Jamming

On 13th September last I reported making pineapple jam, most of which ended up in the compost heap, a waste of food which would have rather shocked my parents, whose food was rationed during their young married life.

Then last week we acquired two pounds of Grade II strawberries and I decided that the second pound would best be made into jam. So I add a little water, maybe a quarter of a pint, to a saucepan and add a pound of sugar. Bring to boil and dissolve the sugar. Add the strawberries, having removed the green garland to the hull which does not come out, unlike those of the strawberries of my childhood.

Simmer for some hours, the nascent jam being a beautiful dark red syrup with the shrunken strawberries floating around in it, entire. The syrup was quite clear, not the cloudy stuff that I remember at all. Perhaps if I had halved the strawberries, which I think now was the childhood form, they would have disintegrated, providing some cloudiness. The syrup also had an odd tendency to forth up pinkly if disturbed.

When I tired of the frothing, I poured the mixture into a shallow pyrex bowl to cool and, in the event, thicken rather than set, with the exception of some pink froth which rose to set on the surface. The body of the resulting confection retained its dark red clarity, jewel like, if tasting a little sickly sweet. The appearance of the jam was somewhat marred by the froth breaking up into it as one poked around with the jam spoon.

Being too sweet to eat much with bread, we tried another portion with steamed jam sponge, aka canary sponge, which was rather better. Better still when the jam was diluted with water and a little lemon juice. Reading our 'Radiation New World Cookery Book' (a book with a considerable google presence) recipe after the event, I find lemons but no water, the wheeze being to steep the berries in sugar overnight, a process which left a mixture which one could safely cook without the addition of any water. I don't think that that is what we did when I was little, but I don't fully trust my memory in such matters any more. But I do think that the cooking which was done was done on a Radiation New World gas cooker, the hob part of which was ceremoniously stripped down and cleaned after every Saturday Roast - the form being Saturday Roast followed by Sunday Cold - or perhaps minced, a form which has left me with a fondness for the sort of mince you get by mincing cooked rather than raw meat.

All in all, an interesting experience, a feast for the eyes if not the palette, albeit once again rather wasteful.