JEWELS OF JAM
Despite the renaissance in preserving (who hasn’t tried to make their own kimchi or kept gently fizzing cucumbers under the stairs?), jam is much less popular than it used to be. Sales are falling, though marmalade, which was also on the decline, is slowly climbing back up (this is, apparently, the Paddington effect. I’m not kidding). Its demise is to do with health, of course. Traditional jam – the kind of jam that doesn’t need to be kept in the fridge after opening – is made with equal amounts of fruit and sugar. That’s a lot or sugar. These jams are also very sweet.
When I wrote a book on preserving, Salt, Sugar, Smoke, I started to reduce the sugar; not for health reasons, but because jams with less sugar have a brighter, more intense flavour.
On trips to Scandinavia and France I’d had jams that were low in
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