Ok, the preserves are well on their way but I have a couple of
questions.

The first one is that I want to understand the chemistry (if there is
any). The Ball Blue Book recipe I'm using has me boil a thinly sliced
lemon in a heavy syrup. It tastes good, the resulting lemon slices
were nice and I generally enjoyed it but does it have a chemical
reason other than adding acid? Is there a pectin thing going on?

The second question is whether the preserves are supposed to look like
whole figs when they are done. Looks like some will retain their
shape and some will not. Of those that will retain their shape, they
won't once I handle them or somehow get rid of the little green
thingies I forgot to remove prior to starting this process. That
won't taste good...

Sherry