Vintage Receipts

One of the drawbacks of living solo is, whenever I create a stupendous, savory, new dish, there’s no one to share it with at that triumphant moment. No one to “give compliments to the chef” and agree that I’m such a great cook. 😉 But, on the other side of the coin, if I should happen to create a fiasco, no one knows or has to know. 😉 

After getting some raspberries on sale, I decided to make Raspberry Preserves, using the 1921 cookbook Fruits and Their Cookery by Harriet Schuyler Nelson. (No, not the same Harriet Nelson that married Ozzie.)

What I’d like to say is how delicious those preserves tasted! And, being my first attempt of making any kind of jams/jellies/preserves, this was a historical moment for me. And, as this blog is dedicated to the great historical receipts/recipes that can still be used in the 21st Century, I have this opportunity to share that with my readers.

If I were smart, I’d end this post here, taking advantage of the fact there were no witnesses to see what I was trying to make. Yes, I would like to say the preserves came out terrific. But to tell what really happened, I’ll have to edit the last three letters of “terrific” and replace them with “ble.” (Which also sounds like “bleh”!)

Since cooking instructions were from a 1921 cookbook, I figured I’d be pretty safe. Safe, compared to following a Raspberry Jam receipt from 1877, which called for brandy and egg whites. (I can vaguely understand the egg whites, but why brandy? Guess if the jam didn’t turn out good, the remainder of brandy that didn’t get soaked into paper could be passed around in lieu of jam. After awhile, nobody would know the difference!) 

I started out following the 1921 receipt to a T.  But I cut back on the ingredients. I decided, just in case it should turn out bad, only one cup of raspberries would be wasted, instead of the entire two-cup amount I’d bought. So, I used only one quarter of all ingredients required.

The sugar-water got up to boiling, but the recipe didn’t say how long it needed to boil. So, I kept watching for the “spinning thread.” I didn’t have a silver fork handy—my maid (or was that the butler?) was busy polishing them, along with the silver tea-set 😉 —but I used a modern-day flatware fork, instead. 

I think things started to go wrong when I added the lemon juice. In 1921, lemon juice was lemon juice. My lemon juice was from a bottle that says on the front label: “natural strength lemon juice.” The side label says: “100% lemon juice.” But, hidden on the back it says it’s made of: “filtered water, lemon juice concentrate, citric acid, lemon oil, preserved with 1/10 of 1% sodium benzoate, and 1/50 of 1% bisulfite.” Strange…how can it be 100% lemon juice, yet have water and the other stuff in it?? (Next time I’m using a real lemon!)

Anyway, there was strange reaction when I started adding the lemon juice concoction. Dark steam came rising out of the pot.  I felt like a mad scientist. Especially when my “preserves” started smelling like liquid smoke. (Maybe that is how they make liquid smoke!) Liquid smoke might sound good in meats, if you like to poison yourself with food additives, but definitely tastes horrible in preserves. 

After it was “done”—or, when I figured it was done, since it was rather vague how to tell this—I did a taste test. Yep, even tasted like liquid smoke! 

My garbage disposal enjoyed a treat of raspberry preserves, while I rued having wasted 88 cents worth of raspberries. But, there’s still one more package of raspberries left, for trying something new. I think tomorrow I’ll try….

…putting them in my yogurt for breakfast!

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 27th, 2009 at 8:33 pm and is filed under 1920-1939, Fiascos, Preserves, Raspberry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.