Comment: Pears are one of the latest of the tree fruits to ripen, after the worst of summer has broken in most places and the days are becoming very noticeably shorter. The reminder of oncoming winter makes it seem all the more urgent to lay away those items that can be preserved for the cold times. For a century now cheap transportation and mechanized processing has made fruit available in stores year round, but a century is a very short time in many ways.

Ingredients:

Fresh pears, peeled, cored and seeds removed but stem left on top if possible
Sugar (white, granulated)
Citric acid (available in “canning supplies” sections of most supermarkets)

Peel small-sized pears, leave the stem one inch long, weigh them, and allow one pound of sugar to one of fruit; put one pint of water and one teaspoonful of citric acid to every four pounds of sugar. Melt the sugar and acid slowly over steam; [i.e., in a double boiler]; when melted let it boil up once, then skim the syrup well and keep it over the steam until wanted. At the same time the syrup is in the process of preparation, have the pears boiling in a preserving-kettle in sufficient water to cover them, in which is dissolved citric acid sufficient to taste quite acid. When so tender that a straw can be run through them, take them out and put them in the syrup, where they must remain about twenty minutes. Have ready some glass jars or bottles, with mouths large enough to take in the fruit without breaking; put them in cold water, and boil them; put the fruit into the bottles while they are hot. This is done for two objects: first, to prevent the hot preserves from breaking the bottles, and secondly to prevent the fruit from fermentation by the cold air. Cork tight, and seal up each bottle while the syrup is boiling hot. Be careful to seal perfectly tight; a hole no larger than a cambric needle will do as much mischief as one much larger.

From The Housekeeper’s Encyclopedia by Mrs. E. F. Haskell, Philadelphia, 1863