Me, I’ve become a serious apple jelly partisan lately. My diet has consisted to an alarming degree of bagels with apple jelly in the last couple days. I’ve also enjoyed cherry and blackberry All-Fruit, and classic strawberry jam does have its appeal.
What’s that you say? Orange marmalade? Get thee behind me! I don’t know how you Brits stand the stuff.
So what’s your choice?
Is this even in the running for “most mundane & pointless IMHO poll ever?” The sad thing is, around here, I really doubt it.
My personal favorite is lemon curd. Yum.
I love to make jams and fruit butters in the summertime, and I make a very good strawberry-rhubarb jam, blackberry jam, and apricot butter. I hold onto them and give them as Christmas gifts.
Anything home-made is usually wonderful. Eg my grandmother’s plum and rosepetal jam.
When buying jams I always go for the most ultra-expensive I can find, with only natural stuff in and maximum fruit, so it tastes more like home made. I particularly like cherry (“cerise griotte” in the Confiture Bonne Maman range). Bonne Maman abricot/apricot is also very good, and framboise/raspberry.
I like the jam to have a bit of tartness.
My mother told me that in WW2 when food rations were tight they used to make fake jam for the soldiers with colouring and sugar, and they would put in woodchips to imitate raspberry pips.
My favorite commercial jelly is Welch’s grape jelly, but I prefer homemade anything. My late grandmother made the best apple jelly I ever had. In fact, everything she made was delicious.
No, not plum. Beach plum. They are an obscure little fruit that grows near the ocean or saltwater bays, mostly in places like Cape Cod and Long Island. Delicious. If God made jelly, it would taste like beach plum.
My grandmother and later my mother made jelly from it (they’re too tart for anything else). Now I’ve found some commercial Beach Plum Jelly in my local supermarket and I’m in heaven.
I tend to agree with the consensus of homemade over anything store bought.
But…Bonne Maman Cherry is THE exception. I second istara; Bonne Maman Cherry Preserves is very good. This tastes so close to my grandmom’s cherry jam that I may not even be able to tell the difference. I’ll have to try them side-by-side.
Oh, greenlady, you should give Wilkin & Sons Lemon Curd a whirl! I agree that lemon curd sounds yucky, but it tastes like a lemon bar sans the crust. It’s delightful!
I’m also keen on boysenberries and red raspberries.
And I’ve never had homemade, so all I have to go off of is store bought. I’m sure fresh is much better, but so be it. I relish in my store-bough jelly.
I’ve always liked guava jam. My mom used to make the best, fresh off the trees in our back yard. The house would smell sooooo good, and the jam oh god! Except for the time she didn’t have anything to strain the seeds out, ouch!
