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Preserve

How We Cook in Tennessee

A jelly made by straining cooked grape juice and boiling it with loaf sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jackson (Tenn.). First Baptist Church. The Silver Thimble Society · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and grape work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 48 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

How We Cook in Tennessee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pick and wash the grapes and put them in a kettle.

  2. To six pounds of fruit, add half a pint of cold water.

  3. Place the kettle on the fire and steam until the grapes have yielded their juices.

  4. Strain.

Make the jelly

  1. To each pint of juice, add one pound of loaf sugar.

  2. Cook fifteen or twenty minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

160Calories
2 gProtein
1 gFat
41 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 6 ingredients. The other 3 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Strawberry1 cup (152g)49
Fruitnot in our table0
Waternot in our table0
Red Currantnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Jackson (Tenn.). First Baptist Church. The Silver Thimble Society. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Red currant + grapetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Sugar + grapetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + red curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Grapes
Provide the juice that sets into the jelly and gives its flavor.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps it set to a firm, spreadable texture.

The step that matters

Cook fifteen or twenty minutes. Sugar and pectin-rich juice need to reach a rolling boil to set. Undercooking leaves the jelly runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and dull in flavor.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, grape):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, grape. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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