Biscuits and Homemade Jam

December 27, 2018

Biscuits and Homemade Jam

I'm not new to canning and food preservation, necessarily. I grew up around it, as my grandmother, who grew up during the Great Depression, often relied on it to preserve the massive amount of garden produce my grandfather grew each summer and fall. They were not big fruit growers, although they did have a cherry tree, that I genuinely enjoyed. As a kid, we had a small strawberry patch that the birds and rabbits got more out of than we did. I used to watch my grandmother, and then my mother, preserve the food they grew - vegetables and fruit both - and if they didn't grow enough, and the farm stand had a good deal - they would purchase additional and add to the amount they grew at home.

When I was an undergraduate history major, I conducted research for my senior honor's thesis on "Homemaker Associations" of the 1920s and 1930s. This continued, what I realized, was a lifelong interest in the homemade and handmade art of rural women in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was a fun project. I interviewed different women, who in the 1990s, were now in their 80s, as they had participated in clubs like this as younger women and farm wives. They told me great stories of their mothers who would get lessons from the Agricultural Extension Agent at Purdue University, for example, who would come to their meetings at the club, usually in someone's kitchen. We discussed quilting, reusing household fabric to make art. We talked about the art of mending, knitting, bread making... I found all of this fascinating. These women saw their work as "helping" around the farm. They saw it as women's work, for example, but the amount of pride they had in their work was unmistakable. I don't know if it was understood for the art that it was back then as for its practical purpose. The science of it developed, naturally, as techniques and research changed or new methods were discovered, but if I could go back and ask my grandmother, for example, if she saw it as "helping" around the house or farm, or if she saw it as another way to contribute to providing for her family... I wonder what she would think or say now, especially in a world where everything is so mass-produced and where women's labor is a bit more valued.

Fast forward nearly 100 years, and here I am. I like to grow my own fruit, and then accentuate what I grow with the wild fruit on our farm. We have prolific hedges of "black caps" as they call them. Not to be confused with the "red caps" of the #secondcivilwar (ha ha!). These are called different things regionally- wildberries, wild raspberries, black caps, mulberries ... but whatever they are, I just call them wild blackberries. They are everywhere in our area. They taste just as good as the domestic varieties.

Speaking of domestic varieties - when we moved in, I immediately planted different varieties of blackberries and raspberries. They come in at different times of the year as a result - but at this time of the year, late June/early July, our blackberries and one variety of raspberry is absolutely abundant. Combine them with the wild blackberries, and I have a lot of jam and preservation to do this year. The best canes have been the "Triple Crown" blackberry and the "Cherokee" blackberry. Although I do have luck with the "Arapaho" variety. Triple Crown are the biggest, while Cherokee happen to ripen just a few days before the others. For the raspberries, I've got several varieties, but the ones that ripen in the first few days of July are "Red Latham" and "Crimson Giant." The "Crimson Night" and Sweet Repeat will bloom later in the summer hopefully, allowing me to have fruit all year round.

If you are going to preserve the fruit to make jam, you need some supplies. You will need about 6 jars for every 8 cups of fruit. You will also need a hot water bath canning pot and a few other canning supplies such as a wide mouth funnel, a magnetic stick to work the canning lids out of the hot water, and a clamp that will help you remove the jars from the hot water bath. These are non-negotiables. You need this stuff, and you need to make sure that everything - especially the jars - are well sanitized. I usually put the jars in the dishwasher and run it on a quick rinse cycle if they're pretty clean to begin with - and the hot water sanitizes them fine. You will need one package of Sure Gel for each batch you make and about 7 cups of sugar. The recipe will say 7 cups... but you may only use 5. If you plan to make a lot of jam, just go all in and buy the big 25 lbs. bag of sugar.

The first batch of jam I made on July 1st was a large batch. I ended up getting 27 jars from it. The problem with it, as I learned on July 3rd, after I already mailed out several jars to family and friends - was that it was incredibly sweet. I don't know why other than I must have added too much sugar. I always follow the directions on the package for fruit jam, but for whatever reason - this is way too sugary. So the second batch I made today, July 6th - I only got 20 jars, even though I used the same amount of fruit. The difference is that I used 75% of the sugar that I used the first time around.

So to those of you whom I sent the first batch - I am sorry that it is so incredibly sweet, and I will replace it with a jar from July 5th, which is so much better! I get so excited to share what I make and I am confident that it will taste amazing... that I don't do a quality control test first.

Other than berries, I also like to preserve tomatoes and make my own sauce. This comes in handy throughout the year, but only if I have a great tomato harvest (otherwise tomato sauce making and canning is too hot and time consuming this time of year). This summer has been weird. It's been wet, then it's been cold, then really hot - and then we are craving rain. And our first group of tomato plants that we grew from seed, mind you, were eaten entirely by rabbits who built a nest within our garden walls. The second batch of tomatoes were grown from seed but got a later start - and so I am hopefully that I will get something before the frost in late October. Hopeful.

One of these days I hope to be a prolific canner like my grandmother and my mother - fruit as well as different vegetables. When you live in the country, sure you can preserve produce by freezing it - but heck, our power goes out more than we like, and if you have your jars lined up on your shelves in your basement... there is something so satisfying about that - with your corn, beans, pickles, peppers, tomato sauce, salsa, and fruit preserves including pie fillings and jam. I'm accustomed to using these items now all year round. Again, it's just super-satisfying to know that I did this and that I am using this skill to feed my family.