The following fruits may be conserved without sugar. The more juicy fruits of the berry kind, such as currants, mulberries, strawberries, raspberries, are not well calculated for this process.
METHOD OF CONSERVING GOOSEBERRIES,
Orlean Plums
Green Gages
Damsons
Peaches
Nectarines
Bullaces.
Let the fruit be clean picked, and not too ripe, put it into wide-mouthed, or what are called gooseberry bottles, let the bottles be filled as full as they can be packed, and stick the corks lightly into them; then place them upright in a saucepan of water, heated gradually to about 100 or 170° F. that is, until the water feels very hot to the finger, but does not scald. Let this degree of heat be kept up for half an hour, then remove the bottles one by one, and fill them up to within half an inch of the cork with boiling water; when cold let the cork be fitted very close, and lay the bottles on their sides, that the cork may be kept moist by the water. To prevent fermentation and mould, the bottles must be turned once or twice a week for the first month or two, and once or twice a month afterwards. When applied to use, some of the liquor first poured off may serve to be put into the pie, or pudding, instead of water, and the remainder being boiled up with a little sugar, makes a rich and agreeable syrup.
The fruit ought not be cracked by the heat; some trials were made by keeping the bottles in a heat of 190° for three quarters of an hour, but the fruit was reduced nearly to a pulp. It is also advisable that the fruit be not quite ripe, nor should it be bruised.
Some fruits may be preserved in a succulent state by being kept in water, without boiling. This is practised in regard to the cranberry: it also succeeds with the smaller kinds of apples. All pulpy fruits, such as damsons, plums, &c., if gathered when not quite ripe, and not wounded, may likewise be preserved, by putting them into dry bottles, so as to exclude the air, by sealing over the cork, and then burying them in a trench, with the cork downwards.
CONSERVATION OF RECENT FRUITS, BY MEANS OF SUGAR, IN A LIQUID STATE.
A great number of fruits in their natural state may be conserved in a fluid, transparent syrup, of such a consistence as will prevent them from spoiling. This method of conserving fruits requires some care; for if they are too little impregnated with sugar, they do not keep, and if the syrup is too concentrated, the sugar crystallizes, and thus spoils the conserved fruit.
METHOD OF CONSERVING APRICOTS BY MEANS OF SUGAR.