Pine-Apples Preserved
Take six fine large pine-apples, as ripe as you can get them. Make them very clean, but do not, at first, pare off the rind or cut off the leaves. The rind and leaves being left on while boiling will keep in the flavor of the fruit. Put the pine-apples whole into a very large and very clean iron pot. Fill it up with cold water, and boil the pine-apples till they are so tender that you can pierce them through the rind to the core, with a splinter skewer or a twig from a corn broom. Then take them out of the pot, and drain them. When they are so cool as to be handled without inconvenience, remove the leaves, and pare off the rind. Cut then into round slices about half an inch thick, extracting the core from the centre as to leave a small round hole in every slice. Weigh them, and to each pound of fruit allow a pound of double refined loaf sugar, broken up and powdered. Cover the bottom of a large dish or dishes with a thick layer of the sugar. On this place a layer of pine-apple slices; then a layer of sugar; then a layer of fruit, and so on till the slices are all thickly covered, finishing with a layer of sugar at the top. Let them stand twenty-four hours. Then drain the slices from the syrup, and lay them in wide jars. Put all the syrup into a clear porcelain kettle, and boil and skim it till the scum ceases to rise. Then pour it hot upon the pine-apple. While warm, cover the jars closely with white paper cut to fit, and dipped in brandy; and then tie on a piece of bladder. There is no better way of preserving pine-apples, or that retains the flavor so well.
Quinces may be preserved in the same manner.