Thomas Jenner’s 1653 Recipe for ‘Syrupe Gresta’

Syrupe Gresta, or a Syrupe of Unripe Grapes

Take a good basket full of unripe Grapes, set them three dayes in a vessel after they be gathered, stamp them, and straine out the juice out of them, take thereof six quarts, boyle it with a soft fire till the third part be consumed, then four quarts will remaine, let that run through a woollen bagge, and stand till it be clear in it selfe, then take of the clearest of it, seven pints, put thereto five pound of Clarified Sugar, boyle them together to the thicknesse of a Syrupe, and keep it in a glasse ; it is good for a perbreaking stomach, proceeding of Choller, and for a swelling stomach, it taketh away thirst and drynesse, and chollerick Agues, it is of great comfort to the stomach of Women being with child, it is a preservative against all manner of Venome, and against the Pestilence.

Thomas Jenner, A Book of Fruits and Flowers (1653)

We’ve been thinning the grapes in the vinery at work this week – a little too late really, but circumstances beyond our control earlier in the year prevented us from getting to them at the proper time – and with every snipped-off grape I chuck in the bucket I ask myself: isn’t there something we could be doing with all this under-ripe fruit?

Well, it turns out there might be; if we had enough grape fruitlets in one go, we could potentially make up a batch of ‘Syrupe Gresta’, per Thomas Jenner‘s instructions from the 1653 volume A Book of Fruits and Flowers. Jenner’s recipe calls for “a good basket full” though, which is a fair few more than we’ve been able to thin out so far, and he’s looking for six quarts of juice, after three days of the grapes sitting in a vessel (large jar) and then being stamped (pressed).

Assuming we had enough grape thinnings and could extract enough juice, we’d then have to boil it until it reduced by a third, then strain it, then let it settle, then take seven pints of the resulting concentrate and add five pounds (2.26Kg) of sugar before boiling it again and reducing it to a syrup.

The resulting concoction is apparently good for stomach complaints, including perbreaking (vomiting) and choller (irritability, caused by an excess of yellow bile), as well as ague (fever), general thirst-quenching, settling the tums of pregnant women, and, apparently, venome (poison), and Pestilence, which given the age, could quite possibly refer to the Plague.

Good stuff, this syrupe gresta, at least according to Thomas Jenner. And it’s clearly a close cousin of verjuice, which I’ve talked about once or twice before now, although this sweetened and thickened version seems to be intended for medicinal use, rather than a vinegar-like condiment.

What do you think? If you had enough unripe grapes to hand, do you think you’d be tempted to make up a batch? Or would you save on the sugar and stick to verjuice? Do let me know, via the comments.