Raspberries!

 

When we moved into our new home, we were delighted to find the row of raspberries was just beginning to ripen.  Our property came with a 60 ft. row of established raspberry plants.  YUMMM.  Ryan was in heaven!  All the kids were so excited when I would tell them, first thing in the morning, go pick raspberries.  They would each go out and eat as many as their bellies could hold and also about a half flat of berries.  They happily did this for about a week.  Then, mom would say, "go pick raspberries" and the answer became "again!"(whine).  As the season progressed we were picking a flat to a flat and a half a day!  We were eating them, freezing them, making ice cream out of them, and on and on.

Then something really neat happened.  My mom's cousin's wife (got that?) is an author.  If you are interested in her books, google Julia Taylor Ebel. Anyhow, Julia writes children's books based off of family tales and lore.  She will take a memory of a family member and write a book from it.  They are wonderful tales.  The most recent book she wrote is titled Hansi and the Iceman.  It is based off my grandmother and great grandmother's memories of the iceman delivering blocks of ice for the ice box.  This was an exciting time for the children and Julia does a wonderful job capturing that joy and excitement.

At the time when Julia was writing the book, a memory surfaced of "Oma Ebel" making raspberry syrup and pouring it over ice chips. I believe that this memory is incorporated into the story.  Anyhow, another of mom's cousins tripped over the recipe.  My grandmother sent a letter to my Great Aunt with the recipe.  One of her children recently found it and sent it to the family, so now we have the recipe and the book.  Cool, huh?

And all this happened at a time when we happen to be up to our eyeballs in raspberries.  So what should we do?  We made the syrup of course!  Oh Heaven!!!!

 

 

Sorry about the orientation--I could not get it to flip correctly when I uploaded it to the blog?!?!?

 The recipe calls for cream of tarter.   It also says to let it sit for 30 hours.  I had several hesitations.  What is cream of tarter, and 30 HOURS!!!  So I did some thinking and research.  This recipe is from a time when the did not have refrigeration, so they probably left the berries mixed with the cream of tarter and the water sitting out.  Do you have any idea what will happen to berries left on the counter if left to sit 30 hours?   (Yuck).  So I researched Cream of tarter.  What is it?  Well I learned something.  Cream of tarter is a by product of wine fermentation.  Once the wine has fermented to the right stage, the wine is poured out of the barrels and put in bottles.  On the inside of the barrel is this white powder.  That is cream of tarter.  It is then scraped off the barrel and a small amount is put back in the wine and it acts as a preservative.  It is also used as a preservative in other applications, especially if it is an acid.  Well, raspberries are acidic.  So adding the cream of tarter made me feel more comfortable about letting it set on my counter for 30 hours.  I also found out that cream of tarter also helps prevent sugar syrups from crystalizing.  Ok, so here we go. . .I thought the worst that could happen was it molded and got added to the compost pile.

berries mixed with cream of tarter and water.

 I did cover the whole pot with a towel to keep away interested fruit flys.  Once it is all juicy, strain the berries through cheese cloth suspended above a pot for 6 hours or so.  When all the juice is collected, I heated it and added the sugar.  It is a lot of sugar.  When the sugar was dissolved I boiled the syrup for a few minutes and then put into sterilized canning jars and sealed them.  I had a pretty decorative bottle that I sterilized and put some into that as well.

We mainly made Italian sodas with they syrup.  Syrup over ice, add sparkling water, and cream it you want it really decadent!  It would be fabulous drizzled over vanilla ice cream and sugar cookies too.  I hope that others will try this recipe as well.  We had so much fun as we made this talking about family and what life was like back in 1914 when my great, great grandmother was making this syrup as a treat on hot summer days in New Jersey, after an exciting delivery of ice.

Make this, Enjoy!