through the entire year or longer,[164] their peculiarly grateful and agreeable flavour, and supply many wholesome and refreshing varieties of diet through the winter months and spring. They are, indeed, as conducive to health—when not cloyingly sweet or taken in excess—as good vegetables are; and they are inexpensive luxuries (if as _luxuries_ they must be regarded), now sugar is so very reasonable in price. By many families they are considered too much as mere superfluities of the table, and when served only—as they so often are—combined with rich pastry-crust or cream, or converted into ices and other costly preparations, may justly be viewed solely in that light. To be eaten in perfection they should be sufficiently boiled down to remain free from mould or fermentation, and yet not so much reduced as to be dry or hard; they should not afterwards be subjected to the heat of the oven,[165] but served with some plain pudding, or light dish of bread, rice, ribbon-macaroni, soujee, semoulina, &c. When intended for tartlets or creams, or fruit-sauces, for which see Chapter XX., they should be somewhat less boiled, and be made with a larger proportion of sugar. Footnote 164: We have had them _excellent_ at the end of three or four years, but they were made from the produce of a _home garden_, as freshly gathered, and carefully selected as it could be. Some clear apricot-marmalade, some strawberry-jelly, and some raspberry-jelly, were amongst those which retained their full flavour and transparency to the last. They were merely covered with two layers of thin writing paper pressed closely on them, after being saturated with spirits of wine. Footnote 165: For the manner of serving them in pastry without this, see “small _vol-au-vents_ and tartlets,” Chap. XVIII. Fruit steamed in bottles is now vended and consumed in very large quantities in this country, but it is not wholesome, as it produces often—probably from the amount of fixed air which it contains—violent derangement of the system. When the bottles are filled with water it is less apt to disagree with the eaters, but it is never so really wholesome as preserves which are made with sugar. That which is baked keeps remarkably well, and appears to be somewhat less objectionable than that which is steamed. The rich confectionary preparations called _wet preserves_ (fruits preserved in syrup), which are principally adapted to formal desserts, scarcely repay the cost and trouble of making them in private families, unless they be _often_ required for table. They are in general lusciously sweet, as they will only remain good with a large proportion of sugar; and if there be no favourable place of storage for them they soon spoil. When drained and well dried, they may much more easily be kept uninjured. The general directions for them, which we append, and the receipts for dried gooseberries, cherries, and apricots which we have inserted here will be sufficient for the guidance of the reader who may wish to attempt them. [Illustration: _Fourneau Economique_, or Portable French Furnace, with Stewpan and Trivet. No. 1. Portable French Furnace.—2. Depth at which the grating is placed.—3. Stewpan.—4. Trivet. ] [Illustration: Closed Furnace and Cover. ] [Illustration: Grating. ] [Illustration: Trevet. ] The small portable French stove, or furnace, shown in the preceding page, with the trivet and stewpan adapted to it, is exceedingly convenient for all preparations which require either more than usual attention, or a fire entirely free from smoke; as it can be placed on a table in a clear light, and the heat can be regulated at pleasure. It has been used for many of the preserves of which the receipts are given in this chapter, as well as for various dishes contained in the body of the work. There should always be a free current of air in the room in which it stands when lighted, as charcoal or _braise_ (that is to say, the live embers of large well-burned wood, drawn from an oven and shut immediately into a closely-stopped iron or copper vessel to extinguish them) is the only fuel suited to it. To kindle either of these, two or three bits must be lighted in a common fire, and laid on the top of that in the furnace, which should be evenly placed between the grating and the brim, and then blown gently with the bellows until the whole is alight: the door of the furnace must in the mean while be open, and remain so, unless the heat should at any time be too fierce for the preserves, when it must be closed for a few minutes, to moderate it. To extinguish the fire altogether, the cover must be pressed closely on, and the door be quite shut: the embers which remain will serve to rekindle it easily, but before it is again lighted the grating must be lifted out and all the ashes cleared away. It should be set by in a place which is not damp. In a common grate a clear fire for preserving may be made with coke, which is a degree less unwholesome than charcoal. The enamelled stewpans which have now come into general use, are, from the peculiar nicety of the composition with which they are lined, better adapted than any others to pickling and preserving, as they may be used without danger for acids; and red fruits when boiled in them retain the brightness of their colour as well as if copper or bell-metal were used for them. The form of the old-fashioned preserving-pan, made usually of one or the other of these, is shown here; but it has not, we should say, even the advantage of being of convenient shape; for the handles quickly become heated, and the pan, in consequence, cannot always be instantaneously raised from the fire when the contents threaten to over-boil or to burn. [Illustration: Copper preserving-pan. ] It is desirable to have three or four wooden spoons or spatulas, one fine hair-sieve, at the least, one or two large squares of common muslin, and one strainer or more of closer texture, kept exclusively for preparations of fruit; for if used for other purposes, there is the hazard, without great care, of their retaining some strong or coarse flavour, which they would impart to the preserves. A sieve, for example, used habitually for soup or gravy, should never, _on any account_, be brought into use for any kind of confectionary, nor in making sweet dishes, nor for straining eggs or milk for puddings, cakes, or bread. Damp is the great enemy, not only of preserves and pickles, but of numberless other household stores; yet, in many situations, it is extremely difficult to exclude it. To keep them in a “_dry cool place_” (words which occur so frequently both in this book, and in most others on the same subject), is more easily directed than done. They remain, we find, more entirely free from any danger of moulding, when covered with a brandied paper only, and placed on the shelves of a tolerably dry store-room, or in a chiffoneer (in which we have had them keep unchanged for years). When the slightest fermentation is perceptible in syrup, it should immediately be boiled for some minutes, and well skimmed; the fruit taken from it should then be thrown in, and well scalded also, and the whole, when done, should be turned into a very clean dry jar; this kind of preserve should always be covered with one or two skins or with parchment and thick paper when it is not secured from the air with corks. A FEW GENERAL RULES AND DIRECTIONS FOR PRESERVING.