Black Currant Jam

Posted by David Lebovitz : 21 Aug 2013 

Someone recently asked me why I do what I do. More specifically, what compelled me. They were particularly focused on how I was likely most concerned with the finished product, asking me if that was my goal when I cooked and baked. I thought about it for a bit, and realized that the goal has very little to do with it; I like picking through lugs of fruits and berries with my hands, melting chocolate and butter until the mixture is smooth, the smell of folding toasted nuts into a cake batter, and lifting a batch of just-churned ice cream out of the machine and alternating the layers with ribbons of glossy chocolate swirl.

I do, however, have a rather particular thing for scoping out fruit and berries whenever I find them growing and using them to their best advantage. Most of the time, they end up in jams and jellies, especially since I recently returned to the trees which I found overloaded with wild plums a few years ago (which the owners had hacked down to their nubs the following year), which were now gloriously heavy with multicolored fruits of unbelievable goodness. And I spent a good afternoon plucking out the pits and making jam, and a nice tart out of them. Fait accompli!

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