Properly extracted fruit juices contain much of the sugar and the body-building and body-regulating constituents of the whole fruit, as well as much of its flavor and its pectin (jelly-making substance). Hence fruit juices have a real food value. They also furnish an easy and often inexpensive means of variety in the daily meals, in both warm and cold weather. Fruit drinks (page 471), jellied desserts, pudding sauces, ice creams, and ices are easily made from bottled fruit juices, which may often be extracted from parts of the fruits that would otherwise be discarded. Juices from pineapples, rhubarb, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, currants, cherries, peaches, plums, apples, pears, quinces, grapes (red, white, and black), are especially good for these purposes.

Juice may be extracted from discarded parts of fruit; from left-over portions of fruit prepared for the table; from skins and pits of peaches; from skins, cores, and seeds of apples; from pulp discarded after making jelly and marmalade; from well-scrubbed skins of oranges and lemons used in making lemonade; from cores, skins, and eyes of well-scrubbed pineapples.

The following procedure may then be carried out:

Cover the pulp or parings with cold water, bring the mixture slowly to the boiling point, simmer it until the juice is extracted (15 or 20 minutes), and strain it. Boil the strained juice for 5 minutes, and pour it into jars or glass bottles that have been sterilized by boiling for 20 minutes, filling the jars to overflowing. Seal the jars immediately. Stopper the bottles with corks sterilized and dried for shrinkage, and make an air-tight seal by dipping the cork and the lip of the bottle into hot paraffin. If desired, add 1 cupful of sugar for each 6 cupfuls of fruit juice before boiling the juice. In this case, be sure to note on the label the proportion of sugar used.

A rich clear juice may be obtained by allowing well-washed juicy fruits to stand overnight with alternate layers of sugar. If enough sugar is added the next morning (a little more than pound for pound) the strained juice may be sealed, without cooking, in sterilized bottles, stoppered with sterilized corks.