"Gather them with their stalks on, cut off their heads, and stone them, then put them in scalding water, and let them stand there-in covered a quarter of an hour, then take their weight in sugar, finely beaten, and laying first a lay of sugar, then one of your Goose-Berries, in your Preserving Skillet or pan, till all be in, putting in for every pound of Goose-Berries, six spoonfulls of water, set them on the embers till the sugar be melted, then boyle them up as fast as you can, till the Syrupe be thick enough, and cold, and then put them up. This way serves also for Respasses and Mulberries."
Thomas Jenner, A Book of Fruits and Flowers (1653)
It’s nearly gooseberry season! Just a few weeks to go, whilst the berries ripen up to picking-point, so I thought I’d start dusting off the historical cookbooks1a.k.a. searching through pdf files.1 for a few old and hopefully interesting recipes that make use of this somewhat difficult-to-vary fruit. Here’s one, from Thomas Jenner’s A Book of Fruits and Flowers (1653).
Thomas Jenner was – according to the introduction to the 1970s reprint edition of his A Book of Fruits and Flowers – an enterprising printer and publisher with a habit of pirating other writers’ works to add to his own stocklist. That being the case, the original source of this recipe could well have been one of the many general household management manuals that were published back in the mid seventeenth century and on into the eighteenth2Titles included the misogynistic likes of The Whole Duty of a Woman Or a Guide to the Female Sex (1701), by “A Lady”, which included a section of “Directions how to Obtain the Divine and Moral Vertues of Piety, Meekness, Modesty, Chastity, Humility, Compassion, Temperance and Affability, with their Advantages, and how to avoid their opposite Vices.” I reckon that tells you an awful lot about a certain type of early eighteenth century mind-set. And I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether “A Lady” was actually a woman….
The intended audience for this type of book was ostensibly the Lady of the Household, that she might better direct her servants in the proper production of various foodstuffs, beverages and, as in this case, preserves. Although another theory that I do remember reading (sadly, I can’t remember where) is that they were actually written for the benefit of newly-married men, that they might better instruct their Ladies in the appropriate wifely duties. I know, just try submitting that sort of crap to any half-decent publisher these days and see how far you get.
Back to the gooseberries. There are a couple of interesting points to note in this recipe: first, the instructions for preparing the gooseberries: “cut off their heads and stone them”. These days it’s highly unlikely that we’d take the time to de-seed gooseberries before preserving them, but perhaps seventeenth century varieties had harder, less digestible seeds? Or maybe household servants simply had more preparation time to invest in something as fiddly as gooseberry de-seeding / stoning?
Boiling the gooseberries “fast” means at a high heat – bearing in mind of course that this would have been done on a wood-fired stove or range, which was less easily controllable than a modern cooker – and presumably the “and cold” part means to cool them afterwards. We’re told that the same method works well for “respasses” (raspberries) and mulberries.
The end result – fruit boiled in molten sugar – sounds very much like jam to me. There’s no mention of trying to reach a set-point though, so maybe they were happy with runny jam back in 1653.
How about you? Do or would you stone your gooseberries before making them into jam? Or is that just too fiddly by far? What’s your favourite recipe and/or method for making gooseberry jam? Do you add extra pectin to get a firm set, or would you rather enjoy it a bit runny? Do let me know, via the comments.
Footnotes
- 1a.k.a. searching through pdf files.1 for a few old and hopefully interesting recipes that make use of this somewhat difficult-to-vary fruit. Here’s one, from Thomas Jenner’s A Book of Fruits and Flowers (1653).
Thomas Jenner was – according to the introduction to the 1970s reprint edition of his A Book of Fruits and Flowers – an enterprising printer and publisher with a habit of pirating other writers’ works to add to his own stocklist. That being the case, the original source of this recipe could well have been one of the many general household management manuals that were published back in the mid seventeenth century and on into the eighteenth2Titles included the misogynistic likes of The Whole Duty of a Woman Or a Guide to the Female Sex (1701), by “A Lady”, which included a section of “Directions how to Obtain the Divine and Moral Vertues of Piety, Meekness, Modesty, Chastity, Humility, Compassion, Temperance and Affability, with their Advantages, and how to avoid their opposite Vices.” I reckon that tells you an awful lot about a certain type of early eighteenth century mind-set. And I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether “A Lady” was actually a woman… - 2