This week begins a season of jamming around here. Local strawberries are finally ready for picking, and through July 4, our kitchen takes on an overwhelming sweet smell from macerating berries or jams boiled and ready for canning.
I’ve been making jams, jellies, and all sorts of canned goodies for many years now. It’s one of those kitchen crafts that either impresses people (“That must take up a lot of time!”) or makes them look all kinds of worried (“Aren’t you concerned about botulism?”). Preserving brings to mind of hours spent in a steaming hot kitchen filled with bushels of produce waiting to be “put up” for a long, brutal winter on the prairie. Modern cooks, however, lean toward small batch preserving, working with one or two quarts of top quality produce, maybe fruits you’ve picked at a local u-pick farm or from your own property. For example, last fall I taught my friend Staycee how to make fig jam from the fruits growing in her southern California backyard. It barely takes up any room, and once you do it a couple times, you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about.
The fuss is, naturally, about food poisoning, specifically food-borne botulism, caused by a nerve toxin that can flourish in improperly canned foods. Back in the “old days,” botulism poisoning was much more common than it is today, and also more deadly, with a 50 percent survival rate. The Centers for Disease Control reports that, on average, 145 cases of botulism are reported each year, and of those cases, 15 percent are from food-borne botulism spores. If you’re one of the unlucky few to contract botulism, you only have a 3 to 5 percent chance of not surviving the experience. You can thank modern canning techniques along with better medical care for these excellent odds of surviving your morning toast and jam.
We know so much more about bacteriology and food safety than our grandparents did, so there’s no need to feel anxious as long as you follow directions. I tell new canners to check out the most recent edition of Ball Blue Book of Preserving, which is up-to-date with safety precautions. Today’s jars and lids have safety checks built in, unlike those old lidded jars you see at antique shops. For example, modern lids, like those from Ball, make a reassuring “pop” when they’re lifted out of their boiling water bath, which tells you they’re properly sealed. Sometimes you miss hearing the “pop,” but no worries — you can also look at the lid and see if it’s dimpled down in the middle. If it is, you can be assured your jar is sealed correctly.
Well, I didn’t mean to go off on a tangent like that, so back to the strawberries. Here’s my favorite recipe for strawberry jam. This is the sandwich spread my son likes the best. In the middle of January, it’s so much fun to pop a lid of this stuff and let my nose be tickled by the tangy scent of strawberries. I can close my eyes and it’s June again. The berries stay a brilliant crimson red, too — other recipes, I’ve found, wash out the color of the berries. Do not attempt to double or triple this recipe, although you can make separate batches at once.
Summer Strawberry Jam
This recipe works best with freshly picked strawberries – I’m talking you-just-got-back-picking-them-from-the-farm fresh! Sort through them carefully and discard any berries that aren’t perfectly ripe or that have soft spots on them. Don’t be discouraged by the directions – although the process is spread out over a couple days, it’s actually hands-off time, meaning you’ll spend a minimal amount of time stirring hot jam at the stove.
1.25 lbs. stemmed and quartered strawberries
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed
A candy thermometer or digital thermometer
1. Place the strawberries in a stainless steel pan or ceramic bowl. Pour the sugar over them and stir to combine. Cover the berries with a lid or plastic wrap and let macerate at room temperature for 8 hours, stirring occasionally to ensure the sugar crystals dissolve.
2. Put the berries and the syrup in a stainless steel saucepan, preferably 3-quarts or larger; you may also use a sauté pan. Just make sure it’s not an aluminum pan because the metal will leach into the fruit. Over medium high heat, bring the berries to a boil and cook for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, cool, and cover. Let berries sit at room temperature for 24 hours.
3. Ok, today’s canning day. You’ve read that Ball book, right? If not, remove yourself from the computer and go read it! Follow the instructions for how to prepare your water-bath canner and jars for preserves. For this recipe, you should have 3 sterilized 1/2 pint jars, lids, and screw-on bands ready.
4. Place the berries in a stainless steel saucepan over medium high heat. Clip the candy thermometer to the side of the pan. When the mixture starts to boil, add the lemon juice. As soon as it comes back to the boil, stir constantly, keeping an eye on the thermometer. It should take about 5 minutes for the jam to reach jell stage, which is 220 degrees Fahrenheit. If you don’t have a thermometer, you can test for the stage by letting the jam drip off a spoon – if it “sheets” off, then it’s set. I can also tell when jam is ready by a change in its smell (hard to explain, but I think it’s the smell of the pectin developing) and the sound of the bubbles.
5. Remove the pan from the heat, ladle the jam into the sterilized jars, place lids on top, secure with screw-on bands and put the jars of jam into the water-bath canner, which should be at a boil. Process in the boiling water for five minutes, then remove the jars and place on wire cooling rack. Within a minute or two, you will hear the “pop” from the lids that tells you your jars are properly sealed. Let the jars cool completely, label, remove the bands (not the lids, unless you’re ready to eat) and store your scarlet treasures somewhere cool and dark.
Yield: 2 1/2 half-pints (don’t can the remaining 1/2 pint — put that jam in a bowl, refrigerate, and use within the next week or so)
