Grape Conserve Circa 1900

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The grape conserve recipe above was in the pages of a cookbook that was published in the 1920s. There are other handwritten recipes in the book, but they are in pencil and the style of writing is much different. That makes me think the recipe above is much older.

I'm showing you this old recipe for a couple of reasons. First, the handwriting is so nice. I've thought about framing this and hanging it on the wall in my kitchen!

Second, I'm not familiar with grape conserve. Offhand, I would have thought it was just another name for grape jam. But it is altogether different.

In searching on the internet about this, I came to THIS LINK, which provides some insights into grape conserve. Here's a quote from the article...

Conserves, which combine fruit and nuts, are traditionally served as a condiment with a meal or in desserts. This converge, made with the foxy-tasting Concord grape, is not overly sweet and marries very well with chocolate and pastry of all sorts. It’s also good served on a cheese platter. ... Grapes and oranges are both high in acidity, and since spoilers cannot thrive in the moisture less environment of dried nuts, this product is safe for water bath processing. The conserve keeps for up to a year.

I have a row of Concord Grapes that produce an abundant harvest almost every year. My wife preserves most of the crop as juice. It's powerfully good. But I think we need to make a batch of grape conserve this year.

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Here's another recipe, this one from inside the cover of the book. If you are bothered by neuralgia, you might want to try this...

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