On 24 October 2021 I wrote:
I love these shelves full of jars.
They represent the efforts Past Loïs put in, to preserving the harvest although it’s not always my harvest (we’re not growing our own Seville oranges).
It’s so full of optimism – our cheese sandwiches will forever be improved with a dollop of chutney, there’ll always be a choice of marmalade or cinnamon apple jelly or jelly made from other garden fruits to have on hot buttered toast. My frangipane cakes will have a zing of plums in hooch.
So this afternoon I’ll be making more hot tomato chutney to make good use of my chillies. And because I’d hate a half empty shelf in October.
Where did I learn my joy of preserving the fruits of our harvests?
Mum made wee jars of mint jelly, rowan jelly and redcurrant jelly to have with roast meats, neither of which I have made successfully. And she made marmalade out of MaMade, a big tin of already processed oranges. Dad loved his marmalade on toast for breakfast.
We had a lovely old aluminium jeely pan, which seems to have disappeared, and was some years ago replaced by a modern stainless steel thing. I shall give the modern one to charity one day, as I have a lovely old-fashioned heavy bottomed jeely pan which I like to use when I’m making large quantities. My clearest memory of Mum’s old jeely pan was at Hogmanay when she would always make an enormous vat of pea and ham soup, to be served with buttered rolls in the early hours of the morning. The soup was ladled into large mugs. Mugs seemed a better option than bowls and spoons for our somewhat inebriated guests.
On the shelves under the stairs we always had a selection of jars of dodgy brownish-green goop, usually with a small label identifying what kind of chutney it was, with the month and year it was made (in my experience it was always some years ago). Mum’s shelves till contained many of these jars – did she just not eat chutney until it was vintage? Or did she have a chutney amnesty every 5 years when she’d throw out all the old ones? Anyway, I can’t be too rude about this trait as it is clearly inherited. You should see the boxes of jars of unidentifiable goop that has travelled to Galloway.
Do let me know if you’d like to see more recipes again on this blog. For now, why don’t you have a wee look at my Wild Garlic Pesto vague instructions, and go and forage for some leaves for supper.
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Thank you for reading this.
Mostly I blog about my relationship with Mum and her dementia, so if that might be your thing, then you could start here at Taking smock of the Situation. Or just dip in. After all, if I’ve learned anything this last few years it’s that chronology and time are less important than we might believe.
Do get in touch if you have any questions or comments – I love to hear from you my lovely readers.
Shewolfinthevalley 