Procure the apple, or orange quince. It is much less apt to be hard, when preserved, than the pear quince. Pare and core the fruit, and allow equal weights of fruit and fine sugar. Boil quinces in water enough to cover them, till they are tender; then take them out one by one with a silver spoon and lay them separately on a flat dish. Make a syrup and save all the water not used for it. When it is ready, return the fruit to the kettle, and boil it slowly three quarters of an hour, then lay it in jars, and pour the syrup over it. It is a good way to cut part of the quinces in halves, and preserve a part of them whole. Remove the cores with a fruit-corer, or if you have not this, use a common tap-borer; it answers the purpose very well.
Quinces with Sweet Apples.
To increase the quantity, without an addition of sugar, have as many large fair sweet apples pared, quartered, and cored, as will weigh one third as much as the quince. When the quince is boiled enough take it out, and put the sweet apples into the syrup, and boil them till they begin to look red and clear; an hour and a half will not be too long. Then put the quince and apple into the jars in alternate layers. The flavor of the quince will so entirely penetrate the apple, that the one cannot be distinguished from the other, and the sugar necessary to preserve the quince, will be sufficient for the apple.
Quinces (without boiling the Syrup).
Weigh twelve ounces of sugar for every pound of fruit. Boil the quinces in water enough to cover them, until they are so soft that care is necessary not to break them, in taking them out. Drain the pieces a little as you take them from the water, and put them into a jar in alternate layers with the sugar. Cover the jar close as soon as it is filled, and paste a paper over the top. Quinces done in this way are very elegant, about the color of oranges, and probably will not need scalding to keep them as long as you wish. If any tendency to fermentation appears, as may be the case by the following April or May, set the jar (if it is stone) into a brick oven after bread has been baked, and the quince will become a beautiful light red, and will keep almost any length of time, and never become hard.
It may be well to mention that in damp houses, none of the fruits preserved without boiling keep as well as those which are boiled. I have known a very few instances in which persons who were skilful in all these things did not succeed in preserving fruits in this way.
The water in which quinces are boiled should be saved. Boil the parings in it for a short time, if you intend to make a jelly, as long boiling them will make the water less clear. If you do not make jelly, boil the parings a good while, then strain off the water, and when it is cold bottle it. It will keep without the addition of sugar two or three weeks, and will give a fine flavor to apple-pies or sauce. There is so much richness in the parings of quinces that they should never be thrown away without being boiled. The fruit should therefore be washed and wiped before it is pared, and all defective parts removed.
[The pear quince, though it becomes hard when preserved, and therefore is not as good for that purpose as the orange quince, is very rich, and makes fine marmalade.]
Marmalade.