[Sca-cooks] Cranberry sauce and pectin

[Holly Stockley]

>
>Doc asked:
>>This leads me to a medieval-relevant question:  Are there any lists
>>out there of period fruits with high pectin contents?  I know that
>>quince has quite a lot of pectin, and that gooseberries are also
>>supposed to be good for jellies.  Any others?  Commercial pectin is
>>made from apples, yes?  Can apples be cooked to a jelly (and not be
>>just thick applesauce)?  How about plums?

Martha Washington's cookbook gives a recipe for Damsons in quaking jelly 
that instructs you to cook the fruit in apple water (water in which apples 
have been cooked).  Same principle.

I make my own pectin stock from apples instead of using the powder.   
Basically, I chop up apples, peel, core and all, and cook them in just 
enought water to cover.  Once they're soft through, I dump them in a jelly 
bag overnight.  Take the resulting juice and boil it down by about half, and 
process in whatever size jars are useful for you.  It will be stronger in 
pectin if you use greener apples.  If you've got a local orchard, you might 
even ask for the small apples when they thin the fruit in the summer.  That 
way, they don't go to waste. ;-)  I've never tried with plums.  Apples are 
neutral enough in color and flavor not to interfere with most other fruit 
preserves.

In my experience, apples, pears, strawberries, some varieties of plums, 
raspberries, and those you mentioned will set up without additional pectin 
if you cook them to the jellying point.  Sour cherries are iffy, black ones 
very frustrating without pectin.

Femke