I confess I am not a great fan of autobiographies that begin at the beginning and follow a temporal path up to the present day – not that the person might not have some interesting stories, facts and opinions strung on their necklace – it just doesn’t appeal as a structure. On the other hand, in my last, extra year at school in Oxford, retaking an A-level and adding a couple more, I was allowed out of school on my recognisance and saw a fascinating Exhibition at the Modern Art Gallery. The Artist had laid out and photographed every single possession of a single person – for example, all the cutlery was laid out in one shot, all the shoes in another. This more thematic approach appeals more and although I am not arranging the objects which I have chosen to tell my story in chronological order, I hope that my writing will be sufficiently interesting to keep your interest Dear Reader, and that on the journey from A to Z, you will assemble an impression of my life and who I am…

Jam and other home preserves…

Although my mother did not consider it necessary for me to learn to cook (see “C”), when it came to preserving the harvest each year, the whole family had to get involved, either picking (Apples, Blackberries, Elderberries, Rosehips, Sloes) or preparing fruit and vegetables for bottling, freezing or making jam and chutney. The habit has stayed with me, for thrift and for the pleasure of cooking custom jams unavailable in the shops. For example, you can reduce the sugar content in jam (I am Type 2 diabetic) as long as you keep the jars in the fridge after opening. Once, on holiday in Menorca, thee was a massive collection of Prickly Pears at the back of the farmhouse where I was staying offering a bumper crop of ripe fruit – I simply had to make jam although it was a little bland and on reflection, needed something adding to it, more lemon juice, apple or perhaps ginger. There are pairings in jam which are for flavour, like Rhubarb and Ginger and others which are for functional reasons – blackberries lack pectin which combined with sugar is what gives you the “set” or jelly in the jam so they are paired with cooking apple that excels in pectin, hence Blackberry and Apple Jam!
I have written about Rhubarb before, but I didn’t include jam in that post so here is my mother’s tip for making
Rhubarb Jam.
Use the early-season rhubarb when the stems (forced, ideally) are very slender and sweeter.
Cut the stems in 1 – 1/2 cm lengths and weigh before placing in a large bowl.
Weigh out an equal measure of white sugar and cover the rhubarb and leave overnight.
Next day, place the mixture into a large saucepan and bring to the boil.
Continue boiling until a set is obtained.
Place in sterilised jam jars and make sure the lids are on tight.
By covering the rhubarb with the sugar overnight, the sugar sucks the juice out of the rhubarb compressing it so that it doesn’t cook down to a mush. The same thing works with other soft fruit like strawberries…

Making jam is so easy once you have tried it, cook fruit, add an equal weight of sugar – cook till you get a set and all the modern jam jars have silicone seal lids so it couldn’t be easier…
Chutneys work much the same but the preserving is done by a combination of vinegar and sugar and is assisted by the spice content.

Jam-jars

I confess – I collect jars…
jam-jars for sure
but others too
sweets, gherkins, pills

My partner imagines
I seriously culled the jam-jars
and truly I tossed a few
since diabetes and jam-making
don’t mix

But mainly I re-hid them
where she wouldn’t look…

© Andrew Wilson, 2024