Preserving the Summer

by Helen Gaffney

Gone are the days when we needed to make great autumn preparations to provide ourselves with a hedge against winter starvation by filling the loft with apples, the cellar with root vegetables and the larder with barrels of salt fish and pickled pork (although the occasional snowstorm can keep us on our toes). However, it is still a satisfying pleasure to keep the memory of high summer in the winter by making jams, pickles and little preserves.

A few pots of jam, made in the fruit season - strawberry and raspberry in June, blackcurrant jam and redcurrant jelly in July, plum jam in August - can provide enough home-made jam for the tea table all through the winter. In addition, with the flushes of eggs, apples, onions and tomatoes you can make a jar or two of old-fashioned pickles now and then, enough to fill the shelves and give an enormous boost to the degree of pride with which you can present cold meat or chicken, or dull sausages and burgers.

There is no need to make a great production out of pickling and jam-making. Although it is easier to make large batches of jam if you have a preserving pan, there is no reason why a large saucepan should not be used. Jam can be made for pleasure, in small quantities, rather than in deadly earnest in vast amounts. 1 kg (2 1/4 lb) of fruit with about the same weight of sugar added makes at least three well-filled 450g (1 lb) pots of jam, a nice amount.

Making jam takes only an hour or two of pleasant work. The atmosphere is invariably cheerful and everyone loves the smell and the old-fashioned ritual, the stirring and testing and tasting. With the increase in 'pick your own fruit' farms, home-made jam has become a real possibility for everyone. Before you start it is as well to know a few golden rules, to help produce a well-set jam with good keeping qualities (without resorting to 'preserving sugar' which is a combination of sugar and pectin, artificially added).

The rules of jam-making

1. It is most important to have jars, saucepan or preserving pan and spoons ready and scrupulously clean before you start, so that you prevent any micro-organisms from getting into the jam.
2. Choose sound firm fruit. A mixture of ripe and rather less ripe fruits is best, unripe fruits contain more pectin and fruit acid (both needed to obtain a good set) than ripe fruit.
3. Use fruit as soon as possible after picking. Wash only if necessary.
4. Cook the fruit with or without water for 20-30 minutes prior to adding the sugar. Simmer it gently to draw out the pectin.
5. Warm the sugar before adding it to the fruit to help it dissolve quickly.
6. When you have added the sugar to the hot, softened fruit, stir it over a gentle heat until it has completely dissolved before returning the jam to the boil.
7. Boil rapidly until set, stirring from time to time to prevent sticking at the bottom. Test frequently to avoid over-cooking.
8. Testing for set: put a teaspoon of jam on a cold plate and let it cool. Push it with your finger; if it wrinkles and stays put it is ready to set. If it seems wet and runs about it is not ready to set. Alternatively, let a teaspoonful of jam get cool on a wooden spoon. Tip the wooden spoon. If the jam drips off quickly it is not ready to set, but if it partly sets on the spoon and runs slowly into a large drop or 'flake' and then breaks off, it is ready.
9. Do not skim until the jam is ready, or you will waste jam.
10. Let the jam cool a little before pouring into jars, the slight thickening will prevent the fruit from rising to the top of the jars. Do not cool too much or you will get air bubbles in the jam.
11. Pour jam into clean hot jars standing on a wooden or laminated surface or on a layer of newspaper. Cover immediately with waxed paper discs.
12. As soon as the jam is cool put on the cellophane tops, slightly dampened. Label and store in a cool, dry place