[Sca-cooks] fruit preserves and marmalades

[Stefan li Rous]

Nancy Kiel replied to me (in part) with:
> I'm not sure quinces would
> have been used for their pectin with other fruit because of the difference
> in seasonal availability, though I have seen it in one modern recipe.


I think this is what you were referring to:
>>You need a source of pectin and sugar or honey. I believe quinces were
>>the first done because of their large amount of available pectin.


I wasn't thinking of the pectin in the quinces being used to jell other

fruits, just that the amount of pectin in the quinces themselves, made
quinces the first fruit to be used this way.

Below is a message in the marmalades-msg file (in fact, the first
message in that file) which is a good summary of this. I'm afraid this
and similar messages are where I've gotten my knowledge of this as
opposed to hands-on experience.


> 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?
<snip>
> 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

Stefan
--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas         StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
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