Yesterday, my friend Arnelle and I picked cherries as I started to make the jam I remembered a post I wrote about making cherry jam years ago, 12 years ago to be exact! Oh, man. Do any of you remember this post?
Wish me luck.
Photo and True story by: Corey Amaro
How to Make Burnt Cherry Jam:
Pick 25 pounds of cherries from your neighbor's tree.
Buy 15 pounds of sugar, and carry it home for the exercise.
Sterilize fifty-plus jars with their matching lids,
Let them air dry on crisp clean linens on the kitchen counter.
Pit the cherries, don't worry about your cherry-stained hands and nails (lemon juice and nail polish will correct the mess.)
Do not use pectin- Cook the jam slowly, stirring now and then for several hours.
In the middle of cherry, jam-making decide to go to the market to buy fresh produce for dinner.
Ask a seventeen-year-old son, who knows diddly-squat about making jam, to turn it every five minutes or so.
Don't hear him say he is studying and cannot be sure to turn the cherry jam.
Trust him, even though he is telling you not to.
Go to the market.
An hour and a half later, call home to check on the cherry jam...
Listen to your son tell you that it is sticking to the bottom, and smells like it is burnt.
Have your mouth hit the ground alongside your shopping bags? Cry, "WHAT?"
Come home to a perfumed kitchen.
Look in the two large pots and notice the burgundy red cherries are now black.
Grab a wooden spoon, and stir the jam: Feel that the bottom of the pan as if it were competing with rough pavement.
Cry.
Cry again! Then get mad at your son, even though you are mad at yourself.
Put some cherry jam in a bowl, and run over to Annie's house. Have her taste the jam.
Watch your friend lie between her teeth.
Listen to her idea, "Don't throw it away. Bake something with it, it might surprise you."
Go home and bake a cake, add burnt cherry jam as the filling.
Serve after dinner with cold whip cream.
Have the family and guests eat it.
Cross your fingers that your guests don't die.
Listen to them ask for seconds.
Shake your head in amazement.
When your son asks, "What is the filling?"
Pitifully respond, "Burnt Cherry Jam."
I remember this!
Posted by: g | 08 June 2022 at 12:45 AM
Love the happy ending. Thanks
Posted by: Betty Anderson | 08 June 2022 at 07:01 AM
Some inventions occur by accident that turns out to have been fortuitous. Cf. vulcanized rubber:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcanization#History
Posted by: Kathie B | 08 June 2022 at 07:09 AM
That would of stopped jam making for me for a few decades!
Posted by: Arnelle | 08 June 2022 at 08:44 AM
I love your stories.
Yes I remember this one as well
Love Jeanne
I love cherries
Posted by: Jeanne | 08 June 2022 at 12:56 PM
I do love this!😀
Posted by: Kathy | 08 June 2022 at 04:53 PM
Corey - I remember this from LONG ago. Today I laughed just as hard! Funny thing - I had cherry jam on my toast this morning[not burnt]!
Posted by: Cathleeen | 08 June 2022 at 05:28 PM
Such a great tale and such wisdom from Annie. Lucky you!
Posted by: Stephanie M | 09 June 2022 at 06:32 PM
Wow! I do remember. Burnt cherry jam would have been good in a cake.
Annie was the best.
Posted by: marilyn | 12 June 2022 at 12:09 AM