Jam Tomorrow... Today
The Food Programme
BBC
4.4 • 977 Ratings
🗓️ 15 September 2015
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jam. Think sticky apricot and saccharine strawberry? Think again. Our British love affair with jam goes back to the sweet-toothed 17th century. But now our interest seems to be waning. Shop sales of jam are down amid concerns over the amount of sugar we consume. And anyway, who has time for preserving pans and pretty pots?
But there is another way. In fact there are many. In this programme, 'queen of preserving' and author of 'Salt Sugar Smoke, how to preserve fruit, vegetables and fish' Diana Henry, meets the people thinking differently about jam.
She finds out how to use some of this year's gluts of fruit with Mary Longford, the woman behind Absolute Preserves in Somerset, discovers a beloved but forgotten fruit with gardener and food writer Mark Diacono; And speaks to Fraser Doherty, the man whose healthier jams have made him an international icon with an MBE to boot.
With advice from American preserves blogger for 'Food in Jars' Marisa McClellan, Diana hosts a canning (or jamming) party and explores culinary traditions of jam making from Scandinavia, Ukraine and beyond with food writers Olia Hercules and Camilla Plum. Recipes from around Europe which won't require shiny new kit.
Diana Henry wants you to rise up, and make jam.
Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello I'm Sheila Dylan and welcome to this BBC download of the Food Program. |
| 0:06.0 | For information on the BBC's terms and conditions of use, visit |
| 0:09.6 | www. |
| 0:10.9 | BBC.co. UK slash Radio 4. |
| 0:15.0 | And now, enjoy the podcast. |
| 0:18.0 | It went strawberries, cherries and an angels kissing spring. |
| 0:23.0 | My son wine is always made from all these things. |
| 0:35.0 | One of the songs my dad used to play in the car when I was growing up was Lee Hazelwood's summer wine. |
| 0:42.0 | Now I didn't connect this line with an alcoholic drink but I |
| 0:46.7 | thought it would make a fantastic jam. I love jam. I think it can capture the flavor of a place and even a particular time and keep it in a |
| 0:57.5 | jar. |
| 1:00.5 | I know what you're thinking. You're thinking jam, how radio four, how very middle-aged. But |
| 1:08.5 | Seemond-de-Bovois said this. There is poetry in making jam. The housewife has caught duration in the |
| 1:16.4 | snare of sugar. She has enclosed life in jars. She's right and I want you to make it. By the end of this program I want you to explore the |
| 1:26.6 | flavours, the textures, the endless possibilities of jam making. I want to change the way you think about jam. |
| 1:34.0 | Now I've got to give to you summer wine. |
| 1:47.4 | Now I've got two food riders coming to my house and we're going to make some jam together. I've never done this before I always preserve on my own it's a |
| 1:52.1 | solitary pursuit. |
| 1:53.6 | So I'm going to phone Marissa MacKellen. |
| 1:57.2 | Marissa is a food blogger and she lives in Philadelphia. |
| 2:00.6 | She specializes in preserving |
| 2:02.4 | and what is known there as canning because |
... |
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