recommend a strawberry jam?

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recommend a strawberry jam?
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Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 06 2:18 pm Post subject: recommend a strawberry jam?

Mr Fox having put paid to our strawberry crop (and, indeed, entire new strawberry bed) there'll be no strawberry jam with scones for poor Bugs this year unless I buy it (no, it's not been possible to buy any decent fruit either).

I have in my bag, one jar of Little Scarlet but this cost more than gold (well..nearly) and I will have to keep it tightly clasped to my person while waving my mobile credit cards and house keys for all to see.

So can anyone recommend a decent make/supplier of simple, strawberry tasting strawberry jam (preferably not furrin), that doesn't have just a random "sugary" taste, and won't require a second mortgage?

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 06 2:33 pm Post subject:

Dunno what you've got available to buy in those parts, but here I can go to Cambridge market and buy a 5lb (ish) box of mis-shape strawberries for a fiver to make jam. Handy to live in a town where lots of stwawbs are grown

Thus far we've had two boxes, for jam, wine and ice cream. That lets us chomp the ones out of the garden as they come.

There's nowt wrong with buying strawberries for making jam, if you can find a good supplier. If you can go out to a PYO farm you might find big boxes of misshapes or 'seconds' going cheap.

mochyn

Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 24585
Location: mid-Wales

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 06 2:37 pm Post subject:
If you're coming to the Royal Welsh you can have a jar of mine...

bernie-woman

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7824
Location: shropshire

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 06 3:04 pm Post subject:
I quite like Bonne Maman strawberry jam f I have to buy jam - quite runny and just has sugar and fruit in it if I recall correctly - ( it is probably horribly unethical in some way but fortunately we don't have to buy too much) Our local farm shop had some cheap jam making strawbs - any farm shops near you?

Bernie66

Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 13967
Location: Eastoft

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 06 4:38 pm Post subject:
Tiptree is a good one.

moongoddess

Joined: 24 Jan 2006
Posts: 673

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 06 4:41 pm Post subject:
I love the St.Dalfour jams, but many don't because there is no sugar at all in them. They're made with grape juice (I think) The other lovely ones are Meridian, but again, no sugar, so not to everyone's taste. I hope you find something you like mg x

Bernie66

Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 13967
Location: Eastoft

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 06 4:42 pm Post subject:
You can't have Jam without sugar.. its just wrong

moongoddess

Joined: 24 Jan 2006
Posts: 673

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 06 5:51 pm Post subject:

Bernie66 wrote:

You can't have Jam without sugar.. its just wrong

like the time I went out for a meal with my cousin and he asked the waitress 'can I have the blackcurrant sorbet without the blackcurrants in it?'

Must have been over 20 years ago and I still remember the tears rolling down my face

mg x

Penny Outskirts

Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 23385
Location: Planet, not on the....

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 06 5:58 pm Post subject:

Bernie66 wrote:

You can't have Jam without sugar.. its just wrong

Should be - but those Jams are delicious

Silas

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 6848
Location: Staffordshire

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 06 6:31 pm Post subject:
Frank Coopers strawberry conserve. Next best thing to homemade.

gingerwelly

Joined: 08 Dec 2005
Posts: 419
Location: Wales ...in cardiff at the mo but from mid wales

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 06 9:10 pm Post subject:
you could go to a pick your own farm, or try a WI stall at a local show, or farm shop

ros

Joined: 19 Jul 2005
Posts: 2469
Location: Beds

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 06 6:24 am Post subject:

I managed to get one box of locally grown from the farm shop, but they told me they are struggling to get supplies this year.

However, a trip to Budgens the other night yielded punnetts of sell-by strawbs for 45p each!

lots of jam here now

look up your nearest "country market" and get some from the WI

(failing that the Duchy original jams are nice but v pricy)

Now, who knows where I will be able to get Damsons when they are ready??

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 06 8:40 am Post subject:
If you do get some fresh strawberries, try Elizabeth Davids recipe for oven baked jam, You get a runnier finish but it's the closest thing to the real taste of the fruit I've had.

Thriftycook

Joined: 16 Jul 2006
Posts: 71
Location: Worcester

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 06 4:30 pm Post subject:
Which book is that in jonnyboy ?

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Thu Jul 20, 06 7:47 am Post subject:

Thanks for the suggestions. I am not going to be able to get any strawberries worth buying as the so-called farm shops that are not ludicrously out of our way tend to randomly stock up with every fruit and vegetable known to man, so that you'd need to be shopping with Sherlock and Hercule to tell stuff brought in from 20ft away from the Kenyan imports. And it is no use asking the staff, as the 47 teenagers milling about trying to work out how to use the till couldn't tell a Honeoye from a Little Scarlet unless they were shades of nail polish.

The market that I am able to get to, as I have said before, is very nearly worse than useless, and I think rather than buying from a shop with the accompanying throwaway packaging it is probably better all around to find a good manufacturer who buys in more appropriate fruit and processes it more efficiently. And I get an extra stock of jam jars to use for other fruit

I don't think I need to beat myself up too much if I buy stuff that I *could* make as long as the maker is in a position to do it better. WI markets would be a good idea but they are on during the day during the week when I'm at work and a show is another trip in the car

. I'll look at the Frank Coopers and the Meridian one and see where the St Dalfour comes from - thanks for the recommendations.

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