The glorious fruit! (Click to enlarge.)
I love strawberries! But before this summer, I don’t think I’d had good ones since we used to have a big ol’ strawberry patch when I was growing up. I had a love/hate relationship with it, as I despised the chore of picking, but, even in my crazy picky-eater childhood, I always liked strawberries! Now, a blessing of living in Michigan, I can get them fresh in the beginning of summer. My farm even grows them, so after sampling them in my weekly share, I had to dash off to the Royal Oak Farmers’ Market to buy myself a whole flat of them. I made ice cream, a tart and a cobbler. I ate them sliced and in yogurt and in salads. I froze some for later. And I made jam.
My flat of fresh, organic berries.
Ooh, strawberry jam on a scone with a cuppa…nothing finer. Strawberry jam proved to be slightly trickier than I had imagined, though. Ain’t no pectin in strawberries, see? You know, the substance in fruit that makes jams and jellies gel? One generally compensates for this by adding some other fruits that are high in pectin – lemon, apples. My recipe called for lemon juice. I followed it to the letter, except that I cut it in half (and thank goodness, because I don’t know anyone with a pot large enough to accommodate the whole recipe). I dutifully measured my sugar (the other component that makes jams set) and added my lemon and I sliced and boiled and skimmed and sterilized and sealed and got…strawberry syrup. I let it cool completely. I waited a day. Runny as a melted popsicle.
Juuuust fits in the pot.
Grocery-store pectin to the rescue! For emergencies such as these (or for starting out with a more foolproof recipe) pectin comes in powdered forms, derived by chemical processes from various citrus fruits. I opened my eight jars of jam, poured their contents into a pot, cleaned and sterilized all the jars, boiled up my jam again with a bit of pectin, potted, sealed, reprocessed and waited for the moment of truth. They set. Not firmly, mind you, but enough to be spreadable and sit atop my bread, rather than soaking into it. I lost a jarful in the process, but, nevertheless, I am the proud mother of seven half-pints of delicious, homemade, strawberry jam, and if you come visit me I’ll make scones and tea to accompany it!
Bubble, bubble.
The jars process in a water bath.
A cobbler diversion
The moment of truth.
Like summer in a jar.
Died and gone to heaven.
