Victorian-America's Crabapple Jelly and Preserves by Kristin Holt

 

by Kristin Holt, USA Today Bestselling Author of
Sweet Romance set in the American Old West

 

September is Jelly and Preserves Season!

 

Crabapples

Gorgeous, flowering crabapple trees can be found in temperate climates. Blossom-laden boughs herald the warming days of late spring. The sour fruit is enjoyed in jellies and preserves.

Victorian housekeepers (wives) bottled preserves (whole fruit in syrup) and jellies. Their recipes illustrate 19th century cooking methods differing from the modern.

Flowering crabapple tree, courtesy of Pinterest.

Crabapples are smaller and much more sour than typical apples.

Crabapples, courtesy of Pinterest.

Vintage Crabapple Recipes, 1898

"Making Crabapple Jelly," original to New York Tribune, was reprinted in The Washington Standard of Olympia, Washington on November 11, 1898. This newspaper column provides much more information than appeared in recipe books of the era, thus an ideal example of Victorian-era preserving. I've taken great care to transcribe the article's text precisely, including vintage spelling, odd plurals, and punctuation.

Crabapple Wisdom, 1898

The crabapple is one of the most important fruits that are put up by the house-keeper in the Fall. It makes delicious preserves, and is a most valuable jelly. The tartness and fine, rich flavor of crabapple jelly render it second only to currant. For preserving the fruit the large, red-checked Siberian crabapple should be used, and may be obtained in market at about 40 cents a peck. For jelly, a cheap variety, the little wild crabapple, may be used with the best results and may often be purchased at 20 cents a peck, thus making it one of the cheapest of jellies.

~ The Washington Standard of Olympia, Washington, November 11, 1898

Crabapple Jelly Instructions, 1898

To make crabapple jelly look the fruit over carefully, cut out the stems and the blossom ends, and cut every apples [sic] in halves. Put the fruit in a large double boiler or in a stone jar sit [sic] in a large pot of water, and let the water come gradually to the boiling point around the jar. Be sure that the water reaches up to the fruit. The water must boil around the jar for eight or nine hours, and must be replenished as it boils away. At the end of this time the juice will be drawn out of the fruit and the jar may be removed from the water and left to cool over night. (emphasis added)

~ The Washington Standard of Olympia, Washington, November 11, 1898

Compared to modern crabapple jelly recipes, this Victorian method takes forever.

Read on!

Then strain them through a strong muslin cloth, squeezing out all the juice possible. Measure the juice and allow a pound of sugar to every pint. Boil the juice for 20 minutes before adding the sugar. Then put in the sugar and let it come to a boil for a few minutes longer, until it is firm jelly. Then strain it into jelly-bowls, and when cold cover it with papers and seal it up. Many delicious desserts are made with crabapple jelly, and it is excellent to use for cake.

~ The Washington Standard of Olympia, Washington, November 11, 1898

 Note the reference to papers, which were brandy-soaked (or not), cut to the proper size to fully cover the jelly surface, and set directly upon the contents. "Seal it up," in reference to jelly, meant either papers pasted over the top of open jars, glass caps (screw on or clamp), or tin lids which had no threads. Note that none of these methods hamper spoilage (by sterilization and vacuum) the way today's jelly- and jam-bottling methods do.

Crabapple Preserves Instructions, 1898

To make a crabapple preserve, use the whole fruit: after carefully looking it over, put into a preserving kettle with enough water to prevent burning. Let the water come gradually to the boiling point, and simmer until the skins crack. Remove the apples, skin them, and with a thin-bladed French knife take out the cores from the blossom ends, leaving the stems on. Weigh the fruit and allow a pound and a quarter of sugar and a scant cup of water to every pound. Let the water and sugar first boil together until clear, then add the fruit and let it simmer until the crabapples are transparent and tender. Remove the apples with a skimmer and spread them out on platters in the sun to cool and harden. Add a syrup of lemon juice in the proportion of the juice of one lemon to three pounds of the fruit, and let it boil until it is clear. When the fruit is cold and hardened, fill quart jars about three-quarters full and strain the syrup over them, filling the jars on the top. Screw on the covers and when cold tighten down.

~ The Washington Standard of Olympia, Washington, November 11, 1898

Did you notice this vintage crabapple preserve is not processed in a water bath? Even after the fruit sat out in the sun?

How did these preserves keep? Our Victorian ancestors understood that adequate sugar in jams, jellies, and preserves acted as a preservative by inhibiting microbial activity.

Crabapple bough, laden with fruit. Image: Pinterest.

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Do you make jam and jellies or bottle preserves? What insights can you share about the differences between Victorian jellies (or preserves) and today's?

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Copyright Ⓒ 2021 Kristin Holt LC

 

 

by Kristin Holt, USA Today Bestselling Author
of Sweet Romance set in the Victorian American West

Victorian Housekeeping: Washing Blankets

Nineteenth-century women worked with an intensity most of us today can't compare with. Our great-great grandmothers lugged water (if not from a well or stream, then from the kitchen pump to her washtub or bath tub). They prepared three meals a day--including all of the seasonal work like canning, preserving, churning, butchering, harvesting, salting, and drying. Somehow, these women scrubbed their homes from top to bottom (literally) and took spring- and fall-cleaning seriously. Including cleaning the wallpaper.

This model, captured in a cabinet card photo (1870 to 1880 or so), had it easy! A washing machine! No need to stoop (until it's time to lift buckets of water).

Photo: Studio composition of 'laundry maid' with mangle, pail, clothes basket, and Empire Washer. Unknown photographer, 1870-1880. Source: Pinterest.

 

Sigh. I rather like my modern washer and dryer, dishwasher, and air conditioning. Not to mention a wicked-efficient vacuum so light I carry it one-handed.

Despite our twenty-first century conveniences, readers of western historical romance find the details of Victorian-era life interesting (if not fascinating).

It's a bright sunny day (for most northern hemisphere dwellers), so let's wash the household blankets!

How to Wash Blankets, Victorian-style

Instructions for laundering blankets was published in nineteenth-century newspapers, cook books, and ladies' magazines. While advice overlaps and often contradicts, the instructions are simple.

Note the key elements in blanket-washing instructions:

• a tub
• borax
• soft soap
• cold water
• soak!
  
• do not wring
  

Notice this housekeeper says her method works for woolens, flannels, mosquito bars (netting?), lace curtains and blankets. 

Cool! What other blanket-cleaning advice came from Victorian-era laundresses?

Detailed Victorian Blanket-cleaning Instructions 

Published in Lawrence Daily Journal of Lawrence, Kansas on September 24, 1886, these detailed "Washing Blankets" instructions were credited to the popular Good Housekeeping magazine. 

To make reading easy on the eyes, I've carefully transcribed this Victorian newspaper clipping (including uncommon punctuation).

 

WASHING BLANKETS.

Some Remarks on This Important and Vexatious Domestic Problem.

I do not claim to know every thing about washing blankets, or perhaps the best method of doing it, but I have had a bit of experience in that line and would be glad to impart it to any who would like to know it. In the last twenty-five or more years I have had four and some of the time five beds in daily use. For these the only covering is blankets, winter and summer, with the exception of the white bedspread. I do not own a comfortable (no comfort in them that I can see) and but two patch-work quilts, so I make up in blankets. Using so many I have some to wash every spring and fall. In order to wash blankets successfully, four things are necessary. A good day, plenty of soft water, dissolved soap ad libitum, and two pairs of stout hands.

1. A good day--pleasant; of course. The sooner a blanket is dry after being wet, the better it looks and the less it shrinks. If the sun does not shine the hottest, provided the wind blows it is just as well for they are apt to smell oily if the sun is too hot.

2. Plenty of soft water. If soft water is not to be had a large spoonful of borax dissolved in hot water and added to each pail will help wonderfully.

3. Plenty of dissolved soap. Never use soap that has rosin in it as it hardens the texture and causes an unpleasant smell. I would not use it for any washing as it turns white clothes yellow when they are laid aside,

4. Two pairs of hands are needed, because the blankets should not be rubbed on the board, and two can handle them much easier than one. Let us not attempt to wash any more than we can do well. Here is a blanket that has been on a sick bed and there are some spots of oil on it. Take some cold water and soap and wash out the spots before putting into the hot suds. Blankets when bought are bound on the edges with ribbon of different colors. If washed with this on they will be blankets of many colors when done. I rip off the ribbon and button hole the edges with white zephyr worsted. Blankets are bought in pairs, but it is not necessary to keep them so. They are much easier handled and are not always needed on the bed together, so I have found it wise to cut them apart,

Now we are ready for the washing. I make a strong suds of the dissolved soap and hot water, having it hot enough to be comfortable to my hands and put in a couple of blankets to soak a few minutes while filling the boiler again. Squeeze the blankets in the hands pressing them up and down in the tub, then transfer them to a second tub, prepared in a like manner with not quite as much soap. Put some more blankets to soak in the first tub. If the first ones look clean when out of the second suds they can be put next into a clean water for rinsing. The first rinse will probably be quite soapy, use the second and if necessary the third rinse. Be sure no soap is left in the blankets as it will leave them hard. Have all the water as near of one temperature as you can; you can judge by the feeling to your hands. Some use a little bluing in the last water, I prefer the clean white look to the possible streaks of blue. Have the wringer loose so as not to press down the pile too hard.  When out of doors one pair of hands should take hold of one end and one pair of the other and shake and pull in shape. Hang evenly on the line. As they begin to dry pull in shape repeating at intervals until dry. Fold when dry, pulling in shape, pile together and place a weight on them. If to be put away for the summer, sew each one in cloth (old sheets come in handy) and you may bid defiance to the moth who is ever on the alert seeking what it may devour.

 

Allingham's Hanging the Washing. Courtesy of Pinterest.

If you wish to wash blankets for the first time they will need a little different treatment. Never mix them with those that have been washed before. The water must be just warm, plenty of soap, and the borax in two or three waters. the blankets are full of grease, as you will see when they get into the water, and it must be got out now or never. When they have been washed so they do not look streaked, it will do to put them into a hotter suds for the final one, then rinse as above stated until they are clear white.

If blankets are not used constantly, they need not be washed every season. It suffices to hang them on the line when the wind blows and the sun is not too hot. And finally get all the blankets you can. Use them in preference to any other bed clothing, especially for children. Perhaps the crossness, the "I don't want any breakfast" disposition may be in a measure owing to the heavy quilt or comfortable [sic] on the child's bed. Don't blame the child--look after the bed clothing instead.--Mrs. M. J. Plumstead, in Good Housekeeping.

Victorian Laundry Tools, Calderdale Libraries, Museums and Arts, image via Pinterest

Additional Methods for Cleaning Blankets

Laundresses (including moms) used ammonia, too. This first example shows soap and ammonia. Check this out:

This "receipt" provides lots of extra vintage hints to prevent colors from running or fading, also to brighten tints.

Victorian Washtub. Source: Object Lessons

 

The next blanket-washing instructions emphasize the use of ammonia such that it doesn't evaporate away. Note that this example has ammonia but no soap. This article was published by The Wichita Eagle, of Wichita, Kansas on September 29, 1888. I've carefully transcribed all spelling and original punctuation.

How to Wash Blankets.

Put a pint of household ammonia in the bottom of your tub, having had the blankets well beaten to remove all clinging dust before you get the tubs out. Then lay the blanket lightly on over the ammonia, and pour upon it a sufficient quantity of warm water to cover the blanket entirely. Then with a stick or the hand flop the blanket about in the solution, pressing all the water that will come out of it against the side of the tub, without wringing as you remove it to the rinse water. You will be amazed to see the dissolved dirt coming out through the fibers, as no washing or rubbing with soap suds will bring it out. Rinse in the same way, the same moderately warm water (not boiling water), and by simply pushing the blankets about in the tub. Press through the wringer and hang out to dry in a windy place, not in the sun.

As the blanket hangs there drying a little water will collect in the four corners, which it is rather an amusement to squeeze out to help the drying process. If you do not care to put a second blanket in the first ammoniated [sic] water, which must be done promptly, as the ammonia evaporates quickly, divide the quantity, taking half a pint for each one of the two tubs, and wash two blankets at once. The evaporating ammonia, released by the warmth of the water, can only escape through the blanket,  which is laid over it in the tub before the water is applied. Hence you get the value of every drop of it. In ordinary cleaning with ammonia, for paint, brasses, silver, etc., mix it with cold water first, and then add a little warm water to the pail.

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Who's ready to throw a blanket or three into your late-model washer and dryer?

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Copyright Ⓒ 2021 Kristin Holt LC

Economical Victorian Housekeeping by Kristin Holt

 

 

by Kristin Holt, USA Today Bestselling Author

of Sweet Romance set in the Victorian-era American West

Victorian Woman's Sphere

During the nineteenth century, the United States held specific ideas about what constituted a "Woman's Sphere." Home was her domain, her responsibility, and her realm of influence. Because society held these home-centered ideals, girls were trained from an early age to fulfill this role. Not only did girls work alongside their mothers to learn every housekeeping nuance, but Victorian media (newspapers, cook books, books of housekeeping wisdom) emphasized a wide spectrum of housekeeping knowledge and importance. Book publishers and institutions (such as the Boston Cooking School) capitalized on filling the gap between home-instruction and this most highly valued profession: wife and mother.

Housekeeping: More than Housework

Housekeeping included far more than scrubbing floors, cleaning the wallpaper, and laundering clothes and linens. Women were charged with creating the best possible living from allotted household funds. Household spending covered everything from heating and cooking fuel to groceries to clothing.

 

There are women to whom small economies, little improved ways of caring for things, never occur, but who gladly avail themselves of any knowledge they might gain. Such a woman will rejoice to know that her carpet sweeper will last much longer and will work more satisfactorily if the wheels are oiled occasionally ; that her wringer, if the screws are loosened when it is put away, will also take on a new lease of life ; that in the course of a year she may save several dollars if she drives a nail on which the stove hook may hang, and see that it is hung there, and is not left on the stove, where the handle is sure to burn and drop off.

~ The Burlington Free Press of Burlington, Vermont. September 12, 1881.

Economy in Victorian Housekeeping

Women's work was nothing if not repetitious and sometimes backbreaking.  Note that the following article, "Young Housekeepers Should Always Follow These Rules," includes a "regular day for washing and one for ironing." Last among this list of Rules: "Allow no waste of any sort."

Economy in the Victorian Kitchen

In an era of rampant dyspepsia, housekeepers were indoctrinated in the importance of sanitary and healthful cookery. Women learned kitchen science from their mothers, schools, and cookbooks. They also learned the essential Victorian value: waste not, want not. "If you do not waste anything, you will always have enough. ~source"

Note the high attitude in the following 1879 article. If a wasteful American housekeeper didn't realize her follies before, this set-down would bring all sorts of crimes to her attention.

 

WASTE IN HOUSE KEEPING.

Americans are an industrious, money making people, but they are not economical. Our housekeeping is proverbially wasteful, allowing leakage at every point, sufficient in the aggregate, in many households, to support a European family. Some writer (we know not to whom to give credit,) has made the following extensive, but by no means complete enumeration :

Much waste is allowed in cooking meats. Unless watched, thee cook will throw out water in which meat has been boiled, without letting it cool to take off the fat; or she will empty the dripping-pan into the swill-pail. The grease is useful in many ways.

Again, bits of meat are thrown out, which a French cook would convert into excellent hash.

Flour is sifted in a wasteful manner, or the bread-pan is left with the dough sticking to it.

Pie-crust is left over, and laid by to sour, instead of making a few tarts for tea.

Vegetables are thrown away which would be nice if warmed over for breakfast.

Cream is allowed to mould [sic] and spoil, mustard to dry in the pot, and vinegar to corrode the castor.

Good knives are used for cooking in the kitchen, silver spoons are used to scrape kettles, and forks for toasting bread.

Tea, roasted coffee, pepper and spices, are allowed to stand open and lose their strength.

Dried fruits not cared for in season become wormy, and sweet meats are opened and forgotten.

Vinegar is drawn in a basin, and permitted to stand until both strength and basin are spoiled.

Soap is left in water to dissolve, or more used than is necessary, and the scrub-brush is left in the water.

Barrels and tubs are left in the sun to dry and fall apart ; tins put away without being properly dried are rusted.

Molasses stands open and flies take possession.

Pork spoils for want of salt, and beef because the brine wants scalding.

Ashes are thrown out carelessly, endangering the premises, and being wasted.

Clothes are being whipped to pieces by the wind on the lines ; fine cambrics [sic] are rubbed on the wash-board ; and laces are torn in starching.

Table linen is thrown carelessly down and nibbled by mice ; is put away damp and mildews ; or the fruit stains are forgotten and the stains washed in or "set."

Table napkins are used to wipe dishes, and tea-pots are melted on the stove.

Lard is not well dried out, and becomes tainted, and rats destroy the "soap grease."

Bones are burned that might be broken and thrown into the compost heap.

Old shoes, woollen [sic] rags, and such accumulations are permitted to lie round loose instead of being composted for your favorite grape vines.

Sugar is spilled around the barrel, coffee from the sack, and tea from the chest.

Wooden boxes are used to take up ashes, then the box is pushed aside and forgotten. Many a family has been houseless [sic] and homeless in a night by such an inadvertance [sic].

Each of the above items is a trifle in itself--and yet the house where all these trifles are "happening"--just imagine what a place it would be! In these and many other ways a careless and inexperienced housekeeper will waste without heeding--nay, even without even knowing that she wastes. On the contrary, because she entertains but little company, buys no fine clothes, makes her own dresses, and cooks plainly, she may imagine that she is an exceedingly economical woman and a very excellent housekeeper.

~ Yorkville Enquirer of York, South Carolina, May 1, 1879

 

Despite the criticisms herein heaped upon the heads of wasteful housekeepers, many vintage sources support the idea that many women were excellent housekeepers--with surprising economy.

The next article (1891) focuses on economy in cooking, sharing not only affordable recipes for "plain cooking" but also the strategy of "saving every scrap (of food) and utilizing it." In the Victorian-era United States, "cheap" meant affordable and economical.

As a frame of reference, note that the "a man's food can be obtained at the cost of twelve cents a day" approximation, adjusted for inflation, is $4 (in 2020). Sumptuous living at 45 cents (1891) is about $13 (in 2020). 

Wow... do you eat sumptuously on thirteen dollars a day?

Quality advice, isn't it? Even for modern times?

 

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What do you think?

Is it possible to eat sumptuously on $13 daily, in today's world?

Did you garner useful concepts to put to work in today's kitchen?

Please scroll down and comment. Discussion is the best part!

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Copyright © 2021 Kristin Holt LC