PRESERVING FRUIT

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 66, Issue 5595, 22 March 1943, Page 5

PRESERVING FRUIT

WITHOUT USE OF SUGAR

(Prepared by the Department of Health and ciculated by the Plunket Society).

Fruits which are highly acid, such as gooseberries, black currants, red and white currants, may be preserved without sugar. As these fruits are valuable sources of vitamin C it is advisable to preserve as many as possible of them this season.

Make sure that bottle lids and rubbers are thoroughly clean. The method may be one of several Fortunately with these acid fruits, very little loss of vitamin value occurs which ever method is used. The easiest method is to pack the fruit into clean jars, put in a portion of the water needed to cover them, roll the jars to get the air out, or use a clean stick to get the air out; then add water until the level is about i inch from the top of the jar. Put on the lids with clean rubbers in position. With the screw top type of jar, screw the lid on firmly and then give half a turn back. With the glass top type, put the tops on but do not fix them down tightly. Stand the jars in a saucepan or preserving pan, either with a cloth or a wooden base at the bottom of the pan to stand the jars on; cover the jars with water; do not fail to take the precaution of having the water over the top of the jar, for this secures proper sterilisation of the lids. Bring the water to the boil, keep boiling for twenty minutes to half an hour, then remove the jars and immediately screw them down tightly. Invert till they are cool to see whether they are air tight.

By cooking the fruit first in an aluminium or enamel pan, using only a small quantity of water, space can be saved by filling the jars to i inch from the top with the pureed cooked fruit. The jars should then be immersed in the pan of water as above and kept at boiling temperature for twenty minutes. Gooseberries done this way may be used for making gooseberry fool, and this has the advantage of not requiring much sugar for you take some of the acidity off by means of eggs or milk or cream mixed in with it.

When highly acid fruits are used for making cooked desserts, a pinch of soda may be added to every break-fast-cup without impairing the vitamin content of the fruit; the reason being that the fruit is so highly acid that it is still markedly acid in reaction when the soda has been added In this way, the addition of soda reduces the amount of sugar needed for sweeting the fruit, and yet, ,unlike what is liable to happen with putting soda int othe water when vegetables are cooking) the vitamin C is not destroyed because the fruit is still acid. This means that you are still warned not to use soda when cooking vegetables. Before trying the addition of soda to a large quantity of fruit, try it out on a small quantity in order to see whether your family motices the taste conferred on it by the soda.

Instead of soda a teaspoonful of precipitated calcium carbonate may be used. In order to prevent the fruit from frothing up and boiling over, add a small piece of butter. The precipitated calcium carbonate may with advantage be used in cooking rhubarb, in order to neutralise the effect of the oxalic acid in it. Rhubarb is a useful sources of vitamin C. (Blackboard chalk is not suitable, as it is composed of calcium sulphate). TOMATOES Tomatoes should be preserved, because they are rich ip vitamin C. The easiest method is to halve the tomatoes (using a stainless knife) and put them into jars; enough juice comes out of the tomatoes to make it unnecessary to add any water. They may then be processed in the pan of water, as for black currants and gooseberries, for twenty minutes; using the method described above. The Nutrition Research Department has found that very little loss of vitamin occurs by the above “cold pack” methods, and they are very simple to do.

Use as many of your preserving jars this year as you can for: (1) black currants; (2) gooseberries; (3) red currants and white currants; (4) tomatoes; (5) tree tomatoes. Also for apricots which are useful, not for vitamin C, but for iron and vitamin A. And don’t forget to preserve rose hip syrup!