Venus Rising

Food for SoulIssue: Cancer 10

Homemade Jam

Watercolor by Philip GaligaBerries are one of those summer crops that, if you don’t have the bushes or a patch of your own, you go out searching for a cache or make a pilgrimage to a berry farm where you can pick your own and leave with tons of berries.  Taking home flats of berries usually means that a jam session will ensue and there is little that compares to eating or giving your own homemade jam.

Jam is the preservation of fruit by cooking it with sugar. Jam is made from whole fruits, which are either mashed or cooked with sugar until the fruit becomes pulp. Sugar adds flavor to jam and also serves as the preserving agent. Pectin, a naturally occurring substance in many fruits and vegetables, is another key ingredient to making jam. Pectin makes the jam gel if combined with the right combination of sugar and acid. While not necessary, and fruit alternatives are possible, the easiest way to thicken jam is by adding commercially-sold pectin. Without pectin, a jam recipe requires a ratio of about 3 to 1, sugar to fruit. With pectin powder, that ratio shrinks to about 2 to 1, and cooking time is significantly shorter. Pectin is sold in packets or liquid and made from apples or citrus peels. Recipes foregoing processed pectin may also need a boost of acid to help the natural pectin in the fruit. Lemon is the best culprit as it also tends to brighten the final product.

Apples are naturally high in pectin. Other fruits high in pectin include blackberries, cranberries, and plums. Raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries contain less natural pectin, and therefore could use a boost from the commercially-made stuff. In addition, you may see some jam recipes use a combination of ripe and under ripe fruits. That is because fruit looses its pectin as it ripens so using less ripe fruit boosts the pectin levels. High pectin fruits can be used in place of pectin additives. For example, cooking apple pieces with your strawberry jam will bring about the pectin needed to set the fruit. However, the pure strawberry flavor will be lost and using processed pectin is a small price to pay for unadulterated strawberry flavor. That said, if a conserve is the finished product you are going for, then by all means add apple to your strawberry jam, or plums and blueberries. Conserve generally has nuts, so try almonds in the mix too.  

To line your pantry with beautiful jars of sparkling jam, processing the finished product in a boiling water bath is necessary. Proper preservation is crucial to keeping spoilage at bay. Sterilized jars, lids and utensils are also critical, as is using a non-reactive pan for cooking. Home canning suppliers have excellent canning instructions either accompanying their jars or on their websites. Homecanning.com is one great source.

Another option for homemade jam is to make refrigerator or freezer jam. Skipping the water bath just means your jam goes directly from the pot, to jar to fridge or freezer. The jam will only keep a month or two in this case, as opposed to about a year in the pantry. It is important to use jars with wide mouth openings or air-tight plastic containers and to leave a least a half inch of room between the jam and the lid to prevent the thing from exploding in the freezer. 

Good jam is soft and moist, not gooey or jiggley. It is bright and sparkling with deep color, not translucent. The best jam is not sickly sweet, which can overwhelm the contributing fruit’s flavor. Instead, it is sweet but only just a slightly sweeter version of the ripe fruit within. A natural pairing with toast, homemade jam is good atop many baked goods…including scones, corn muffins, bagels, challah, and biscuits.  But jam can do much more than adorn the morning morsel. It is also good on vanilla ice cream, blended with oil and a touch of balsamic vinegar for summery salad vinaigrette, or the jeweled layer of a fresh summer strawberry tart. When the jam is fresh and homemade, it is hard not to sneak it straight; with just a little spoonful imparting the essence of summer.