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Goutte Housekeeping
a column on medieval cookery

A Conserve

Wulfric of Creigull

Well, it's been a while since we had any recipes in the Gull. Here's a slightly post period recipe for jam that can be used with any medieval fruit. I used strawberries, which are very good right now.

A Conserve

To make conserve of any fruit you please, you shall take the fruit you intend to make conserve of and if it be stone fruit you shall take out the stones; if other fruit, take away the paring and core, and them boil them in fair running water to a reasonable height; then drain them from thence, and put them into a fresh vessel with claret wine, or white wine, according to the color of the fruit; and so boil them to a thick pap all to mashing, breaking, and stirring them together; then to every pound of pap put to a pound of sugar, and so stir them all well together, and being very hot, strain them through fair strainers, and so pot it up. (The English Huswife, 1615)

5 pounds strawberries (about 5 standard fruit baskets)
½ cup red wine
3 cups sugar
optional: 2 ½ lbs. apples (preferably Pippins)

Wash strawberries and pare stems. Put into a large pot with wine. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Stir in sugar. Simmer, stirring often, until mixture has reached desired thickness.

If you wish to thicken the jam more quickly: quarter, core, and peel apples while fruit and wine are heating. Add apples when fruit has reached a boil; carefully remove and discard apples when they have softened appreciably.

Boil glass jars and lids to sterilize. Fill jars with jam, leaving 1/4 inch at top. Screw on lids securely and turn upside down to cool.

Yield: approximately 4 pints.

I washed the fruit in "fair running water" rather than boiling it. The boiling appears to be a hygienic measure; washing accomplishes the same thing and conserves more of the fruit juice (and flavor) for the jam. The optional apples add natural pectin to thicken the jam more quickly; this was done in another slightly post period recipe for Orange Marmalade from The Queen's Closet Opened, 1655: "put thereto twenty Pippins pared, quartered and coared, let them boyl till all the virtue be out."

Sources

Best, Michael R. The English Housewife. McGill Queen's University Press, 1986.

Isitt, Verity. Take a Buttock of Beefe. Ashford Press Publishing, 1987.

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