Yesterday evening saw the first collection of wild raspberries round my way. Now, I am covered in all kinds of minor scratches, abrasions and stings, but there is raspberry jam in the fridge.
Well, I am impressed that you make your own jam. No seriously, I have never been one to make preserves. The only jam I ever have is the one I buy in the store. I was never taught how to make preserves, although my mother had been raised on a farm. I'm sure she had done it at one time or another.
I purchase my jam from the store. That is a skill I never learned. I will purchase vegetables and freeze them to have for later if I have the space in the refrig.
Tom, that is amazing! Raspberries are one of my favorite things! When I was a child, occasionally in my travels, I would happen upon wild raspberries. (we were allowed to wander practically everywhere back then ). Now there aren't any around here, that I know of. I never learned to can, but I'm really considering learning to. Meanwhile, I'll just wallow in envy!
Nothing particularly technical goes on here. Fruit and sugar go into the pan and it gets simmered and stirred until it looks ready to get poured into a jar. We use brown sugar in relatively low quantities - some people prefer to use more, but it depends on how sweet you like your jam. Some people use preservatives, but we never bother with that - as long as the jar is clean and well-sealed, nothing bad usually happens. Generally the jar will seal itself inside the fridge, as the heat of the jam and the cold of the fridge make the top go "pop!".
When I was still married my mother-in-law, bless her, would make me pies or jelly/jam out of any berries I brought her. I kept her well supplied with elderberries when in season. They're all over the place around my home turf.
A sudden raspberry bonanza today - it's amazing how quickly they ripen on the bushes. A much bigger crop than expected, so not only raspberry jam, but raspberry cake as well. A quick detour to the shops to buy some ice cream to go with it. Decadent, but mmmmmmm!
I love raspberries and anything with them in it, as well as jam/jelly. This sounds like a really easy way to make it, do you make a jar at a time, or large batch?
There is only a single patch near where I live, so it's a case of collecting what has ripened and making a single jar. They fruit pretty quickly,, so you need to go there every couple of days. I was really concerned about the little patch because last year, we hardly got any. The raspberries are surrounded by all sorts of other plants, particularly blackberries, which grow everywhere and are powerful. Even more worrying was the bindweed that seemed to be strangling everything in sight. We probably spent more time pulling that stuff off than we did picking berries last year, but the raspberries seem to have made a fightback. Whether it was 'Operation Bindweed' or forces of nature, I've no idea, but they're growing well again now.
Raspberry jam, jellies & cake with ice cream...yum! I know what farm fresh tastes like and when I was young we could go hiking and pick fresh guava and lilikoi. Can't do that today though. We buy our plants from Home Depot or other plant sales. Lucky you for finding wild raspberry patches!
We make jam or jelly from all sorts of fruit but mostly we make cobblers or syrup. My favorite thing on pancakes was rose hip syrup. We have elderberries (the birds get most of them) and blackberries growing wild on our land. I would like raspberries too, but don't have any here.
Raspberries are long gone now and blackberries are everywhere. Blackberries feature in all kinds of ancient myth and folklore and there's one myth about not picking them after Michaelmas Day (September 29th). Something to do with the devil doing nasty things to them. It's just as well I take no notice of stuff like that because most blackberries are not ripe until after that day (not in Scotland, anyway).