Jam or Jelly? Why? And what flavors do you like?

[Z is for Zangie]

I prefer Jam, especially raspberry or Black Raspberry Jam...there is just more body/flavor to it and the pieces of fruit...I will eat jelly ( I tend to save the jam for special occasions as it is pricey), preferable Strawberry or Raspberry, but, not as good.

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[Slip Shod]

Strawberry jam/jelly on a nice warm biscuit or a top of butter toast is nice, but that sweet spot always for me will be blackberry.
And if spreading on toast let's not forget the apple butter

[Tarmaque]

This is just about the only thing like that that I will eat, because it's closest to what my Grandmother (and Mom) would make from scratch. I was spoiled as a kid. We always had home made strawberry "jelly" (what most other people would call "jam") in the house. My Mom would make it 3/4 strawberry and 1/4 raspberry, which was particularly good.

BTW, if it's "seedless" as the two examples above, it can't be "jam." You have to strain it to remove the seeds, and if you strain it that's what makes it jelly. I don't care what the label says. If it contains whole pieces of fruit then it's "preserves." What my Grandmother made was crushed berries, which is technically Jam, but we didn't call it that.

I may have mentioned it before, but back in the day the berry industry was huge in this area. Particularly strawberries because there are only a few places in the world that the tastiest strawberries could be grown. One was parts of England, another was in South America (Argentina, if I'm not mistaken) and parts of the Pacific Northwest. It took a very specific climate and soil conditions, and they only produced for a couple of months in the late spring and early summer. Early ever-bearing varieties had little flavor, but later better varieties were developed and most strawberries are now grown in California and Mexico. Today the industry around here is all but dead. A few places grow Raspberries or Blueberries commercially, but not strawberries anymore.

However back in the day we had a strawberry cannery in town. Farms would bring in their harvest (often picked by school kids) and they would be sorted, chopped, packed in sugar water, and sealed in various sizes of containers to be taken to the freezing facility about 10 miles away. Most went in either those rectangular cardboard freezer containers (similar to orange juice, with a metal top and bottom) and some went in what looked like cottage cheese containers. But some went in big half-gallon plastic containers with snap on lids. I worked there a couple of summers, but my Great Aunt worked there for decades, in the scale shack weighing trucks in and out.

The great thing about my Aunt working there was, on her lunch break (about 9:00 p.m.) she'd go grab a half gallon tub or two of strawberries and bring them up to my Grandmother's house, which was only a few blocks away. My Grandmother would make shortcake, or sometimes serve them over vanilla ice cream. Whatever was left would go down to the big freezer she had in the basement. Usually the better part of a half gallon, depending on who was around. This would go on for a couple of weeks at the height of the strawberry season.

Then when autumn came my Grandmother would go bring up a bunch of frozen strawberries and make jelly. Huge pots of the stuff, which she would store in whatever jars she'd saved over the previous year. Often baby food jars, since there were a lot of babies around at the time, sealed with melted paraffin. She'd give most of it away to family members, but there was always a bunch of the jars up in the top of her pantry. If she ran low, there were usually more frozen strawberries in the freezer to make more.

But whenever she made it she'd always skim the scum off the top of the pot while it was boiling, and ladle it into a dish so we could dip home made bread into it while she cooked.

[Slip Shod]

And happy Cinco de Mayo
~

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[GuideToACrazyWorld]

I'm not sure what the difference is between a jam and a jelly. I'm not a huge fan of either. I do like marmalade though.

[Senor Natural]

Mesquite bean/jalapeño jelly, persimmon preserves, peach preserves, pear preserves, blackberry jelly - all homemade

[Mike]

I'm not sure what the difference is between a jam and a jelly. I'm not a huge fan of either. I do like marmalade though.

It sorta goes like this:
1. preserves
2. Jams
3. Jellies

With the preserves being the closest in spirit to the fruit from which they are made, and the jelly being some blend of that fruit along with lots of sugar and no lumps.

My optimal is simply the fruit itself. Why add sugars when the fruit itself is more than sweet enough? A bite of toast with an actual blackberry is far more tasty than with blackberry preserves.

Of course, back in the day it was not possible to have live fruit all year long. So to have any at all during the winter, they came up with preserves and jams and jellies.