Wondering about pickles and preserves.

 ...And in the midst of the pickling and preserving of fruits and vegetables, I often wonder how these processes came about. 
We (I) use techniques that have been tried and tested over many years, but they were once an essential part of life, rather than a pleasurable pastime. Preservation of fruits, vegetables and meat and other products would once have been a necessity in order for communities to get through times of harsh weather; how did these techniques come about? How many of the preserved products were spoiled and lost? 


Think about jams, marmalades and jellies for a moment....

To make preserves which keep well, we require sugar. A LOT of sugar, so these products could not have been possible before refined sugar cane was abundant (and cheap) here. The gorgeous soft fruits of summer would not have been preserved and available in the depths of a cold, dark winter. Hard fruits such as apples and pears would have been the only fruits available, and then only if they had been carefully harvested and stored, and the mice and mould have not first devoured them. The jams and the consequent blurring of the seasons, with a little morsel of summer sunshine fruitiness available in winter would have been impossible.

What we now see as maybe a little bit of a whimsical, peasant-like, "hippyish" activity would once have been the preserve (pun) of the rich, for only they would have had the money with which to buy the gorgeous sweet stuff required for perfect preservation. So mass-produced jams were made available to the masses, but were adulterated with glucose syrup and thinned out with paltry-sized mushed-up fruits. Vegetables were added to what should have been pure fruit jams in order to bulk them out.

Small wonder then that home-made preserves were, and still are, so sought after. There is an art to the making of them. It requires perfect fruit; not as some may think damaged or bruised fruit, for that will spoil the product. Time of course is also required; the pan needs to be watched so as not to burn or boil over. I usually have to set aside an entire morning or afternoon to make a batch. Patience. The correct pan. Jars. Storage.

All of this I ponder whilst collecting the fruit, checking for blemishes, grading, weighing, stirring, pouring and labelling. Maybe you'll think about it too when you next open a jar of your favourite preserve...