I knew I’d written about blueberries in Montreal before. Turns out that about 1 year ago I bought a bunch of blueberries from Jean-Talon market and turned them into a simple blueberry sauce/quick fridge jam with cinnamon and lemon juice, inspired by my mom’s blueberry pie recipe. This was before my preserving days. No sterilizing jars or softening wax lids involved. Aw, life was so simple back then…
No, that’s not true at all, because as lovely as my blueberry-cinnamon sauce of yesteryear was, it didn’t last nearly as long as will my freshly canned wild blueberry jam. Well, that is if everyone will stop buying it from me…Not that I’m complaining about the income. Please keep buying my preserves and pickles.
I can open a jar of this sweet-and-sour, mouth-puckering toast-topper in January, close my eyes, and remember sitting out on the back deck last night, wearing a light cotton shirt and shorts in the wind-free heat and calm oasis that is my current home. Last year I also wrote about how wrong it is to spend so much money on fruit that I grew up picking for free. But this year I spent $25 buying a big crate of the things at Jean-Talon. Do I feel ripped off? Yes. But the alternative was going to a blueberry picking farm, which, quaint as it sounds, feels even more wrong. Blueberries grow wild! They’re very different from cultivated blueberries. And it’s a bit confusing because “wild” and “cultivated” refer to the type of blueberry, not the um…freedom…of the berry. The wild ones are low-bush varieties – much smaller and higher in antioxidants – and the cultivated ones are the more mass produced ones – bigger, less tangy, less “flavourful” (a term I don’t really agree with since there’s still flavour, and often a fair bit, but it’s just usually more sweet than sweet and sour).
Anyway, I was going to pick my own (farm-free) but I don’t know anywhere they grow “wild” that isn’t on a blueberry farm. So I’d have to pay for the luxury of picking blueberries, which is not exactly a fun-filled morning – spending hours hunched over those low-lying bushes. It makes a lot of sense why the cultivated ones are more common since they’re a whole lot easier to harvest I think…Besides, I did the math, and once you calculate in the price of gas and the price of picking a whole lot of blueberries at these farms, it makes more sense just to buy them at an inexpensive farmer’s stall or even the Marché Central. I prefer a market, though, where you can talk to the grower and maybe the picker. Generally blueberries aren’t sprayed with anything, especially the wild ones, but every field tastes a little different because of the soil and weather. So tasting and talking first is a good idea.
Long story short, expensive blueberries in hand, I decided to jam. Blueberry jam is ridiculously easy. Blueberries + sugar + lemon juice. You don’t need pectin as long as you have a mix of ripe and under-ripe berries. Cook it to the jamming point and pour into sterilized jars. Just make sure you taste test first, since blueberry sourness does vary widely, and taste testing this jam is the difference between so-so jam and superb jam.
Simple Blueberry Jam
Yield: Three 250mL jars of jam
6 cups blueberries (ripe and under-ripe)
3-4 1/2 cups sugar (depending on how sweet you like it. It’s also safer with more sugar, but if your berries are sweet I’d recommend trying 4 cups of sugar. If you’re not canning, go with 3)
3-5 tbsp lemon juice (to taste! Start with 1, then add more as necessary)
Directions:
Cook the berries and sugar over medium-high heat for 35-40 minutes. Keep the heat this high. Jam is apparently best boiled fast. Test that it’s ready by using a candy thermometre (it should reach 220°F) or by putting a plate in the freezer for a minute, then dropping about 1/4 tsp of jam onto the plate, then put it back in the freezer for 30 seconds. It should dent when you touch it with your finger, like a gel. It shouldn’t be too liquid. If it’s not set yet pour the little drop of non-jam off the plate and put the plate back in the freezer while you wait for the blueberries to cook some more. Try again with the 30 second freezer trick soon. Really a candy thermometre is the way to go.
When it’s finally done (you do need to stir very frequently so the berries don’t burn!) add 3 tbsp of lemon juice, taste the jam, and add more lemon juice if you want it a little more puckering. When you’re satisfied with the flavouring, cook the berries a few minutes longer to re-thicken.
Have your warm, sterilized jars ready and your lids softening and pour the jam into the sterilized jars. Remove any air bubbles, wipe the seal with a damp paper towel, place the lids on top, screw on the ring band to finger-tip tight, and place in hot water canner for 10 minutes. The USDA says 5 minutes is all you need, but I’ll err on the side of caution. No more than 10, though.
Or skip the whole processing/canning thing and just put the jars in the fridge and eat within a few months. They should last as long as the jars are clean and you don’t do too much double dipping. Tempting, but don’t do it. Or use this as a sauce, as in my last blueberry recipe – amazing on chicken or ice cream. Like the date-peach-sour-cherry-almond milk ice cream I made last night. Boy that was good. Half a jar of sour cherry jam plus soaked and puréed dates (a couple of soaked and puréed figs thrown in too), almond milk, and the last of my peach syrup from boiling white peaches for my preserved peaches in Cep d’Argent Mistral dessert wine.
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