How To Can Strawberries

These are generally considered more difficult to can than most other berries. Use none but sound fruit, and put up the day they are picked, if possible. Heat the fruit slowly to the boiling point, and cook fifteen minutes or longer, adding the sugar hot, if any be used, after the fruit is boiling. Strawberries, while cooking, have a tendency to rise to the top, and unless they are kept pushed down, will not be cooked uniformly, which is doubtless one reason they sometimes fail to keep well. The froth should also be kept skimmed off. Fill the cans as directed on page 65, taking special care to let out every air bubble, and to remove every particle of froth from the top of the can before sealing. If the berries are of good size, they may be cooked in the cans, a boiling sirup prepared with one cup of water and one of sugar for each quart can of fruit being added.

If after the cans are cold, the fruit rises to the top, as it frequently does, gently shake the cans until the fruit is well saturated with the juice and falls by its own weight to the bottom, or low enough to be entirely covered with the liquid.

How To Can Raspberries, Blackberries, And Other Small Fruits

Select none but good, sound berries; those freshly picked are best; reject any green, overripe, mashed, or worm-eaten fruit. If necessary to wash the berries, do so by putting a quart at a time in a colander, and dipping the dish carefully into a pan of clean water, letting it stand for a moment. If the water is very dirty, repeat the process in a second water. Drain thoroughly, and if the fruit is to be cooked previously to putting in the cans, put it into a porcelain kettle with a very small quantity of water, and heat slowly to boiling. If sugar is to be used, have it hot, but do not add it until the fruit is boiling; and before doing so, if there is much juice, dip out the surplus, and leave the berries with only a small quantity, as the sugar will have a tendency to draw out more juice, thus furnishing plenty for sirup. Raspberries are so juicy that they need scarcely more than a pint of water to two quarts of fruit.

The fruit may be steamed in the cans if preferred. When thoroughly scalded, if sugar is to be used, fill the can with a boiling sirup made by dissolving the requisite amount of sugar in water; if to be canned without sugar, fill up the can with boiling water or juice.

Seal the fruit according to directions previously given.

How To Can Gooseberries

Select such as are smooth and turning red, but not fully ripe; wash and remove the stems and blossom ends. For three quarts of fruit, allow one quart of water. Heat slowly to boiling; cook fifteen minutes, add a cupful of sugar which has been heated dry in the oven; boil two or three minutes longer, and can.