July is halfway gone. The autumn strawberries are finally here. They are the ones I wait for to make jam. I find them better than the early summer crop—they are redder, juicier, tastier. They just have more depth. And that depth is what makes them worth the effort.
The volume of fruit requires hours of stemming and cutting. By the time I am done, my fingers are crinkly and colored a bright shade of red from the juice. At the same time, the jars are getting sterilized, the cleaner than clean utensils are set out, and the torchon that must have touched nothing else is laid down. On the stove sits the heavy enameled cast iron quart I keep exclusively for jam. Beside it is my late husband’s grandmother’s wooden spoon—the very one she used to stir hundreds of fruit pie fillings, sucres à la crème, and caramels. That spoon is probably twice as old as I am and it has seen more sweets than the average pastry chef. I never make jam without it.
Making jam is a strict chemical process that requires boiled fruit, sugar, lemon juice, liquid pectin, the littlest bit of unsalted butter to prevent foam from forming—and an absolute rigor. I am generally a loose cook. I don't follow recipes, and I improvise even when I bake. But jam making is where my flexibility ends. I weigh the fruit and sugar. The measurements, the sterilization, the cooking, the jarring, the sealing—everything is done with precision. I am very serious about jam making. Too serious, perhaps. But the result is worth it.
Right after I am done, while I listen to the lids pinging, I also make the freezer jam. Made solely for my partner because he prefers it that way. His family has a tradition of eating strawberry jam alongside the Christmas meat pie. It is, indeed, an odd combination, but somehow... it works! I have no idea how the tradition started. I do know it was decades ago. I like to imagine someone opened a jar with a dark red mixture in it, thinking it was homemade ketchup, and just decided to give it a try anyway when they realized their mistake. Because otherwise... Why? To protect that tradition, I bury one specific jar at the absolute bottom of the chest freezer, hiding it under everything else to ensure it actually survives until December.
The irony of all this effort is that neither I nor my grown children are great fans of strawberry jam. We are a raspberry family through and through. Yet, the jars still somehow vanish from the back of the pantry.
Come autumn, I make my true specialty: pear jam. A suspension of fragrant, opaque fruit settled inside a clear yellow jelly that looks like a heliodor stone held against a light. I use four different varieties of pears, chosen carefully for how their aroma, sweetness, juiciness, color, and texture balance together. The result pairs naturally with cheeses, from a mild, soft brie to an old, hard cheddar, and it carries that specific affinity for anything chocolaty. Spread over hot, barbecued slices of pound cake, it competes with the most refined desserts. Anyone who tastes this jam wants more, and it has become a requirement whenever the family is here for Sunday brunch. No matter how long the process, no matter how busy the fall, the pear jam will be made. But July belongs to the strawberry.
By the time the last freezer jar was buried this week, I had no interest left for real cooking, and zero desire to touch another pan. Dinner was a piece of toast. With jam.
— Catherine