Jam!

About a year ago, LC and I took a walk along the canal to the Kelpies, during the course of which we happened to notice that the path was bordered on one side by a significant number of fruit-bearing brambles. Alas, at that point we had no bags with us, and as we were at the extreme tail-end of the season we didn't ever return. However, we noted to ourself that we really should come back in a year's time to harvest a crop.

Saturday being a nice day, we went out for a walk along that same path, this time armed with plastic bags. There then proceeded a flurry of berry picking, slowed only by the discovery that my bag had a hole in the bottom resulting in the path being strewn with berries. Gah!

Anyway, we picked some berries, and then we picked some more. LC wanted to be sure we returned with at least a kilo of brambles, as that was the quantity called for by the recipe in her book. And so we returned home with two plastic bags veritably heaving with fruit. Indeed, it turned out that not only had we picked a full kilo of brambles, but we had in fact picked a kilo each, with one of us picking slightly more than the other. (Though I'm reliably informed that it wasn't a competition...)

Of course, jam making is now one of those skills that is both little-used and, for most people, in little demand. The stores can, after all, supply a wide variety of very nice jams, marmalades, and preserves, and the cost is generally less than it would take to buy the ingredients.

But it does have its uses, of course - for example if one were to suddenly come by a large quantity of free fruit. So that's convenient.

Long story short: we now have an enormous supply of bramble and apple jam, and a corresponding need for scones.

(Oh, and you'll note that this is not an "Experimental Cookery" - because it was LC, and not I, who went to the enormous effort of turning that vast quantity of fruit into jam. It's probably important that I make sure to say that.)