Blackberry Jelly

Blackberry Jelly, this time, from The Improved Housewife (1845, 20th ed 1855)

 

Very visually interesting blackberry jelly.

My plan is to use it for creams or molded jellies later this year, as described in Beeton's. I wouldn't have bothered with jelly otherwise: jam is much easier to make, yields more per pound fruit, and tastes the same on scones. However, the seeds and pulp would be a problem in a jelly mold, and I had another large haul of blackberries, so jelly it was.

For this pint, I used about 3 lbs of blackberries. I put the berries though through the food mill, and then strained the juice through a cloth, but some seeds seem to have gotten around the edges. Fortunately, most of the seeds stayed in the fibrous pulp in the first place, so the jelly's relatively clear.

Per the receipt, I added 1 lb of sugar to the pint of juice successfully collected, brought it to a boil with a partial egg white (aiming for 1/3 per the recipe ratio, but this was pure estimation), took it off the heat to skim the resulting foam (some of which even adhered to the egg white), and brought back to a boil. After a second skim, I transferred the jelly to a clean pint jar and processed for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.

After making so much jam, the yield was a bit of a disappointment, though that's entirely on me. If this works out well for a molded jelly or cream, I'll likely make more jellies next year for the same reason. If not, I'll probably stick to jams for the bulk of my fruit preserves, as they are much less work and leave me with fewer dishes to wash. 

Blackberry Jam, 1846

More summer preserves, this time Blackberry Jam from Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book (1846; 3rd ed, 1856.) 

Blackberry Jam. Allow three quarters of a pound of brown sugar to a pound of fruit. Boil the fruit half an hour, then add the sugar and boil all together ten minutes. 

 

I ended up with 68 oz of blackberries (4 1/4 lbs, or just short of one ice-cream tub full), and thus used 51 oz brown sugar. Anticipating about 4 pints of jam, as previous batches seem to produce just under 1 pint jam per pound berries, I was pleasantly surprised to get 5 pints (1 pint, 6 half-pints, 4 quarter-pints to be precise), which I must put down to the extra sugar, and no material being lost to skimming. Processed 10 minutes, based on my current elevation.

Obviously, this receipt was very similar to the jams in Eliza Acton's book, but with a higher proportion of sugar, and the specification to use brown sugar with the blackberries. I had planned to follow Acton's advice about skimming, but found it unnecessary, as no scum of any sort rose to the top of the mixture (perhaps why Beecher makes no mention of it). As usual, I consulted modern recipes for safe water-bath processing times, and to check that the sugar to fruit ratio is high enough. These historic receipts generally resemble the modern ones quite closely, except that they rely on boiling the fruit alone to thicken the preserves, instead of adding pectin.

 

Foods in Season: August 1861

Back to Beeton's Book of Household Management to see what's in season (in/around London) in August:

Fish- Brill, carp, chub, crayfish, crabs, dory, eels, flounders, grigs, herring, lobsters, mullet, pike, prawns, salmon, shrimps, skate, soles, sturgeon, thornbeck, trout, turbot.

Meat- Beef, lamb, mutton, veal, buck venison.

Poultry- Chickens, ducklings, fowls, green geese, pigeons, plovers, pullets, rabbits, turkey poults, wheatears, wild ducks. 

Game- Leverets, grouse, blackcock.

Vegetables- Artichokes, asparagus, beans, cabbages, carrots, cauliflowers, celery, cresses, endive, lettuces, mushrooms, onions, pease, potatoes, radishes, small salading, sea-kale, sprouts, turnips, vegetable marrow, various kitchen herbs.

Fruit- Currants, figs, filberts, gooseberries, grapes, melons, mulberries, nectarines, peaches, pears, pineapples, plums, raspberries, walnuts.

Fish again is the category with the most changes, with nine new additions and three removals. The meat category remains the same as in July (and June).  Pigeons have been added to the poultry category, while leverets have moved into the revived category of game. Potatoes are back in the vegetable category. Fruit has seen the most changes after fish: apricots, cherries, and strawberries have passed out of season, replaced by filberts (hazelnuts) and mulberries.  

Assorted Jams, 1845

And now for June/July's berry jam haul. I used Eliza Acton's  Modern Cookery, in all its Branches (1845) for each of these. And despite the different receipts, they basically all boil down to 'boil the fruit, skim, add half the fruit's weight in sugar, and boil it again.'

Strawberry jam: Approximately 4 dry pints fruit yielded 3.5 lbs (after removing stalks and picking out bad pieces), which combined with 42 oz sugar made 3 1/4 pints jam. 

Strawberry Jam

Red raspberry jam, from the same source. 3lb 5oz fruit, plus 1lb 11oz sugar made for 3 1/4 pints raspberry jam. I made a second batch the following week, for a total haul of 7 1/4 pints. We used one of the quarter-pint jars at Tenino Oregon Trail Days the other weekend, and it went beautifully on the hot Soda Scones (with or without butter).

Raspberry Jam!

Another good common preserve (mixed berry jam): This jam receipt is basically the summarized form of all the others, but giving permission to freely mix any soft summer fruits in any proportion, and then add half-as-much sugar. For this, I tried a mixed berry assortment, using all the fruit in season at my sibling's house the first week of July. I got 3/4 pint of jam from 12 oz mixed fruit, 6 oz sugar. Raspberries were the majority fruit, with some strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and black currants. The jars look like more raspberry jam, but we'll see if any of the other flavors come through.  

 

Pickled Cucumbers, etc.

The garden has bern going wild this year, and I've been canning something at least every week through June-July as a result. This is not unrelated to the dearth of blog posts

My first bunch of pickling cucumbers came ripe at the same time as well a decent crop of radish seed pods (with plenty more of each to come). In the spirit of efficiency, I decided to make both up with Beeton's Universal Pickle.

As before, I found it convenient to up make at 1/6 scale, using 1 qt vinegar, 3 oz salt, 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, 1 tsp mace, 1.5 tsp tumeric, 2 tsp mustard seed, scant 1 oz ginger and scant 2 oz shallots (technically 2/3 oz ginger and 1 1/3 oz shallots, but my scale isn't that precise). This quantity filled the four pint jars exactly. Each contained 1 1/4 cucumbers, and a generous handful of radish seed pods (about ~1/3 cup). 

 Processed 10 minutes, per modern safety recommendations. 

Cucumbers and radish pods.

My second batch of cucumbers got a modern dill pickle recipe. The main problem with this year's plentiful cucumber harvest is getting the cucumbers picked while they're still small enough to fit in jars nicely. I'll clear them all on a Monday, and by Wednesday there are somehow more cucumbers, all too tall or wide for my pint jars. So, instead of whole, these dills got quartered lengthwise. At least the next receipt I found calls for them to be sliced.

Modern "fresh-pack dill pickles"

 

Foods in Season: July, 1861

Late, but technically still in the right months, let's see what Beeton's Book of Household Management has in season in July.

Fish- Carp, crayfish, dory, flounders, haddocks, herring, lobsters, mackerel, mullet, pike, plaice, prawns, salmon, shrimps, soles, sturgeon, tench, thornbeck

Meat- Beef, lamb, mutton, veal, buck venison.

Poultry- Chickens, ducklings, fowls, green geese, leverets, plovers, pullets, rabbits, turkey poults, wheatears, wild ducks (called flappers).

Vegetables- Artichokes, asparagus, beans, cabbages, carrots, cauliflowers, celery, cresses, endive, lettuces, mushrooms, pease, radishes, small salading, sea-kale, sprouts, spinach, turnips, vegetable marrow, -various herbs.

Fruit- Apricots, cherries, currants, figs, gooseberries, melons, nectarines, pears, pineapples, plums, raspberries, strawberries, walnuts, in high season and pickled.

More changes in fish this month (seven new varieties, two removed), but none to meat, and only one addition to poultry (the wild ducks). Cauliflower and cresses are back in the vegetables, also joined by sprouts, mushrooms, turnips, and marrow, though I'm confused at the loss of cucumbers (as my own garden has been producing them in adundance all month) and potatoes (also producing well this month, though starting to wind-down). For fruit, peaches and rhubarb are out, replaced by figs, plums, and walnuts.

Food in Season: May 1861

It's May Beeton's Book of Household Management considers to be in season for May.

Fish- Carp, chub, crabs, crayfish, dory, herring, lobsters, mackerel, red and gray mullet, prawns, salmon, shad, smelts, soles, trout, turbot.

Meat- Beef, lamb, mutton, veal.

Poultry- Chickens, ducklings, fowls, green geese, leverets, pigeons, pullets, rabbits.

Vegetables- Asparagus, beans, early cabbages, carrots, cauliflowers, cresses, cucumbers, lettuces, pease, early potatoes, salads, sea-kale, -various herbs.

Fruit- Apples, green apricots, cherries, currants for tarts, gooseberries, melons, pears, rhubarb, strawberries.

Meat and poultry are looking pretty much the same as last month, save for the addition of goose. The game category is completely gone, as are the shellfish. Lots of turn-over in the fish, vegetables, and fruit categories.

Foods in Season: April 1861

Spring and the new reenacting season are finally here, so it's time to see what foods Beeton's Book of Household Management considers to be in season for April.

Fish- Brill, carp, cockles, crabs, dory, flounders, ling, lobsters, red and gray mullet, mussels, oysters, perch, prawns, salmon (but rather scare and expensive), shad, shrimps, skate, smelts, soles, tench, turbot, whiting.

Meat- Beef, lamb, mutton, veal.

Poultry- Chickens, ducklings, fowls, leverets, pigeons, pullets, rabbits

Game- Hares.

Vegetables-Broccoli, celery, lettuces, young onion, parsnips, radishes, small salad, sea-kale, spinach, sprouts, -various herbs

Fruit- Apples, nuts, pears, forced cherries, &c. for tarts, rhubarb, dried fruits, crystallized preserves.

And thus we have the shortest list so far this year. Every category has seen some items disappear, though I hope for our ancestors' sake that the addition of multiple new ingredients (rhubarb, young onion) partially offset the smaller overall variety. For "small salad" read "microgreens"-- as we've seen before, "salading" encompasses a wider variety of leafy vegetables and herbs than can be eaten raw.

Foods in Season: March 1861

As I ramp up my gardening activities, it's time to see what Beeton's Book of Household Management has to say about foods that are in season for March.

Fish- Barbel, brill, carp, crabs, crayfish, dace, eels, flounders, haddocks, herrings, lampreys, lobsters, mussels, oysters, perch, pike, plaice, prawns, shrimps, skate, smelts, soles, sprats, sturgeon, tench, thornback, turbot, whiting.

Meat- Beef, house lamb, mutton, pork, veal.

Poultry- Capons, chickens, ducklings, tame and wild pigeons, pullets with eggs, turkeys, wild-fowl, though now not in full season.

Game- Grouse, hares, partridges, pheasants, snipes, woodcock.

Vegetables-Beetroot, broccoli (purple and white), Brussels sprouts, cabbages, carrots, celery, chervil, cresses, cucumbers (forced), endive, kidney-beans, lettuces, parsnips, potatoes, savoys, sea-kale, spinach, turnips, -various herbs

Fruit- Apples (golden and Dutch pippins), grapes, medlars, nuts, oranges, pears (Bon Chrétien), walnuts, dried fruits (foreign), such as almonds and raisins; French and Spanish plums; prunes, figs, dates, crystallized preserves.

Cod is off the menu! Not that I usually cook with it. No changes to the meat or fruit lists. Fowls are now out of both the poultry and game categories. Sea-kale has been added to the vegetable category (the only new addition this month). So, all told, March is looking very similar to February. And January. While this is a much larger variety of foods than one might fear, I'm starting to get a better appreciation for how boring late winter and early spring cooking can get prior to long-distance refrigerated transit.

Foods in Season: January

Thinking more about cooking through the season, Victorian style, and decided this year to share the monthly suggestions from Beeton's Book of Household Management.

For January, foodstuffs that should be in season:

Fish- Barbel, brill, carp, cod, crabs, crayfish, dace, eels, flounders, haddocks, herrings, lampreys, lobsters, mussels, oysters, perch, pike, plaice, prawns, shrimps, skate, smelts, soles, sprats, sturgeon, tench, thornback, turbot, whitings

Meat- Beef, house lamb, mutton, pork, veal, venison

Poultry- Capons, fowls, tame pigeons, pullets, rabbits, turkeys

Game- Grouse, hares, partridges, pheasants, snipe, wild-fowl, woodcock

Vegetables-Beetroot, broccoli, cabbages, carrots, celery, chervil, cresses, cucumbers (forced), endive, lettuces, parships, potatoes, savoys, spinach, turnips,-various herbs

Fruit- Apples, grapes, medlars, nuts, oranges, pears, walnuts, crystalized preserves (foreign), dried fruits, such as almonds and raisins; French and Spanish plums; prunes, figs, dates.

*Terminology notes: "house lamb" is, as the name suggests, a lamb that has been hand-raised in the house (generally over bitter winter weather). "Forced" cucumbers would be grown with artificial heating and protection from the elements (greenhouse, use of glass covers outdoors, a "hot bed" with decaying manure used to warm the soil, etc).

HFF 6.17: Saucy

Finally getting caught up on the actual challenges...

The Challenge: Saucy: Make a sauce or condiment.

The Recipe: Boiled Parsnip with White Sauce, as featured in Gardening Illustrated

The Date/Year and Region: 1885, London

 

How Did You Make It: Half-scale: 3 good-sized parsnips, half a cup of milk, half a dessert-spoon (~1 tsp) flour, half a small lump (~1/2 tsp) of sugar, a piece of butter half the size of an egg (~4 Tbsp), a dash each of pepper and salt. 

 

I cleaned the parsnips (though I couldn't get all the dirt out of them), and put them to boil in a little salt water. When those were done, I started the sauce by melting the butter, adding the flour, stirring it all well, then adding the milk, and bringing the sauce up to a boil. At that point I added the sugar, salt, and pepper, then cut the parsnips into ~1" pieces and stirred them into the sauce. 

 

Measurement notes: I took a "lump of sugar" in the original instructions as about the size of a sugar cube (4 g) or 1 tsp granulated sugar. A dessert spoon, per my favorite "Domestic Measures" list in A System of Practical Medicine (1842) is supposed to equal 2 drachms, (and thus, two teaspoons, at least when dealing with water).

Time to Complete: About 10 minutes on the sauce; I didn't time the parsnips boiling.

 

Total Cost: Everything on hand and/or out of the garden.

 

How Successful Was It?: Pretty tasty. Could probably use just a touch more salt, but I found this a perfectly tasty parsnip dish. I appreciate that it gives me another way to prepare them, and particularly to make something that looks a bit fancier for serving at table. The boiling and the sauce took a little of the bite out of the parsnips. From the amount of sauce, I suspect the parsnips I chose were a little on the small side, and that I should have used the largest ones to get a higher vegetable-to-sauce ratio. However, there were still some tough bits at the center of the widest parts of the parsnips, so that's something to keep in mind. I think it would be easier to do this dish by scraping and slicing the parsnips before boiling, and might give that a try next time.

Despite scrubbing and soaking, I couldn't get all the ingrained dirt out of the parsnips, and counted on the scrapping step to finish the job, which it did. Doing so after boiling was a bit different than scrapping or peeling the parsnips before cooking (much like potato skins: they came away readily but also tended to shred).

How Accurate Is It? No major changes to the recipe as written. I think, from how the sauce turned out, that my measurement translations were successful. 

 

Parsnips in White Sauce (1885)

Harvest 2023

Carrots, and parsnips and beetroot, oh my!

Not pictured: the other 2/3 of the remaining root vegetables (mostly carrots, with a few golden beets, parsnips, late onions and radishes), squashes, cucumbers, tomatoes, and many many marigolds. The weather turned abruptly this week, so it's been all-hands-on-deck harvesting and putting up vegetables.

To Preserve Roses or Any Other Flowers (1656)

 

From A Book of Fruits & Flowers:

To Preserve Roses or any other Flowers 

Take one pound of Roses, three pound of Sugar, one pint of Rose water, or more, make your Syrup first, and let it stand till it be cold, then take your Rose leaves, having first clipt of all the white, put them into the cold Syrupe, then cover them and set them on a soft fire, that they may but simper for two or three hours, then while they are hot put them into pots or glasses for your use.

In choosing this receipt for my excess marigolds, I accidentally conflated it with the preceding "A Conserve of Roses", which indicates that the method works for any flower conserve, such as violets, cowslips, marigolds, sage, and something I've never heard of which looks like "seavoise." However, this one claims to be good for "any other flowers" so I figure it's a fair play.

At any rate, the main difference between the two recipes is that the "preserve" receipt involves making a syrup, while the "conserve" has the liquid added first to the flowers, followed by dry sugar.

 

Ingredients

To make on a 1/8 scale, I started with 2 oz of marigold flowers, 6 oz granulated sugar, and 1 fl oz of plain water (having run out of rosewater momentarily). The differentiation between roses/rose leaves [petals?] in the instructions led to me weighing the whole flowers, but then removing and using only the petals. I think it can be read either way (use 2oz of petals, or use the petals off of 2 oz of flowers), and thus is open to experiment. 

 

Probably my most successful attempt at boiling sugar...

I combined the water and sugar in a saucepan on "medium" (on a burner that runs hot), and boiled a syrup for some 15 minutes. Meanwhile, I removed the petals from the flowers. After letting the syrup cool about 20 minutes, I stirred in the petals, and set it all to simmer on med-low for about 3 hours. This produced a reddish, viscous syrup that I poured into a pipkin for storage.

Thick texture, weird taste, did not immediately balance my humors.

The preserves taste... not great and honestly less sweet than I'd expect for something well over 75% sugar by weight. So far as I can tell, marigold's use in the 17th-18th centuries is largely medicinal, so perhaps taste isn't a high consideration. I think next time, I'll just keep the flowers for dye, or maybe distill some marigold water and see if it really does cure headaches.

Onion Bags

Did some multi-tasking: I have onions that need to be stored after harvest, and an Autoknitter that I needed some practice on. The obvious solution was to knit small onion bags out of scraps of crochet cotton.

Onion socks! And two proper net bags.

I used the opportunity to mess around with the machine's tension, hang hems, learn mock ribs, and do a lot of kitchener stitch on the closed ends. My favorite onion sock is the one knit plain on the loosest machine tension (left of center), which produced the most open web.

Before jumping over to the machine, I did try to hand net bags for all the onions, but found that even with a generous mesh it simply took too long. I'll need to try this again when there's more time and the onions in question haven't already been harvested, cured, and in need of storage bags.

Early Harvest: Summer & Winter Squash

It's been a weird (unusually dry and warm) summer in the garden, which I assume is the reason that several of my winter squash reached their full color and size before most of the summer squash reached edible size. 

 

I expect my plants to be a little idiosyncratic and not always optimized for the climate I'm in: I focus on growing mid-19th century and earlier heritage varieties, because that's what I want to cook with. For instance, my only pumpkin to produce fruit last year (a Connecticut Field pumpkin) was still green when I had to clear my plot. It ripened off the vine, and I ended up saving seeds from it. This year, two of its four offspring had produced orange pumpkins by early September (one of the other two is larger, but dark green, and the fourth plant still only has a tiny fruit on it).

First haul of squash from the garden: two pumpkins, two Boston Marrow (winter) squash and a yellow crook-neck (summer) squash.

 

Winter Squash, Revisited

Winter squash is a recurring feature of mid-19th century American menus. It shows up on Christmas and New Year bills of fare, as well as on winter menus for company dinners, large family dinners, and plain family dinners alike. 

Few (none) of these menu sources go into greater detail for how the vegetable* is to be cooked. Looking through the cookery books, it's easy to see why: there's basically one method. 

Far and away, the "squash" or "winter squash" receipt in cookbooks is 'remove both the hard shell and stringy seed-matrix, then boil the squash pieces and mash them with butter, salt and pepper'. This method shows up in sources ranging from Eliza Acton's Modern Cookery (1846) to The Practical Cook Book (1850, 1860) to Mrs. Putnam's Receipt Book (1860) to Godey's January 1862 issue to The American System of Cookery (1864). All are titled "winter squash", with no other receipts listed for the vegetable. The exceptions are Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book (1846/71), which allows that boiled squash may be served in slices (un-mashed), with the left-overs fried for breakfast; The Ohio Valley Farmer which claims that New England farmers usually boil squash plain; and What to Eat and How to Cook It (1866) which has instructions for both mashed squash/pumpkin and for stewing the boiled vegetable in butter. Squash can also be made into pies or pudding (both like a pumpkin pie) or fried as 'cakes', though these recipes are less frequent, and actually have names beyond 'winter squash'.

[*Other vegetables in these menus are likewise named: turnips, parsnips, beets, salsify. However, some of them get more specific about the dish: 'potato snow', 'mashed potato', 'boiled cauliflower', 'fried celery', 'stewed red cabbage', etc.]

I first prepared mashed winter squash two year ago, using a purchased spaghetti squash--a variety I do not recommend for this purpose. I've also tried both the stewed and the fried squash recipes using butternut squash, which turned out much better. 

 Looking into the horticultural literature of c. 1840-1865, specific winter squash varieties include the cocoa-nut or Porter's winter squash; crookneck and/or bell-shaped squash; Hubbard; Valpariso; turban or acorn squash; Mexcian cushaw or cushaw pumpkin; sweet potato squash and pineapple squash; and autumnal or Boston marrow. Winter squashes have a thicker rind than summer varieties, allowing them to be stored into the winter months. Pumpkins are a notable part of this category, though they tend to have their own recipes (with some overlap). 

My 1.5 successful acorn squashes.

 

I ended up with four usable winter squashes from my garden: one huge Connecticut field pumpkin, two table queen acorn squashes, and a butternut squash (unknown cultivar). As they were stored on my porch, and then an unusual cold snap hit, it seemed prudent to use them soon.

I first boiled and mashed up the butternut squash. It mashed easily, tasted delightful (hard to go wrong with butter/salt/pepper), and had a very pleasant texture. The acorn squash, when afforded the same treatment, proved marginally harder to peel, as the peel kept breaking. It tasted basically the same as the butternut. Occasionally, there was a slightly bitter bite, which I'm blaming on the one squash being only marginally ripe when I had to harvest it.

With the leftover (mashed) acorn squash, I tried that 1858 Squash Cake receipt. It calls for 1 quart of squash, 1 coffee cup (8-10oz) of milk/buttermilk/sourmilk and of flour, also salt and saleratus if the sour milks are used. The batter is to be fried in butter or lard. 

 

Squash cakes, 1858

 

I ended up using plain milk, and frying the cakes in butter. The flavor was fine: it mostly tasted of squash, but with the flour giving a slight pancake-like note. I fried the cakes until brown and crispy on the outside, though the interior texture was unchanged. I can't figure out whether I like the texture or not, but ended up eating the whole batch anyway. They'll be a nice addition to my recipe book, just to have an option for using left-over mashed squash.

Kitchen Garden, June 1819

JUNE 

Transplant cauliflower plants, and water them well. Plant out thyme, and other savoury herbs. Sow turnips and brocoli, [sic] and plant out celery in trenches for blanching; also endive. Destroy snails, slugs, &c. 

---Modern Domestic Cookery, and Useful Receipt Book (London, 1819)

Kitchen Garden, May 1819

MAY

Water your beans, peas, &c. occasionally. Destroy the weeds, and hoe between the rows. Sow some small-salading weekly. Sow purslain and endive. Plant a large quantity of beans and peas, and French beans to succeed the others. Plant out savoys, cabbages, and red cabbages; and water them well.. 

---Modern Domestic Cookery, and Useful Receipt Book (London, 1819)

Kitchen Garden, April 1819

APRIL 

Plant French beans, cuttings of sage, and other aromatic plants; sow marrow-fat peas, and more beans for a succession; sow thyme, sweet marjoram, and savory. Prepare dung for making ridges to receive cucumber or melon-plants, designed for handglasses. Sow small salading weekly; and also some cos and Silesia lettuces. Weed the growing crops, hoe between the beans and peas, cabbages, cauliflower plants & c. At night, cover your cucumbers and melons with hand glasses. 

-Modern Domestic Cookery, and Useful Receipt Book (London, 1819)

Kitchen Garden, March 1819

 MARCH 

Sow carrots and large peas, cabbages and savoys, and also a second crop of parsnips and carrots.-- Towards the end of the month, put in large quantities of beans and peas. Sow parsley and plant mint. Sow cos and imperial lettuce, transplant the finer kinds. The last week make asparagus beds, clear up the artichoke roots, slip off the weakest, and plant them out. Dig a warm border, and sow some French beans.

-Modern Domestic Cookery, and Useful Receipt Book (London, 1819)