I love jam and all its jarred and bottled relatives, the extended family we call by the rather austere name “preserves”. Actually, they’re not austere at all. They are warm, forward and friendly, offering up both generous feisty flavours and intriguing spicy subtleties. They epitomise the values at the heart of a well-run, contented kitchen. First, they embody and thrive on seasonal abundance. Second, they are, or should be, intrinsically local, perfectly complementing the grow-your-own (or at least pick-your-own) philosophy. And third, they are frugal, thrifty and parsimonious: they waste not, so we want not.
Jams, chutneys and pickles embrace the seasons, but they also, in an elegant and entirely positive manner, defy them. They do so by stretching the bounty of more abundant months into the sparser ones. I love the way that a couple of hours in the kitchen transforms a gardener’s problem into a cook’s delight. Yet I know many keen cooks who never make preserves. What is it? A fear, perhaps, of the perceived paraphernalia of jam-making, a mild hysteria about the dangers of boiling sugar, a rumbling anxiety about the setting point. I know that such worries are unfounded, delusional even. So what can I do for these poor souls?
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http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/food/recipe/0,,2291911,00.html
