O PULP THE JAM

     My red kiwi and passion fruit (with multi-berries) homemade jam is now a week old and I think it’s ready to be taken out of the cupboard for a taste test. (I’m thrilled that during the process of “canning” or aging,” inspecting the cabinet for any evidence of oxidation or bubble or mold daily, that nothing like that had happened and the jam looks to me strident from the outside, and the moment of truth now awaits as I open the seal to release the sugar air built in.) I have no reservations. 

The soft-set texture I was intentionally achieving for (as prescribed in the book Salt Sugar Smoke) was achieved, and I had fantasized an experience of like uncorking a bottle of wine and allowing the liquid to bloom her “genie” when popped, admonishing the air, and therefore unleashing the olfactory aroma of a wish come true. You will never forget your first! 

Spreading is next, and a sliced croissant bread is in the wait as well as room temperature butter to go on the bottom as the jam’s bed de riguer, and perfectly toasted - the jam and butter marriage is heavenly to the nose and I am spelled. Unesco recently declared the French croissant (or is it the baguette?) as intangible heritage to humanity, and this is exactly the reason why, for all intents and purposes. High pectin fruits function well in preservation and concentration of flavors, but its begotten form as jam is light and magnifique sweet that is more corporal to the fruit and not the sugar. To blend fruits in compote and how to describe their harmony to the palate is like seeing a basket full of them and that picture of beauty is retrievable in taste transcendence if you let it conjure that feeling. The juicy deliciousness of the kiwi swam in the spark of the passion fruit pulps in due service to raspberries and blueberries joy. 

“Label and date what you make,” advised Diana Henry (author of SSS, which inspired this jam-making). Well, this one I did will not only have a title - but this story, too.