CHAPTER VII.

_Of Conserves._


1. THE way of making conserves is two-fold, one of herbs and flowers,
and the other of fruits.

2. Conserves of herbs and flowers, are thus made: if you make your
conserves of herbs, as of scurvy-grass, wormwood, rue, and the like,
take only the leaves and tender tops (for you may beat your heart out
before you can beat the stalks small) and having beaten them, weigh
them, and to every pound of them add three pounds of sugar, you cannot
beat them too much.

3. Conserves of fruits, as of barberries, sloes and the like, is thus
made: First, Scald the fruit, then rub the pulp through a thick hair
sieve made for the purpose, called a pulping sieve; you may do it for a
need with the back of a spoon: then take this pulp thus drawn, and add
to it its weight of sugar, and no more; put it into a pewter vessel,
and over a charcoal fire; stir it up and down till the sugar be melted,
and your conserve is made.

4. Thus you have the way of making conserves; the way of keeping them
is in earthen pots.

5. The dose is usually the quantity of a nutmeg at a time morning and
evening, or (unless they are purging) when you please.

6. Of conserves, some keep many years, as conserves of roses: others
but a year, as conserves of Borage, Bugloss, Cowslips and the like.

7. Have a care of the working of some conserves presently after they
are made; look to them once a day, and stir them about; conserves of
Borage, Bugloss, Wormwood, have got an excellent faculty at that sport.

8. You may know when your conserves are almost spoiled by this; you
shall find a hard crust at top with little holes in it, as though worms
had been eating there.