The Fruits Of Our Labour
Ever since I was a young child I’ve loved raspberry jam.
I’ve always thought it the most special of fruits, perhaps because the only time I ever ate it was in Denmark during the summer holidays. My great-grandmother, who had the green thumb of an Earth Goddess, grew great bushes of them in her garden and made a homemade jam that was so rich and intense I can still taste it when I think about it today.
And then of course there were the forest raspberries. Teeny little nuggets of miniaturized, concentrated fruit so crazy flavorful I’ve carried the secret of their location like a hidden treasure my entire adult life (that, and where all the best wild mushrooms are). Some things are just too good to share….
This time of year I think about all those things, especially as fruit is ripening in our own garden.
You see after a long (and rather unusual) reprieve the HEAT has finally arrived, and together with it all things that are officially part of summer in southwest France, both good and bad. It changes our habits, as such things do, and the fruits of our labor too.
Today’s blog post, in a nut shell…
It’s A Hot, Hazy Time
There’s a haze on the horizon, that simmers like a heavy blanket above the valley.
The Pyrénées are somewhere under there, obscured by low-hanging cloud, their fine peaks dusted of snow, now brown and grey like the underlying rock. Everything seems slower, as if the heat has affected time itself. And everyone is inside, hunkered down behind closed shutters to block out the midday sun, the old stone-walled houses dark and quiet, to conserve the smallest of cool.
This is summertime in SW France, and it’s the beginning of a long, hot set of months where temps regularly hit 30°C (86°F) and may even, if we get a heat-wave or a “canucule”, ramp to 40°C (104°F), as they did last year.
It arrived this week, the first wave of that heat that is, and with it all our habits had to switch too. We walk Polly as early as we can now, to catch the morning cool, and if we need to go out in the garden and do any activities, we squeeze them in then too. By mid-morning it’s already too hot, so we shutter-up, as all French do and keep things closed until the sun has passed us by.
Finally, early evening we get another reprieve.
Perhaps a thunderstorm passes through, lighting up the sky with a firework of flashes, and deep, rolling thunder that echoes through the valley, dropping temps dramatically in its wake. Or sometimes a blissful breeze comes through as the sky cools and the earth releases the heat from the day.
I love both of these, and look forward to them like long-lost loves returning from afar each day.
It’s a Busy Time Too
This is also a busy time in the garden, mostly because everything is ripening at once.
Our cherry tree bore fruit that ripened achingly slowly over several weeks, then suddenly reached sweet perfection in a single day, and subsequently burst and fermented almost immediately after. Argh! We managed to eat quite a large quantity the day of the peak, but didn’t harvest the rest in time, thinking we’d get to it the next day. Alas, it was too late!
Our Mirabelle plums are all ripening at once too. These sweet, little plums grow almost wild here, huge trees of them along the bottom of our property line. Last year we harvested at least 20 lbs, and it looks like we’re well on our way to do the same this year.
I end up making a ton of jam and chutney, much like my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother did, continuing a long line of family tradition. Thankfully I have their recipes, or at least some of them. I’ve got a dog-eared version of the classic Danish pickling book, “Den Grønne Syltebog” which has hand-written notes and recipes from mom hidden inside its pages (I discover new treasures every time open it). And of course I remember watching mom making jam back in her day, the old-fashioned way.
My current preferred jamming method combines traditional Danish steps with a French modern twist, where I macerate the fruit in sugar and lemon for a few hours before I cook it.
For fellow geeks who might be interested, the science of this works a treat. Sugar is hygroscopic, so it draws out the juices and softens up the fruit, while the lemon adds that little bit of extra acidity to enhance flavors and help the natural fruit pectins* bind (the optimal level of acidity for pectin gelation is a pH of ~3.5). This means we only need to cook the final mixture for ~20 minutes or so to get the jam to the right temp (217-222°F (103-106°C)) and consistency for setting. The perfect way to preserve maximum fruity goodness!
All of this takes time, especially if you de-stone beforehand (which mostly we do, although sometimes we get lazy and fish the stones out while cooking), but the results are deliciously worth it.
* Added Pectin? In case you’re wondering I don’t really like to add extra pectin or use “jam sugar” (which has added pectin). There’s enough natural pectin in most of the fruits we harvest to gel up the jam sufficiently, and for the few fruits that are lower in pectin, I prefer to leave the texture a little runnier. I’ve always liked it that way. For more info on pectin, see HERE.
LMB Tucked Away (For Now)
As for LMB, she’s safely tucked away for now.
When we came home from Carcassonne we gave her a good deep clean, both inside and out, including a full wash and wax. She’s a ton easier and faster to clean that our old “beast”, but admittedly doesn’t get quite as fancy shiny afterwards.
As an interesting side-note it’s taken us quite a while to find the right products to do all that here. For whatever reason the French don’t really seem to bother much with car detailing other than a drive-through wash every now and then to take the worst grime off. Dirt, dents and scratches are worn with pride, and waxing is practically unheard of. So I’ve had to scour online to find some good Meguire’s Canuba Wax, as well as some Aerospace 303 for our tires & interior surfaces (it’s just the best UV protectant out there). Both products cost at least twice what we used to pay in the USA, but IMO they are worth it. Nothing but the best for our mini-beast!
So now that LMB is showcase ready, when/where is our next outing? We really don’t know. If the mountains clear up, we’ll take a trip to the Pyrénées again, or we may risk a few days on a remote stretch of beach somewhere, if we can find a spot to hide out. Either way we’re going to stick to shorter outings, staying socially distant and relatively close to home until we see how things pan out with the big re-opening.
Because the big, final opening of France is coming!
The Final Re-Opening Is At Hand
Next week, on July 1st Europe will open up its borders to international travelers for the first time since the lock-down began on 17th March.
It’s going to be a phased opening, where initially only tourists from 14 countries where COVID-19 is considered “under control” will be allowed to come (and yup you guessed it, USA is not on that list). It’s the biggest step since déconfinement began, and I really have no idea how it’ll go.
Right now the numbers in France look pretty good. Thanks to 2 months of hard lockdown, incident rates, death rates and ICU hospitalizations have all come sharply down and all areas of France are now “in the green”. What’s even better is that everything has stayed green, even with the re-opening measures that have happened so far. Restaurants, cafes, businesses and general life are all mostly back to normal, and yet the numbers are holding steady. That is truly encouraging.
The question is what happens when all the international tourists arrive?
As you can imagine, I remain super cautious as I have been throughout this whole ordeal. We will stay vigilant (and continue wearing a mask in public!) until we’re sure the numbers are staying in check. I’m very happy with the results in France so far, and I have hope for the future (especially as treatments and our understanding of this virus improves), but IMO this story is far from over.
So that’s it for this week. Not much going on, except laboring for jam, and of course the big border re-opening. But my dear blog readers, as usual I am interested in YOUR history too. Do you have a favorite summertime food memory from your youth? Something you can taste when you think about it, even today? If so I’d love to hear about it. DO tell and share below!!
For me, a summertime treat was my grandmother’s peach cobbler served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. When I asked her for the recipe, she said, “Oh, I don’t know, peaches, sugar, dough – I don’t measure anything.” Sigh. Wish I had watched her closely!
My grandmas homemade ice cream made by cranking and cranking , adding ice, more salt and cranking again was a summer miracle! That, along with “helping” (read interfering) with Grandpa making his special sauerkraut meant summer at Grandma and Grandpa’s.
Oh Nina, you brought back such fond memories for me growing up on a farm in Cornelius, Oregon next door to my maternal grandparents. We had a huge garden in between our houses and they had rows of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries around their house along with pear and apple trees. I ate berries until my hands were stained and my belly full. My grandma would freeze whole strawberries and bring them out in the winter. She would pour on some fresh cream with a sprinkle of sugar and the cream would harden to the frozen berry like a shell. SO GOOD! Lots of jam, too. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Enjoy the goodies!
You garden of all the vegetables and flowers remind me of my grandfather. He immigrated from Germany at the age of 13 along with his cousin and a uncle all the time that I knew him in the United States they were always growing beautiful gardens I swear they had green thumbs or green thumbs of green thumbs apple trees cherry trees and everything that was to be grown. He didn’t do too bad for farming either straight tall corn row after row soybeans and wheat like you couldn’t believe
I can smell smell the apple pies the big cherry Piesand all the special dishes that would come from the garden what great memories.
What great memories you bring in your blog thank you.
You had my attention at Raspberry Jam! We had a very large field of raspberries which my G’ma canned on her wood stove.
The strawberry jam was made yseterday with raspberry, peach and my own special triple berry (raspberry, blueberry and black current) to be made as the fruit comes into season.
We are so far from under control in the US. It’s maddening! I envy you your raspberries–we can grow them in Montana but it’s a lot of work! When I worked in Puyallup, Washington for three months one year, we would go to the farmers market and buy flats of raspberries–delicious!
Ah well, grew up in Southern California on a large suburban lot but no garden, so the memories are of flats of strawberries. Made into jam and frozen. And of course the corn. Best memories are of visiting my grandma at her acre lot in Puente, surrounded by dairies. I would imagine there are no dairies left there by now, but back then, in the mid 50’s her lot had tons of beans and shelling peas and my favorite was the apricot tree where I would climb and eat warm ripe apricots. Nice memories, Nina. So sad that we are doing so terribly here in the US and so glad that much of the rest of the world is not. As you said, it might be some time before we see the end of this story.
When I was five we moved into a house that had been owned by a gardener at one time but all we were able to harvest were black raspberries and cherries. It was challenging getting enough cherries ripe enough to pick before the birds beat us to them. We ate the black raspberries on cereal but Mom and Grandma made the cherries into jelly sealed with melted paraffin.
Minnesota is starting to reopen but Dave and I aren’t taking any chances yet. No outings besides grocery store and medical appointments and I don’t even do the former. My first medical appointment isn’t for a couple weeks yet but Dave has been to the dermatologist since he gets spots of cancer on his head that need to be removed in a timely manner.
I grew up in the Bronx and there wasn’t much by way of fruit, vegetables or gardens except what we bought at the market. We did have an ice cream truck that was owned by Jack, a teacher who would drive around when he was on his summer break. He would make it to my block about 3 times/day and announce his arrival with a bell. You would her the bell and like any good Pavlovian trained mammal your mouth would water in anticipation of a Creamsicle.
I’m wondering how they are opening the restaurants in France. Are they allowing indoor dining?
This one is easy. I grew up in a small town in SW Georgia [the state]. In the summer, my mom and the aunts would pack us kids up and take us to Radium Springs for a picnic outing. In those days, Radium had a small resort built around a large spring producing 70,000 gallons per minute of ice cold water; a small version of the Florida springs where they filmed the Tarzan movies. You had to want to get in that water, it was some kind of boyhood rite and your lips and fingernails would turn blue. The small resort had a beach and picnic area. The moms would bring a real Georgia watermelon [think grocery cart size] to place in the water near the beach. It would not take long before the watermelon was at the right temperature, carried up to the picnic table, and then reduced to the rind by myself and the cousins. There were no boom boxes or smart phones or kids acting out [everybody knew your mom and dad]. Those sweet days come back now whenever I have a Trader Joe’s sized melon here in SoCal. Alas, like so many good and innocent things of that generation, the resort at Radium failed and closed.
Hi Nina,
If we went “home” to Australia during summer, memories are of all the family having a day long lunch at Grandma’s house where we would grab a Rockmelon (Cantalope in USA) from the garden with a basket full of passion fruit which we kids loved to scrape out & mix in with the melon, served with whipped cream unpasteurized straight from my cousin’s farm & as much milk as we could drink.
One year Dad & his brother were put on whipping duty & because they hadn’t done so before we landed up with a lovely bowl of yellow butter !
Here are some normal summer memories that may be familiar to you Nina due to your time in Asia where my family lived in Malaya & Singapore from 1954 till 1974. Taiwan ’74-76.
Dad was passionate about the sea & yachting, best day of the week was to go to https://rsyc.org.sg/history/ the yacht club & go sailing with him. It was our time together. Mum wasn’t into boating or the heat.
Having read your wonderful blog for at least 7 years saving lots of info for the day when
it will be my turn to hit the road. I may have commented once, can’t remember.
To-days post immediately brought up memories of fresh squeezed lime juice ordered at the bar of the yacht club after sailing with another one on order to be enjoyed after a cold shower.
We would sail or boat on my BFF Dad’s Junk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_(ship) to various out lying islands like Palau Ubin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulau_Ubin
Cookie (the family cook) would make the most scrumptious curries https://books.google.com/books?id=kAS-DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=Black+%26+white+cooks+colonial+Singapore&source=bl&ots=-EO3L-m1Yx&sig=ACfU3U35-pFtGB7GP2jH3z8KHBvPReRYGA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjY_dnftbbqAhURLX0KHb4YCGIQ6AEwCnoECAwQAQ#v=onepage&q=Black%20%26%20white%20cooks%20colonial%20Singapore&f=false
And the most delicious rice dishes https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/turmeric-pilau-golden-onions with lots of little side dishes all packed into Tiffin carriers https://www.amazon.com/Aluminum-Tiffin-Carrier-Buddhist-Style/dp/B00PEJ34KA
In the 60’s food was just being flown into Singapore mostly from Australia (my nationality) & it was a weekly treat to have a cold bottle of coke with our curry lunch !
These are not your standard summer memories given that “Singa’s” was hot all year but your post kicked off all the memories including throwing our chicken bones to the Kampong dogs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kampong ( dogs) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomian.
This may bring back memories of your time in the area, I don’t remember the years you were there but past my time when Singapore was a third world country & the biggest concern at school were the monkeys stealing our lunch & drink bottle of frozen Rybena https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribena#Second_World_War
These days I’m about to close on 28 acres about 12 miles south of Prescott in the most gorgeous piece of country.
My plan is to have very few separated off grid spaces for Rvs & campers.
The land is surrounded on 3 sides by BLM land & a river passing through !
The realtor saw a brown bear foraging on the mountain side near the property the other day !
No noise, no hunting allowed, may not even provide WiFi.
While I renovate the old farm house, I will finally be off grid in a vintage TT (yet to be purchased).
To GMoulder the fav T.Joe’s recipe this summer is cold Watermelon cut into chunks, layered in T.Joe’s Jalapeno jam & whipped cream … ymmmmm.
Thank you for all your wonderful post’s.
Favorite summertime treat? Oh, so many,….but in the top ten, picking a big beefsteak tomato in the afternoon when it is almost hot to the touch, slicing some homemade bread-buttered on all sides, and making a grilled tomato and sharp cheddar cheese sandwich. And now my mouth is watering.