GRAPE JELLY.—
Take ripe juicy grapes, pick them from the stems; put them into a large earthen pan, and mash them with the back of a wooden ladle, or with a potato beetle. Put them into a kettle, (without any water,) cover them closely, and let them boil for a quarter of an hour; stirring them up occasionally from the bottom. Then squeeze them through a jelly-bag, and to each pint of juice allow a pound of loaf-sugar. Dissolve the sugar in the grape juice; then put it over a quick fire in a preserving kettle, and boil and skim it twenty minutes. When it is a clear thick jelly, take it off, put it warm into tumblers, and cover them with double tissue paper cut to fit the inside.
In the same manner you may make an excellent jelly for common use, of ripe fox grapes and the best brown sugar; mixing with the sugar before it goes on the fire, a little beaten white of egg; allowing two whites to two pounds of sugar.
BRANDY GRAPES.—
Take some large close bunches of fine grapes, (they must be quite ripe,) and allow to each bunch a quarter of a pound of bruised sugar candy. Put the grapes and the sugar candy into large jars, (about two-thirds full,) and fill them up with French brandy. Tie them up closely, and keep them in a dry place. Morella cherries may be done in the same manner.
Foreign grapes are kept in bunches, laid lightly in earthen jars of dry saw-dust.
TO KEEP WILD GRAPES.—
Gather the small black wild grapes late in the season, after they have been ripened by a frost. Pick them from the stems, and put them into stone jars, (two-thirds full,) with layers of brown sugar, and fill them up with cold molasses. They will keep all winter; and they make good common pies. If they incline to ferment in the jars, give them a boil with additional sugar.
TO PRESERVE STRAWBERRIES.
Strawberries for preserving should be large and ripe. They will keep best if gathered in dry weather, when there has been no rain for at least two days. Having hulled, or picked off the green, select the largest and firmest, and spread them out separately on flat dishes; having first weighed them, and allowed to each pound of strawberries a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Sift half the sugar over them. Then take the inferior strawberries that were left, and those that are over-ripe; mix with them an equal quantity of powdered sugar, and mash them. Put them into a basin covered with a plate, and set them over the fire in a pan of boiling water, till they become a thick juice; then strain it through a bag, and mix with it the other half of the sugar that you have allotted to the strawberries, which are to be done whole. Put it into a porcelain kettle, and boil and skim it till the scum ceases to rise; then put in the whole strawberries with the sugar in which they have been lying, and all the juice that may have exuded from them. Set them over the fire in the syrup, just long enough to heat them a little; and in a few minutes take them out, one by one, with a tea-spoon, and spread them on dishes to cool; not allowing them to touch each other. Then take off what scum may arise from the additional sugar. Repeat this several times, taking out the strawberries and cooling them till they become quite clear. They must not be allowed to boil; and if they seem likely to break, they should be instantly and finally taken from the fire. When quite cold, put them with the syrup into tumblers, or into white queen's-ware pots. If intended to keep a long time it will be well to put at the top a layer of apple jelly.