Farm Wife Summer

"Bought marmalade? Oh dear, I call that very feeble."
-----Maggie Smith as Constance in Gosford Park

I have a love/hate relationship with this time of year, when the fruit in the orchard becomes a huge chore on its way to becoming a treasure. At our house, the morning routine requires coffee with toast and jam, and that jam has to be homemade. Alas, I do not love everything about the process.

The love:

Open kettle preserves have a flavor that can't be matched by most commercial jam, which tends to be bulked up with pectin and worse. Most of the fruit I use is from trees I can see from my porch or blackberries that grow along the edges of the vineyard. The process of making preserves is sensual and meditative. It always makes me feel connected with my grandmother, who first taught me the Farm Wife arts. When I'm finished for the season, I'm unreasonably pleased with my industry and gloat over the handsome rows of jars on the shelf. Plus, lately more aware of the part food plays in a healthy planet, there's satisfaction in the recycling of Mason jars, and the environmental plus of not shipping my jam from Bulgaria.

The hate:

The fruit ripens during hot weather. That means that turning it into preserves heats the house and makes me miserable all day. Every year, I find I've forgotten how long it takes, and how much work it is to chop the fruit and cook it. The crop always seems to hit its imperative moment when I had other ideas for the day. I either feel guilty for ignoring it, or martyred that I have to abandon my plans to stand at the stove.

Is it worth it to go through Farm Wife Summer every year? I know I'm always glad that I did it when I enjoy that homegrown tablespoon of summer on my morning toast. However, I only make as much as we need, and no more. Don't expect to find a jar under the Christmas tree with your name on it. I have a little devil on my shoulder (that couldn't be my voice, could it?) saying "Why would you go through this for people who think their own time is too valuable to spend making marmalade, or, goddess forbid, people who don't know the difference?"