September’s preserving season is a race to capture the heady flavours of summer fruit
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The ideal time to make lemonade, when lemons are juicy and plentiful and cheap, is in the dead of winter, when the last thing you want is a cooling glass of lemonade. Similarly, jam-making is best done on a grey November afternoon, when the windows are steamed up and the kitchen is the warmest place in the house. Winter is exactly when you want to be standing over a great pot of bubbling fruit and boiling sugar, but much less so in summer, which is when all the good fruit is in season. From May until mid-October, our fruit supplier bills spike exponentially as boxes and boxes of seasonal fruit in its absolute prime make their way to our kitchen for a jam session, and the practice of turning them into a sweet spread is part profession, part obsession. Jam is very much our jam.
Early in the season, we can just about cope. The soft fruits start to come in when the weather is still behaving itself, and we love giving them a little seasonal accent – elderflower comes with the last rhubarb, as well as with the first strawberries and apricots, and it pairs wonderfully with all of them (if you are starting there, Felicity Cloake has a very thorough guide to the perfect strawberry jam). Cherries, meanwhile, go with just about anything, while young bay leaves often find themselves heading into the blackcurrant pot. Fennel fronds and peaches are another favourite, and we make some whenever we can get those two at the same moment. It is an amazing combination: sweet, perfumed and just a little bit green.
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