Jellies, jams and preserves: the three pillars of a good homesteader with any berries at their disposal. I’m not going to lie and say I fully understood the difference between the three until somewhat recently, but rest assured, my wife has set me straight.

I’ve been a lover of preserved fruits for as long as I can remember. Most folks I know have some degree of love for a classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I myself have only built on this foundational taste with the discovery of all the types of jellies and jams that can be made. Had I known as a child that anything existed beyond raspberry preserves, grape jelly and strawberry jelly, perhaps my developing palate might have demanded the planting of more berries around our house.

However, this is not a declaration of remorse, but rather an enthusiastic pronouncement to my fellow eaters of gelatinized bounties of nature: that the world is bigger than we thought, and there are so many ways to explore these sweet and sticky condiments.

On the note of remorse, however, I will say that I always thought it a travesty that so many classic recipes included an audacious amount of sugar to achieve something that by all rights should have brought enough natural sugar with it. To clarify, consider blueberries. They have an average of 15 grams of natural sugar from a mere cup. Then to make jams or jellies, one would traditionally add a 1:1 ratio of additional sugar to the fruit, doubling it and certainly questioning the healthy nature that “fruit” would otherwise naturally imply.

My wife has tried some of the low-sugar pectins in the past with little to no real consistent results. Either the pectin would not set, or the low amount of sugar would still require quite a bit of sugar anyway. Then she discovered Pomona’s Universal Pectin. You can find it on Amazon or on pomonapec
tin.com. In essence, it not only lowers the amount of additional sugar required, but also provides honey as an alternative if you prefer the natural sugar to refined sugar. It works using a small amount of a calcium ingredient to help react with the type of pectin in order to ensure proper gelling.

We tried it, expecting it to be similar to other low-sugar pectins in the past and were pleasantly surprised with the results of both strawberry and blueberry jams. It comes with some specific instructions that vary from traditional pectins, but it gives lots of options and additional recipes for how to make the most of it.

Being that we are now in the midst of a great blueberry year, we used it with some wild blueberries picked at my father’s property, and have a lovely batch of jam which may or may not last through the end of the year. Honey is to the bear named Pooh as jelly is to a certain you-know-who… (me).

The way out here we love picking berries, but we love eating them just as much. Nothing says ample serving size like blueberry pancakes, with blueberry jam on top and maybe a drizzle of maple syrup or even blueberry syrup… perhaps a recipe for this time next year.

If you can get your hands on enough blueberries, you should give this blueberry jam recipe from Pomona’s Universal Pectin: www.pomonapectin.com/blueberry-jam/.