Wise Words and Country Ways for Cooks by Ruth Binney

Author:Ruth Binney [Binney, Ruth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7153-3392-1
Publisher: F+W Media
Published: 2011-03-01T16:00:00+00:00

ADD LEMON TO STRAWBERRY JAM TO MAKE IT SET

If you’re having real trouble, you also need to add pectin – the natural sticky gel that strawberries lack, which makes jam solidify. Lemon juice helps the setting process by drawing out all the available pectin from the fruit.

The essential process of jam making is simple: boil fruit with an equal weight of sugar until, when a small amount is dabbed on to a cold plate, it sets to a firm consistency. While fruits like plums, currants and gooseberries contain plenty of natural pectin and jam made with them will set with ease, strawberries and all but the most acid raspberries are notorious for their reluctance to set. Try boiling unpeeled lemon slices and using the resulting liquid (which contains pectin from the fruit pith) or to ensure success use natural pectin, which you can buy ready prepared in powder form or mixed into special preserving sugar.

Jam is a relative newcomer to the kitchen cupboard, being first recorded in the 1730s, some 200 years after solid marmalade and fruit cheeses were originally made. Because it needed so much sugar to ensure a set and good keeping qualities, jam remained a luxury. As Mrs Beeton observed: ‘The expense of preserving them [fruits] with sugar is a serious objection; for, except the sugar is used in considerable quantities, the success is very uncertain.’

Jam was strictly rationed in wartime Britain. The weekly allowance per person was just 2oz (55g). Families lucky enough to have relatives living in the USA and Canada were always thrilled when the much-welcomed food parcels contained tins of jam.

The expression ‘jam tomorrow’, meaning a pleasant thing that remains a dream, comes from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass written in 1871. The White Queen offers Alice, in reward for being her maid, twopence a week and jam every other day. But unfortunately for Alice the deal is ‘Jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day.’

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