Jam sessions
I seem to have had a long affinity with strawberry jam. As a child, I had a terrible speech impediment – not only was I late to speaking but, when I did start, most of my words were unintelligible at worst and laughable at best. I am still reminded by my family that as a child I would ask for “boodible orbidy dam”. The inability to say “s” and “t” meant that was the best I could do with “beautiful strawberry jam”. I take great comfort in the fact that from a young age I was using positive descriptors for food, even if they were a little mangled.
Slide on a few years and I had gone from eating strawberry jam to making it. First, I think it is imperative to point out that homemade jam is a far cry from commercial jam. For a start the ratio of fruit to sugar is often better, and there are no setters or fillers. Homemade jam spreads better. Jam should spread, not be a solid entity that needs to be levered out of the jar. It should slide over buttered toast, spread neatly over layers of sponge and ooze out of doughnuts.
My jam making has not always been without issue, however. A bit like my initial attempts at communication, my early efforts needed a little understanding. I should have started with something foolproof, such as raspberry jam, but no, the first jam I ever made was strawberry.
And my first attempts were very, very spreadable. In fact, my jam did not set at all.
This was because I didn’t have a grasp on the role of pectin. This description puts it in a nutshell: “In nature, it functions as the structural ‘cement’ that helps hold cell walls together. In solution, pectin has the ability to form a mesh that traps liquid, sets as it cools, and, in the case of jam, cradles suspended pieces of fruit. Pectin needs partners, namely acid and sugar, to do the job of gelling properly.” I discovered that strawberries are a fruit very low in pectin, and they need a lot of lemon juice and often a little sachet of jam setter for better results.
These days I rarely make straight strawberry jam. Instead, I tend to add equal parts of rhubarb to the mix. I now find strawberry jam more overwhelmingly sweet than “boodible” and enjoy the acidity the rhubarb brings. It also tends to set better. But fear not, if your first attempts are a little runny, fold the jam through icecream
• as a ripple or use it in slices that require jam.