flipApricot Jam for the Pantry
Apricot Jam for the Pantry
Why this dish? Dumas treats jams and fruit preserves at length in his *Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine*. In a bourgeois home like his Château de Monte-Cristo, the pantry kept summer fruits in pots for the entire winter.
An amber apricot jam, cooked with sugar until it sheets, to keep the summer sun in pantry jars.
Summer is short, my friend, and apricots even shorter! So when they are full of sun, I drop them into the copper basin with their weight in sugar, and I stir, and I stir, until the drop sets on the cold plate. We fill the pots, cap them with paper, and there is summer locked away for the dark months. Believe me: a spoonful of this jam on fresh bread, and you forget it is snowing outside!
- •Ripe apricots — a full basket (fruit)
- •Sugar — equal weight to fruit (preservation and sweetness)
- •Lemon juice — a few drops (acidity and setting)
Apricot Jam for the Pantry
An amber apricot jam, cooked with sugar until it sheets, to keep the summer sun in pantry jars.
Why this dish? Dumas treats jams and fruit preserves at length in his *Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine*. In a bourgeois home like his Château de Monte-Cristo, the pantry kept summer fruits in pots for the entire winter.
Summer is short, my friend, and apricots even shorter! So when they are full of sun, I drop them into the copper basin with their weight in sugar, and I stir, and I stir, until the drop sets on the cold plate. We fill the pots, cap them with paper, and there is summer locked away for the dark months. Believe me: a spoonful of this jam on fresh bread, and you forget it is snowing outside!
Ingredients (period version)
- Ripe apricots — a full basket (fruit)
- Sugar — equal weight to fruit (preservation and sweetness)
- Lemon juice — a few drops (acidity and setting)
Ingredients
- Apricots, pitted — 1 kg (fruit)
- Granulated sugar — 800 g (preservation)
- Lemon juice — from 1/2 lemon (acidity and setting)
Method
- Cut the apricots in half, pit them, and mix them with the sugar and lemon juice.
- Let macerate for 1 to 2 hours so the sugar draws out the fruit juices.
- Bring to a boil in a wide basin and cook over high heat, skimming.
- Check the set: a drop placed on a cold plate should set.
- Pour boiling hot into sterilized jars, seal, and turn them upside down until cool.
How it was made : Jams were cooked in a copper basin (untinned) over high heat, and sealed hot under a round of paper soaked in brandy. Sugar, then expensive, made jam a small luxury of the bourgeois pantry.
The contemporary twist : Add a few crushed apricot kernel almonds at the end of cooking: it is the bitter-sweet secret of old jams, "kernel" style.
Sources : Alexandre Dumas, Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine, 1873 (posthumous)
Alexandre Dumas · Charactorium
