What is jam? “A preserve made from whole fruit boiled to a pulp with sugar.” Lots of opportunities to quibble with that, most especially, if you’re planning to sell the stuff in the UK and label it “jam,” the precise amount of sugar. More than 60% and you’re fine calling it jam. Less than 50% and you need to call it reduced-sugar jam. Lower still, and it becomes a fruit spread. All that is about to change though, thanks to a UK Goverment regulation that will allow products with less than 60% sugar to be labelled jam.

There’s nothing like a threat to the traditional British way of life to motivate the masses, although as an expat, I had no idea of the kerfuffle this had raised until I read about it on the website of the Campaign for Real Farming.

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Changing the rules for what is labelled jam may seem like a tempest on a teacake, but it is symptomatic of the growing distance between what were once simple methods of food processing – in this case to preserve it – and the industrial version of a similar product. And making jam at home isn’t that hard.

There is, though, the problem of getting it to set properly. I had a little read to remind myself of what Vivien Lloyd called the magic of pectin, and it isn’t simple. Pectin is a long string of a molecule, present in the glue that cements cell walls together. Some fruits have loads of it, others less. The long strings bind together and form a mesh that traps any liquid inside the spaces between the pectin molecules, but they bind together only under specialised conditions. Acid reduces the tendency for pectin molecules to repel one another, while sugar attracts water, and so allows the pectin molecules to come together. And fruits supply acid and and sugar. “Sounds like a cinch,” says Harold McGee …

“But as anyone who has tried knows, it’s anything but a cinch. Making preserves is a tricky business because the necessary balance between pectin, acid, and sugar is a very delicate one. Food scientists have found that a pH between 2.8 and 3.4, a pectin concentration of 0.5 to 1.0%, and a sugar concentration of 60 to 65% are generally optimal, but you would have to be cooking in a well-equipped laboratory to measure the first two condition (sugar content is easily measure by boiling point).”

That’s one reason I asked Vivien Lloyd to share her recipe for raspberry jam, which she kindly did. Download the recipe for Raspberry and Vanilla Jam.

Notes

1. More science of pectin.
2. Photo of Vivien Lloyd by Robert Walster.
3. Music – in and out – was, of course, Strawberry Jam, by Michelle Shocked. And no, I don’t understand what she’s been saying lately; this is not an endoresement of any kind, it is just good music.
4. I make good jam.

When you’re on holiday, or just away from home, do you seek out the “authentic” local food, or look for a reassuringly familar logo? Backpackers, keen to distinguish themselves from the vulgar hordes who are merely on holiday, seek out the authentic, at least to begin with. Dr Emily Falconer has been studying women backpackers. That’s her in the photo, doing a little field research over a bowl of something exotic in Thailand. And she says that while they start out seeking the grottiest places to eat, after they’ve been on the road for a while, their thoughts stray guiltily to familiar, comforting foods. I know the feeling

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Emily Falconer didn’t set out to study backpackers and food, but soon discovered that no matter what the subject, the people she was talking to sooner or later brought up food. I’m no exception, and although I’ve never been a great backpacker myself, I do prefer to seek out reasonably local eating places where I can, and I’ve had some memorable meals as a result. The most memorable of those was in Kunming, China, where I detached myself from the group I was with and went in search of something to eat. I didn’t find it at the food fair that was on at the same time, but in the end I fetched up in a place so authentic it didn’t even have photographs of the food. I indicated to the waiter that I was hungry and he brought me food. I had no idea what any of it was, and aside from one soupy dish that was almost too hot even for me, it was all delicious. Next time I might take with me a book, this book.

Notes

1. Emily Falconer is a senior research assistant at the Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research at London South Bank University.
2. Her paper is Transformations of the backpacking food tourist: Emotions and conflicts.
3. She also mentioned Food in tourism: Attraction and Impediment, by Erik Cohen and Nir Avieli.
4. Intro music, as ever, by Dan-O at DanoSongs.com.
5. While Jimmy Buffet – and how appropriate is that? – provided the outro music.