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Please CLICK ON THIS PICTURE to see the humorous detail
Feel free to use this label on your own homemade jam
The persona of "Damson Plumm Private Eye" was born, Athena-like(?),
from the artistic brain of my friend Judy Shellabarger Gosnell
Though I think that Judy envisioned Damson as a fella
Historical novels always give the impression that jam making is a heap of fun. The proud Victorian house fraus always look so happy in their billowy aprons, corset-imprisioned waists and tidy labor-heavy kitchens. It was a lot more fun photographing plums, designing and creating the above label than pitting plums. Two batches down, two to go. And I don't ever want to look another plum in the face again. Luckily it was a small harvest.
Some kinds of jam aren't worth the making. The store bought kind tastes just as good or better. And don't even get me started on my experiences planting and harvesting Concord grapes. Then all that drip, drip, drip through the cheesecloth for untold hours, to produce what the grocery store produces just as well (and quite cheaply).
The types of homemade jam we appreciate for it's homemade taste are
1) Raspberry Plum, it's new identity as "Damson Plumm, Private Eye". I've made this with Satusumas, Santa Rosas and now Damson plums.
2) Loganberry, from local berry picking expeditions to the San Mateo County Coast. Didnt' get over there this year, I'm sorry to say
3) Peach or Ginger Peach. Regular grocery store peaches work fine.
I have used this Sunset recipe for raspberry-plum jam every summer since I first picked my own plums. Luckily somebody else has put it up on the web. I've also made plum jam without the raspberries and it just doesn't taste like much of anything. When I run low on the raspberries (frozen from Costco) I toss in a bit of blackberry and/or strawberry to fill out the measuring cup.
Also when I pick the plums a little early and tart, as I did this year to avoid a mess of wasp-friendly mucky fruit dropping on the ground, then I cut the lemon juice back by half. The jam still sets up. Slightly green like that, I could probably skip the lemon juice all together, but it's so much work I don't want to take a chance.
Jam on!
