ewt | Reminiscence

When we lived in Gagetown, NB, we'd go picking strawberries at the pick-your-own place. It was always something of an adventure, finding the delicious jewel-red berries, putting them into the container, getting them weighed, taking them home... and having some for dessert.

My mum would make strawberry jam. I don't remember much of this process - I remember vast quantities of strawberries were involved, and a lot of cooking, and the biggest pan, and I remember the jars would be warm at first, afterward. To my young mind, it always seemed as if this produced an inexhaustible supply of strawberry jam, which we would eat on toast for breakfast and in sandwiches for lunch through the winter, as well as giving a few jars away to friends - in retrospect I know that it lasted because we made it last, applying it in thin layers where we could and scraping out the last of each wonderful jar. It was always deliciously sweet and sticky with many lumpen strawberries. I felt lucky and privileged to have a mother who made her own jam, and was very happy to have real jam instead of the shop-bought stuff; I probably didn't tell her this enough.

Yesterday on a whim I bought a jar of strawberry jam from Waitrose. They were doing a "2 for £2.50" offer on the organic high-fruit ones, so I got one strawberry and one morello cherry. The morello cherry on toast yesterday was nice - rich and dark and lustrous somehow.

The strawberry, on its own merit, is not a bad jam either as jams go. It tastes of strawberries, which is always a good start. There are even some lumpy strawberries in it. Somehow, though, it lacks the authenticity and realness of my mother's jam. It's good jam, but I can tell it is shop-bought. Le sigh.

There's only one thing for it, really. I'll have to make my own this summer.