CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL,

AND

ENGLISH PHYSICIAN;

The way of making and keeping all necessary compounds.

CHAP. VIII.

Of Preserves.

    Of Preserves are sundry sorts, and the operations of all being somewhat different, we shall handle them all apart. These are preserved with sugar.

    1. Flowers are very seldom preserved: I never saw any that I remember, save only cowslip flowers, and that was a great fashion in Sussex, when I was a boy. It is thus done: Take a flat glass, we call them jar-glasses; strew in a laying of fine sugar, on that a laying of fine flowers, on that another laying of sugar, on that another laying of flowers; so do till your glass be full; then tie it over with paper, and in a little time you shall have very excellent and pleasant preserves. There is another way of preserving flowers; namely, with vinegar and salt, as they pickle capers and broom buds; but as I have little skill in it myself, I cannot teach you.
    2. Fruits , as quinces, and the like, are preserved two ways.
        (I.) Boil them well in water, and then pulp them through a sieve, as we showed you before; then with the like quantity of sugar, boil the water they were boiled in into a syrup viz. a pound of sugar to a pint of liquor; to every pound of this syrup add four ounces of the pulp ; then boil it with a very gentle, fire to their right consistence, which you may easily know, if you drop a drop upon a trencher; if it be enough, it will not stick to your fingers when it is cold.
     (2.) Another way to preserve fruits is this: First, pare off the rind ; then cut them in halves, and take out the core ; then boil them in water till they are soft ; if you know when beef is boiled enough, you may easily know when they are; then boil the water with its like weight of sugar into a syrup; put the syrup into a pot, and put the boiled fruit as whole as you left it when you put it into it, and let it remain till you have occasion to use it.
    3. Roots are thus preserved: First, scrape them very clean, and cleanse them from the pith, if they have any, for some roots have not, as eryngo and the like; boil them in water till they be soft, as we showed you before in the fruits ; then boil the water you boiled the root in to a syrup, as we showed you before; then keep the root whole in the syrup till you use them.
    4. As for the barks , we have but few come to our hands to be done, and of those the few that I can remember, are oranges, lemons, citrons, and the outer harks of walnuts, which grow outside the shell, for the shells themselves would make but scurvy preserves - this be they I can remember ; if there be any more, put them in the number.
    The way of preserving these is not all one in authors, for some are bitter, some are hot; such as are bitter, say authors, must he soaked in warm water, oftentimes changing till their bitter taste is fled; but I like not this way, and my reason is this, because I doubt when their bitterness is gone, so is their virtue also. I shall then prescribe one common way, namely, the same with the former, viz. first boil them whole till they be soft, then make a syrup of sugar and the liquor you boiled them in, and keep the barks in the syrup.
    5. They are kept in glasses, or glazed pots.
    6. The preserved flowers will keep a year, if you can forbear eating of them; the root and barks much longer.
    7. This art was plainly and first invented for delicacy, yet came afterwards to be of excellent use in physic : for,
        (1.) Hereby medicines are made pleasant for sick and squeamish stomachs, which else loath them.
        (2.) Hereby they are preserved from decaying a long time.