It’s a cloudy Friday late afternoon in late August and that means one thing:
1. We have to pick all those perfectly ripe blackberries before the rain comes.
2. It’s jam time!
We’ve already braved the blackberry bramble and emerged with an abundance of both berries and scratches. This afternoon I will don my cutest apron and enter the glorious realm of making jam.
Jam making skipped a generation in my family – my maternal grandmother was raised on a rural homestead where food preservation was a way of life. In later years she was known especially for her pomegranate jelly, and I savoured each and every spoon-full. I was raised in the suburbs – our jam came from the grocery store, and I never stopped to ponder the possibility of making our own.
I began to make jam in my first years of motherhood. Somehow it emerged as something that simply made sense – I’m not sure why, really. I have very clear memories of feeling completely overwhelmed by piles of fruit needing to be processed and a baby needing to be breastfed. How on earth did we find the time?
The more we made though, the more it simply became a necessity, a strangely essential part of who we are as a family. Blueberry Spice, Rhubarb Saskatoon, Strawberry, Blackberry Lime, Oregon Grape…these are just a few of my favourites. Jam, of course, serves somewhat like a ‘gateway drug’ – once you discover the wonders and ease of jam, it’s only a matter of time before you start pickling, freezing, and drying.
For me, food preservation has been a source of wonderful reconnection & renewal, nurturing both my creativity and sense of adventure. These long hours of canning, drying, freezing, and pickling have become a time that nourishes me, and each step I take “backwards” to our old food ways is actually bringing me one step closer to myself.
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Favourite jam recipes? How does making jam make you feel?
Comment Here…
I leave you with the lyrics to the most wonderful tune from Michelle Shocked – Strawberry Jam, sadly I couldn’t find a video of it anywhere. Picture some fiddles with kind of a spoken word country vibe with a blues edge.
Saturday morning found me itching – To get on over to my grandma’s kitchen
The sweetest little berries was cooking up right –
And then we’d put them in a canning jar and seal them up tight
We were making jam – Strawberry jam, that’s what kind
Yeah, if you want the best jam – You gotta make your own
We have Smucker’s, Welches, Knotts Berry Farm
But a little homemade jam never did a body no harm
A little local motion is all we need – To close down these corporate jam factories
We’ll be making jam – Strawberry jam, mmmm-mm
If you want the best jam – You gotta make your own
Yeah, we have a little revolution sweeping the land – Now once more everybody’s making homemade jam
So won’t you call your friends up on the telephone
You invite ‘em on over, you make some jam of your own
You’ll be making jam – Strawberry jam
If you want the best jam
You gotta make your own
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