SC - An Introduction and a question.

[Philip & Susan Troy]

DdreMacNam at aol.com wrote:

> What I need to know is how
> period are preserves and jelly? Also what types of fruit would have been
> used? One last thing does anyone have recepies or redactions?

Fruits preserved in various sugar and/or honey preparations are
exceedingly period. They range from  fruit in spiced syrup, through
myriad varieties of stamped, sliceable, fruit "marmalades" (kind of like
a stack of fruit leather), to, in late period, the jams and jellies we
know today.

Ellinor Fettiplace's receipt book (AGAIN!) has quite a few recipes for
all of these, and they are late enough in period style to be used as
working recipes by relatively novice cooks. 

Tops on the list of fruits would be those known to medieval/renaissance
Europeans (obviously), especially those that are high in pectin. Quinces
are quite common for this reason. Apples and pears only slightly less
so. Raspberries, strawberries, barberries, and gooseberries all appear
in several sources. Oranges and lemons appear, but generally as candied
peel or some kind of suckets.

Apart from the use of honey substituted for part or all of the sugar in
some recipes, particularly the early ones, the technology for making
pectin set by combining it with sugar and acid hasn't changed over the
years, so most of the period recipes are quite straightforward and
easily interpreted by modern cooks with some experience with making jams
and jellies. Generally you won't find , for instance, that much less
sugar being used to make a sweet fruit jelly than is used today, just
because sugar was expensive. If you don't use enough, you run the risk
of the fruit not setting until it is cooked to death and devoid of color
and flavor. So, most of the recipes are pretty similar to modern ones,
although you'll find a somewhat greater variety of styles than is
generally practiced today.

Adamantius