Making Jam

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.