Jams not period??? (was SC - Mulberry question)

[Stefan li Rous]

Adamantius writes:

> The unfortunate truth appears to be that there are few or no jam
> recipes
> of any kind, from "period". There are a few for preserves that are
> more like fruit cheeses or fruit leather... <snip>

Ack!!!

So then, what is the accepted general belief on the use of preserves in
reenacting period cooking?

I have been happily placing my father's prizewinning apricot, berry and plum
preserves on my breakfast buffets and have never heard any objection...

... I have always felt that his were "more period" than storebought; if only
for the fact that he often grows the produce himself and uses less sugar than
commercial jams...

so... should I cease serving preserves, break my heart though it would?

        - k
- ----------------------

Prserves and jellies have been discussed here before. The following is one
of several messages about fruit preserves in my fruits-msg file in my Florilegium.

Since both the message above and the one I happened to quote below are
from Adamantius, I'm not sure why the opinions seem to differ. Adamantius,
were you just saying there are no recipes above, not that the food
didn't exist?

Stefan li Rous
stefan at texas.net

- ----------------
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 10:16:45 -0400
Subject: Re: SC - An Introduction and a question.

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
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