Grandma Leida's sweet and sour canned pears

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 6 kg pear(s), small, hard
• 1 dashes lemon juice
• 1 ½ kg sugar
• 600 ml water
• 100 ml vinegar essence (25% acid)
• 3 stalk(s) cinnamon
• 12 carnations
• 2 bags of preserving aid
• 1 shot of grain alcohol or schnapps

Instructions

Working time approx. 1 hour 30 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 10 minutes; Total time approx. 1 hour 40 minutes

Preserving pears, pumpkin or zucchini without sterilizing or canning

Peel, quarter, and core the pears individually. Immediately place them in cold water with a generous squeeze of lemon juice. This prevents the first pears from turning brown while you prepare the others. Bring 600 ml water, 1.5 kg (!) sugar, vinegar essence, and cloves to a boil in a very large saucepan. Break the cinnamon sticks in half once or twice and add them. Add half of the pears (approx. 2.5 kg) to the boiling liquid and cook until al dente (careful, they will continue cooking for a while; only cook for about 2 minutes). Then remove them with a slotted spoon (or ladle) and set them aside briefly. Cook the remaining 2.5 kg of pears in the same liquid until al dente. Then add the first batch of pears and bring back to a boil briefly. Add a sachet of preserving agent to the liquid with the pears, which is no longer boiling, and stir well. While still hot, pour into large jars and cover well with liquid. Be careful, the liquid will still evaporate! Now pour the schnapps or schnapps onto a small plate. Cut a piece of cling film so that it is roughly the same size as the opening in the jar so that it can be placed on the surface of the pears and covers the pears well. Pull the film through the schnapps and, while still dripping wet, place it directly on the fruit. Sprinkle a tiny bit of preserving aid from the second sachet over it. Now cut another piece of cling film so that it is slightly larger than the opening in the jar. Pull this through the alcohol as well and pull it tightly over the opening in the jar, then secure it with a rubber band. Tips: It is important that all equipment and the jar to be filled are very clean. Diced zucchini or squash can also be used instead of pears. I suppose you could save yourself the work with the cling film and just pour the whole thing into twist-off jars while it is still hot, but this is how it was done in the old days. When there were a lot of pears, my mother would even take a big bucket and preserve and store the pears in it. Small portions could then simply be taken out again and again.