h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

For me, making jam is a useful way of using up fruit in season. This summer, I made blackcurrant jam from the fruit growing in our garden. The bush has fruited reliably for many years, although I do nothing to it, whereas vegetables I've carefully composted and sown often fail to produce anything at all. Blackcurrant is an easy jam to make because it sets well. I've sometimes come back from our old house in France with bags full of fruit and made jam - cherry, apricot and quince with apple. The cherry jam remained runny but I managed to get apricot to set by including a bag full of stones in with the fruit when I cooked it. (I think the pectin content of the fruit is in the stones.) Quince on its own is best made into jelly, but quince and apple jam set well and had a distinctive flavour. For some reason there were no quinces this year - they all went bad on the tree.

But for me, making marmalade is special. This may be because I remember helping my mother making marmalade, although I was rather in awe of her pressure cooker, which hissed like a domesticated dragon. It helps that the Seville oranges used for marmalade are in season in January and February, when it is pleasant being in a warm kitchen. But there is somethin therapeutic in stirring marmalade - the swirl of orange liquid, the sound of bubbles rising and the scent of oranges combine to produce a kind of benefient magic.

[Amy P]

Ah making jam and marmalade! It's nearly that time of year, and I started writing an Entry about it last year. Now I should get myself motivated to finish it.

Thanks for the reminder.

I'm still so envious of your orchard!

I'm afraid that a lot of our fruit is inhabited. I could produce a whole

You make marmalade making sound so warm & cosy, it conjures up a whole picture of an old-fashioned kitchen with a fire & a rocking chair, steamy windows, blue & white china on a big scrubbed pine table. No idea where that came from but a lovely image anyway.

Deb

Thanks