Crabapple Jelly

Near the opening of Toni Morrison's BELOVED, Sethe is trying to come to terms with her child, dead now these several years, a baby who is still haunting her house. Her other daughter, Denver, catches her mother praying--and sees the ghostly image of the little baby with its arms around Sethe. Rather than thinking anything's odd about a ghost in the house, Denver finds it curious that her mother is praying. She asks what it was all about, and Sethe says, "I was talking about time. It's so hard for me to believe in it."

I know what she means. Time is the craziest thing. People contact me on facebook, people I haven't even thought about in 35 years--glacial epochs, or so it feels, as if I once lived on another, forgotten land mass. Then guests come to our home in the country for a week and it seems as if they stay a couple days--although the calendar says otherwise. And there are the seasons, coming and going with shocking abandon.

I've finally finished the book, the seven-step plan to get off all processed food. In, done, over. About two hours ago, in fact. But time hasn't started moving again. Instead, I've been caught in a moment that doesn't flow. It's just here, static. I keep waiting for things to lurch into gear. But they haven't. Instead, I'm looking outside at the brown leaves, the last of the bare ruined choirs that were the trees. And waiting. For? No idea.

Real food preserved is like that. Waiting. Patiently, in fact. And outside of time. I know I blog a lot about preserving things. And maybe it's because I too don't believe in time anymore. Jams and jellies cast it into the void. December can be spring. A house with busy schedules and calendars, deadlines and bills to pay, can become that timeless thing: a home.

Click to read more ...

Scuppernong and Plum Jam

How do you make a house a home? By living in it? Not really. By making a future in it. Although you have to live for today, you also have to be looking forward. Tomorrow makes a house a home: the promise of a good meal, the joy of a coming dinner party, the anticipation of your child's recital, the fun of a Friday off to play in the leaves. In so many ways, home is a future-tense word. Because it's tied to hope.

That's why putting up jams and preserves can make a house a home. They're part of the framework of the future.

The other day, I was at Whole Foods in West Hartford and came across scuppernong grapes, those big grape globes, very sweet, native to the South, and reminiscent of my childhood. I bought a couple boxes, ready to relish that sweet/tart taste. (Home is also about the past--as Frederick Buechner writes: "You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.")

In the end, I could only eat so many. "And I'll miss them this winter," I said to Bruce.

He turned the rest into jam. And the future was a little clearer: jam on toast in the mornings.

First, he put 1 1/2 pounds scuppernong grapes and 1/2 pound pitted Italian prune plums in a pot with 1/2 cup water. He brought that mixture to a boil over high heat, then let it simmer over low heat for about 45 minutes, until everything was good and mushy. No need to get rid of those grape seeds. They'll add natural pectin to help the jam set.

While it was simmering away, he also measured out 3 3/4 cups sugar.

Now the tricky part: he ladled the hot fruit and juice in batches into a food mill set over a large bowl. He cranked and cranked to leave the seeds and skins behind but get all the pulp down into that bowl. He scraped the pits and seeds into the trash, added more, and cranked some more. When it was all done, he washed out the pot he'd been using, poured the pulpy juice back into it, and set it over medium-high heat to bring it to a simmer.

He then measured half a 1 3/4 ounce box of pectin and mixed it with 1 tablespoon of the sugar. He stirred that into the fruit and brought it back to a boil over medium heat. And not just any boil but one that cannot be stirred into stopping.

He poured in the remainder of the sugar and brought the thing back to a hard boil, again one that couldn't be stirred down. Once at that cauldron, he let it go for 2 minutes. He skimmed the foam with a large spoon, then poured the jam into sterilized jam bottles. (The picture is of the finished jam, waiting to be bottled.)

The best way to sterilize the jars and lids? Put them all in the dishwasher and run it through a light cycle without any soap but with the "heat dry" on. (You have to do this first, before you make the jam and then just have them waiting inside the sealed shut dishwasher.) Failing that, put the jars, sealing lids, and rings in a large pot of water and boil for 5 minutes.

Fill the jars to the bottom bump before the lid part begins. Wipe the rims clean with a kitchen towel, then set the sealing lids in place with the little adhesive strip against the glass rim. Screw on the ring lids and turn the jars upside down for 10 minutes so the super-hot jam inside seals them. Turn them over and wait for that ping to indicate the lids have sealed tight, sometimes up to 10 minutes. If any don't ping shut, a little dimple in the middle of the lid, put those in the fridge and eat them first--as well as any remainder jar that is not fully filled.

A home, the future. This winter, I'll have scuppernong jam on toast when the snow is deep. It will live in my heart, my mind, my stomach. And I'll be content.

Meyer Lemon Marmalade

The Meyer lemon celebration continues apace. This weekend's task: marmalade.

To be honest, I've been whining for Bruce to make marmalade for months now. He's a canning maven; last year's kumquat marmalade almost did me in. We'd long since run out and I started my official whining when I read all about Foodgal's luscious lemon vanilla marmalade. In fact, I'd already made her recipe in a small batch, one that I stuck in the fridge and scarfed down pretty fast on English muffins and toast.

But as Foodgal noted, and as was true in my case, the marmalade was a little soft. Frankly, I like a "French set," the slightly gelatinous set of great apricot or strawberry preserves, as opposed to the stiffer American set, familiar from store-bought grape jelly. But this marmalade wouldn't have held up very well if left at room temperature--which was all fine and good for a refrigerator marmalade as both Foodgal and I intended, but not so good for jars intended for months of storage down in our basement.

Bruce and I sat down the other morning over lattes and tried to figure out the (be)setting problem. After some crazy detours through university ag sites and various food chemistry journals, we discovered it lies with the citrus itself--well, actually, with its abundant acid--which can counteract and destablize pectins, thereby inhibiting the set in the jam-making process. A little citric acid, for example, makes strawberry jam irresistible; too much and the stuff won't set, even in that loosey-goosey French way.

So Bruce went away to figure it out--and by darn if he didn't make it all work. Here's how:

Click to read more ...