Important to Housekeepers.
The following letter from a lady claims the attention of every good housewife at this particular season.
Blackberry Jam.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Westbury, Wiltshire, Aug. 15, 1826.
Sir,—The importance that I attach to the above sweet subject,—the uses of “a jam” even may be important,—induces me to offer you the option of republishing a few lines on the occasion, which first appeared in a very condensed form last autumn, in the “Examiner” newspaper. I am anxious to obtain further celebrity, and a wider circulation of the merits which this wholesome dainty justly lay claim, and the success that attended my former little notice of it, encourage me to persevere; for I was informed that after the publication alluded to, the “Herald” copied it, and that subsequently it was cried in the streets of your dingy metropolis.
I can only judge of the prevailing quantity of the kindly blackberry, by the vast profusion that enriches our woody vales, where nature seems resolved to solace herself for the restrictions to which she has been confined by the dreary downs that skirt our beautiful vicinity; and where Falstaff must surely have originated his happy expression of “reasons being plenty as blackberries!” But I am keeping you too long from the subject. The method of preparing the delicate conserve that forms so large a portion of my children’s favourite adjunctive aliment, is so simple, that it can be achieved by the merest novice in the nice department of “domestic management.”
Boil the blackberries with half their weight of coarse moist sugar for three quarters of an hour,[304] keeping the mass stirred constantly. It is a mistake to suppose that a stewpan is a necessary vehicle on the occasion; the commonest tin saucepan will answer the purpose equally well. The more luxurious preserves being made with white sugar, and that of equal weight with the fruit, are necessarily unwholesome; but the cheapness of this homely delicacy, besides its sanative properties renders it peculiarly desirable for scantily furnished tables. It has been a “staple commodity” in my family for some years past, and with the exception of treacle, I find it the most useful aliment in “regulating the bowels” of my children;—you as a “family man,” sir, will excuse, nay, appreciate the observation, and all your readers who have “their quivers full of them,” will not disdain the gratis prescription that shall supersede the guinea fee! Indeed, to the sparing use of butter, and a liberal indulgence in treacle and blackberry jam, I mainly attribute the extraordinary health of my young family. The prodigal use, or rather the abuse, of butter that pervades all classes, has often surprised me: the very cottage children, whose tattered apparel bespeaks abject poverty, I continually meet munching their “hunks” of bread, smeared with butter; how much should I rejoice to see, because I know its superiority in every respect, my favourite jam substituted! But cottage children are far from being objects of my compassion, for they live in the “country,” which comprehensive word conveys delicious ideas of sun, fresh air, exercise, flowers, shady trees, and this wholesome fruit clustering about them, and inviting their chubby fingers at every healthful step. My pity is reserved for their forlorn little brethren, doomed to breathe the unwholesome atmosphere of crowded manufactories, and close narrow alleys in populous cities! What a luxury would a supper be twice a week, for instance, to the poor little “bottoms” in Spitalfields.[305] Who knows but they might receive their first taste for Shakspeare while being fed, like their great prototype in the “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” with blackberries! “Dewberries,” which Titania ordered for the refreshment of her favourite, are so nearly allied to their glossy neighbours, that when the season is far advanced the two are not easily distinguished. Shakspeare, who knew every thing, was of course aware that the dewberry ripens earlier than the blackberry; namely, in the season for “apricots.” It must be confessed that nothing but the associations that are connected with the elegant and romantic name “dewberry,” fit only for the mouth of a fairy to pronounce, could induce me to give a preference to the latter; they are not so numerous, nor consequently so useful. I own I am sanguine respecting the general introduction of blackberries into the London street cries. What an innovation they would cause! what a rural sight, and sound, and taste, and smell, would they introduce into that wilderness of houses! What a conjuring up of happy feelings—almost as romantic as those that are inspired by “bilberries, ho!” When I resided in London, I recollect the wild, and exquisite, and undefinable sensations that were excited by the peculiar and un-city-like cry of these “whorts.”[306] I used to look out at the blue-frocked boys who sold them, with their heavy country faces; capacious “gabardines,” that hinted of Caliban; round hats, that knew no touch of form; and unaccountable laced up boots; with as much astonishment, as if I had beheld and heard purveyors from the wilderness shouting “Manna!” which we all know is “angel’s food!”