Jammin'

It has taken two and a half years, but last week I finally used up the last of the jam that we made the Autumn before R died. It is probably a good thing that home-produced food doesn't come with a Use by label!

The fact that it has taken so long to use it up is a sign of the way I have almost entirely stopped eating bread. These days I make a few loaves when I have people to stay, and there is normally a bag of rolls in the freezer for defrosting individually to have with soup. But that's it. No toast for breakfast, jam butties or anything like that. A spoonful in my daily yoghurt is a very slow way to use up a shelf full of jam.

A quick examination of the freezer contents found several bags of fruit. I didn't fancy gooseberry or rhubarb, but there were quite a lot of blackcurrants and raspberries, and a single bag of damsons. So mixed-fruit jam it was then!

The raspberries were R's favourite.
The canes were the first thing we put in the new vegetable garden way back in our first winter here. I always intended to set up a system of posts and wires, and to train the canes along them neatly, but like so many things it never quite happened. Yet the raspberries keep coming in abundance, even with competition from the local blackbird population. It pleases my sense of order to line up serried ranks of berries on trays for freezing, but the greater delight is taking out a couple of handfuls in the middle of winter for a smoothie or pavlova, giving a little flash of summer on a dull day.

Then there are the blackcurrant bushes. When we built the fruit bed, I bought a couple of bushes from the garden centre at great expense. Shortly afterwards I was offered some cuttings from a friend's garden - at the time I didn't realise how easily they root. And naturally the nameless freebies are consistently bigger, sweeter and more flavoursome than the bought variety. The blackcurrant harvest is one of my biggest garden pleasures. Rather than picking berries from the bushes, I always combine harvesting with pruning and simply lop off the currant-laden branches, take them to the table beneath the sycamore tree and strip the branches there, usually accompanied by a glass of wine.

And the damson tree deserves a mention too.
When we moved here, it was in such a sorry state. The previous owner's sheep had practically ring-barked the poor thing, and there was a huge foot-long scar in the trunk. It was spindly and top-heavy, and I was all for chopping it down there and then. R persuaded me to give it one year and then decide on its fate. So I gave it a good feed of manure, kept the grass down around it - and it rewarded us with a harvest of damsons that far exceeded all expectations. They aren't very large or particularly attractive, but they are sweet and delicious. The season is all too short as the wasps eat them if they are left on the tree too long, but for a glorious fortnight it is good to gorge on the little purple plums, and to freeze a couple of bags for moments like this.

I can't give a recipe because I didn't really use one. But all three fruits are fairly high in pectin, so setting isn't a problem. You just have to remember to boil them for twenty minutes or so before adding the sugar, otherwise the skins of the blackcurrants and damsons can be a bit tough. It is also a good idea to remove the stones from the damsons unless you like playing Russian roulette with your teeth and breakfast confiture!

My preference in jam is for as little sugar as I can get away with. 1 pound of sugar to 1 pound of fruit is nicest, but often isn't enough to keep the mould at bay, so I normally plump for a ratio of 1.25 : 1 which is still low enough that the flavour of the fruit isn't overpowered by the sugar. Then just dissolve the sugar in the fruit and boil furiously until a blob of jam on your cold plate passes the wrinkle test. It won't take too long because of the high-pectin fruit, remember.

That's it. Ladle into sterilised jars and seal. You can mess around with wax discs or water baths if you like, but none of it is necessary - clean jars and hot jam are all you need, and put the lids on before the mould spores have a chance to get in there too. And once you have opened the jar, always use a clean spoon to remove the jam and not the crumb-covered knife that you have just used to spread butter on your toast. Follow this little rule and your jam will remain pristine from the day you open the jar to the day you sadly scrape out the last dregs for your breakfast.