To Think That Jamming Was a Thing of the Past...

I don't eat bread.  Or crackers, or muffins or any of the usual things a person puts jam on.

So most of the jam I make, I give away.  As a teacher, I have more free time in summer than in winter, and I give these away come Christmas, much to the delight of my jam-loving friends.

The best jam is made from local fruit, at the peak of its season.  You capture its flavor and seal it up in little jars and then, come winter, you have a little taste of summer in the the darkest of cold days.  It's a miracle of  food preservation that is sort of made obsolete by modern farming and transit, allowing us to purchase and eat genetically enhanced 'fresh' fruit year round.  But I'm old fashioned and I like old fashioned things.

The sad irony of jamming season is that it heats your kitchen up something awful, what with the boiling of the lids, and the baking of the jars, and the boiling of the jam.  It's hot, sticky business.  And there's nothing like being hot and sticky in the summer.

Sometimes I think I should get a new hobby.

Then I see these beauties at the market:

And then I'm all like, aww, it's not so very hot, right?  Anyway, I missed the rhubarb harvest, but I have found that it is too tart for jam, anyhow.  I prefer not to add loads of sugar, and instead add loads of pectin to ensure a nice texture; these babies were delicious in their raw form (10% of the fruit I jam goes in my mouth) and I'm pretty pleased with the result.

And for those of you who snickered at the Marley reference in the blog title:

Jam's about my pride and truth I cannot hide
Too keep you satisfied.
True love that now exist is the love I can't resist
So jam by my side. 

Keep on jamming, beautiful people.  It aint'nt dead yet.