Making Jam

[botias]

My mom makes the best jam, like 'Best of Show at the County Fair' good. Lately we've been making jam together. I quickly learn that, like most processed foods, to eat jam is also to eat assorted larvae and tiny insects. This does not bother my mother, though she does make a good faith effort to remove most of them. 'It'll cook down' she shrugs. I frown and continue to pick through the berries. As I stir the mixture of mashed berries and pectin on the stove, I pick out a couple more tiny white grubs that float to the top. 'You have to keep stirring or it will be ruined' she says.

Use the very best, ripest produce. Don't stop stirring. Don't skimp on the sugar in some misguided effort to make the patently unhealthy, less so. Fill the jars to within an 1/8 inch of the top. And at the end, berry nirvana. My mom offers me a spoon and I dip it into the final jar. Only a third full, it cannot be sealed. I retrieve a spoonful of clear, dark ruby and put it in my mouth. I practically swoon; it's warm and sweet and intensely flavorful. Oh, my. I reach for more. Then I discover what bothers my mother.

'You put the spoon back in?' she makes a face. For some time after I endure mutterings about how I have contaminated the larvae jam with my cooties.

It's my jar. I shrug and take another bite. Yum.

Comments

[prophecygirrl.livejournal.com]

Well, bugs aside, this was a delicious (pun intended) and sensory filled post. I want some!

I never grow raspberries because a) they're too invasive and I don't have enough sun-filled beds as it is and 2) we had some as a kid (in Brooklyn, no less!) and the little tiny ants that were always in them creeped me out. Don't know that I'd mind now though, especially after reading this.

[botias.livejournal.com]

It's not quite sunny enough for raspberries to be truly invasive here, though Himalaya berries are terrible that way. We made raspberry jam a few weeks ago. Last night was some sort of blackberry raspberry hybrid we found at the farmer's market on Saturday that were truly amazing. I got a basket and munched them raw all the way home, alternating with a basket of fresh local strawberries.

I hear you about the jealously guarded sunny spots. I would love to grow some berries, but... Maybe if I had an acre or two. :/

Thanks for commenting. I was beginning to wonder if the larvae and double-dipping was too much! ;)

[(Anonymous)]

I remember my mother making jam from wild choke cherries from a neighboring farm. We picked them, and brought them home. Bugs and all. I remember her boiling the cherries, hopefully after the bugs were gone. If there some left, hey it adds to the flavor. No, just kidding, we got all out of the jam. Then I remember her putting wax on top before putting the covers on. I think it was supposed help perserve them somehow in the fruit cellar until we ate them. But the jam never tasted funky because of it.

[botias.livejournal.com]

My mom did wax when I was a kid, too. I don't know if this was in addition to the sealing lids or if the sealing lids took their place. :)

[manoah.livejournal.com]

"larvae jam" *snicker*

I've tried once to make jelly; prickly pear fruit jelly. It was passable. It tastes terrific with pork, not so much with toast.

My mother made some wonderful pear jam and plum jam.

[botias.livejournal.com]

I hadn't ever thought of putting fruit preserves on meat, but it sounds good, especially with a flavorful meat like pork.

[cheezey.livejournal.com]

That sounds really yummy (not the bugs, but the jam, heh heh). I had tons of blackberries and raspberries growing in my yard here last month, more than I could pick during the first week or so of July.

People make some kick-ass moonshine out of them around here too, though I think I'd stick with the jam as it's at least legal, hah.

[botias.livejournal.com]

I envy you your berries! I just don't think I have quite enough room in my small urban back yard. I might go for in anyway. :)

Heh, they're making different intoxicants where I'm at, though home brewing is big too.