Okay, this strikes me as weird: someone I don’t know very well at all (like we belong to the same women’s club, but haven’t really talked or served on the same committees or anything) gave me a jar of homemade jelly. Just handed it to me as we passed in a hall, with a fast “Here! This is for you!” and all I could do was call “Thanks” after her, before I’d really seen what it was.
According to the label, it’s Dandelion jelly.
Really?? Is that a normal, genuine people actually eat that thing? Or is it some weird insult I’m not hip to?
Actually, I’d have been a little surprised if she’d given me ANY kind of homemade jelly, even the most ordinary Strawberry or Grape. Or store-bought jelly for that matter. Huh? Is there such a thing as “Give an almost stranger a jar of jelly day”? Is this some weird May Day tradition I’ve never come across?
The jar is sitting on my counter, unopened. I’m just baffled. Do I send her a thank you note? Do I challenge her to a slap fight? It’s a normal looking Mason jar, with a handwritten label, filled with clear pale yellow jelly. Roughly the shade of urine, actually. Hmmm.
I’ve never heard of this specific one, but there’s certainly such a thing as dandelion wine. I expect that anything you can make into wine, you can probably make into jelly, too.
Which doesn’t really explain why she gave it to me. I wonder… did she make a big batch of the stuff, and not really like it? And so she’s spreading it around.
My husband is a more adventurous eater than I am. Let’s see if he wants to give it a go.
Yeah? But the recipe linked to by Running Coach doesn’t call for roots. And specifies only the yellow and white parts of the flowers so not any green at all?
(Hubby turned down the idea of slathering his morning toast with dandelion jelly, btw.)
Maybe it is a societal difference – New Englanders are widely considered standoffish compared to a lot of other reasons. To me, giving a present, especially one of some home-made item, isn’t something you would do to someone you didn’t either know well (friend, neighbor, relative, yes, co-workers could qualify) unless there was some sort of ‘reason’ – like welcoming a new neighbor, birth of a child, death, established holiday, etc.
Oh, absolutely I’ll be polite about it, regardless of if I taste it. Which I probably will. Curiosity at least, and I’m not really all that worried that somebody would go the trouble of cooking up a batch of botulism-spiked something or other just to be rid of me.
It’s the situation that struck me as strange: having someone I’ve never even had a conversation with casually hand me a present while rushing by in a corridor. It just, well, didn’t mesh with my expectations for How Things Go.
Compare this to the not-entirely-exaggerated take on North country Scandinavian-American Lutherans: the mere act of being in the same room is almost aggressive intimacy.
Well, apparently you’re paranoid enough to consider a random food poisoning attempt, but not paranoid enough to believe it. The latter is probably a good sign.
Life’s like a box of chocolates given to you by a near-stranger rushing by you in the hallway. I guess.
I can remember when bringing a house warming present to new neighbors was common. Often it was a baked item or something for dinner. Like a big pot of beans or greens.
That was a time when getting a new neighbor didn’t happen very often.
It obviously depends on your neighborhood. Plenty of people still do that. Cookies or a bottle of wine are the standard welcome present among people I know.
I’ve eaten dandelion jelly. You’re not going to notice any distinctive flavor. It usually tastes like the other ingredients, like sugar and lemon juice, that are added to the dandelions.
And you are right! We cracked the jar and experimented last night. Dandelion jelly on buttered toast tastes like…sweetened buttered toast.
Dandelion jelly off a spoon tastes like… well, I want to say nothing. I mean, there was something in my mouth, sweet, coolish, had a physical presence, a texture like any kind of jelly. And a tiny tiny bit of ‘other’ flavor that I really couldn’t name. Not bitter, not sour, not salty. Just something faintly there.
Basically, I don’t see the point of it. Someone put in the time and effort to pick several cups worth of dandelion flowers, carefully peeled away the green surroundings, then boiled them up for a while, strained the result. Then added sugar and pectin…and ended up with a total non-entity as a result. I don’t think it would have tasted much different if you’d skipped the dandelions entirely and added two drops of yellow food coloring instead.
Nonetheless, I guess the woman’s intentions were kind, so I shall thank her for thinking of me. <shrug>
This is about what I was thinking. Of course, it’s always difficult to guess what someone else is thinking, but in this case I’d bet it was “Thank God. Someone else I can unload some of this jelly on.”
Dandelion greens are supposed to be nutritious so I guess dandelion jelly is healthier for you than non-dandelion jelly would be. But the same argument applies to grapes and I’d rather have grape jelly.
To me, giving a present, especially one of some home-made item, isn’t something you would do to someone you didn’t either know well (friend, neighbor, relative, yes, co-workers could qualify) unless there was some sort of ‘reason’ – like welcoming a new neighbor, birth of a child, death, established holiday, etc.
