JAM SESSION
By Anne Willan 

Berkeley, California. I almost missed it, a discrete brass plate in the sleepy backstreets of Berkeley that marks “The Still Room.” I press a well-used bell and the door is thrown open, “Come in, come in!” exclaims June Taylor, jam-maker extraordinaire, “I’m just tasting a batch of tomato sauce, want to join me?” So begins a memorable morning of stirring, sniffing and tasting the creations of a master in the ancient art of preserving.

In creating “The Still Room”, June Taylor is following a long tradition, usually of women, who preserved the fruits of the land in kitchen-laboratories called stillrooms. She herself began experimenting 20 years ago when she was at home with a baby, and bored. She started from scratch, using only her home equipment and the ingredients she could find in season or grow in her backyard. She gestures to a 16-quart battered aluminum stock pot: “it works for me and I still have it”. Demand was there for what she made and soon she was sharing rented space and branching out with experiments, always on a small scale. “This is a slow, intimate process, I can’t speed it up,” she explains.

We walk over to a battered heavy-duty stove where a vat of tomato sauce sputters in volcanic bubbles, perfuming the whole space with fruity aroma. June explains that this pot contains only pure fresh tomatoes, seeds and skins removed, no seasoning of any kind. She lifts a spoonful to test the set. “I want this to be reduced until thick, not leaking liquid around the edge, but not sticky either, it’s nearly there”, she says.

We cautiously taste the brilliant red-gold sauce. With no seasoning at all, the flavor is aggressive, acid, and slightly flat; with salt added, the tomato develops; and with a generous dose of sugar, the full layered taste of the fruit bursts on the tongue in astonishing intensity. This simplicity is typical of June’s approach to preserves, she seeks pure flavor, often of a single fruit. She regards her tomato sauce as a pantry item for flavoring soups, sauces and stews with a concentrated essence of fruit. Just a small jar contains two pounds of fruit.

Today June Taylor relies on organic fruits from local farmers and she takes whatever they can supply, season by season. She has just two young women helpers, Magali and Marcella, and she tastes every batch herself. By commercial standards, the quantities are tiny. June even designs and makes her labels. Her shelves are packed with preserves from the harvest just past, concoctions such as a butter of Santa Rosa plums with Provençale lavender and a conserve of Arctic Rose nectarines and rose geranium. Soon the winter preserving season will begin: “citrus, citrus, citrus,” says June.

As June Taylor and I survey kitchen, we pause by racks of almost-black jellies molded in fluted shapes. These are fruit cheeses made from damson plums, one of June’s many trials of historical recipes. Fruit cheese is a fruit butter boiled further until it sets to a firm, scarcely sticky paste. Like their dairy namesake, cheeses can be kept for months, even years, in the open air. They dehydrate slightly, gradually forming a sugary crust. Eaten in thin slices or squares like a candy, fruit cheeses are delicious on bread or crackers, with or without a slice of cow or goat cheese.  

“Right now I’m exploring dried fruits”, June comments. She opens the door of an elderly gas oven: “these are Muscat grapes, they take weeks to dry in just the heat of the pilot light.” We nibble the yeasty sweetness of grapes that are half-dried to raisins. “Not ready yet” says June, “they must get concentrated like candy, or they will mold.” A new venture of June’s is flavored syrups infused with fresh herbs and flowers such as rose geranium, lemon verbena or Mexican marigold. The syrups can act as the basis of a hot or iced drink, or of fruit juice cocktails, with or without alcohol.

June Taylor’s jams are available on the internet and in independent gourmet stores. However she feels that traditional preserves such as hers have not yet gone main stream, as olive oil did in the 1950s. “People still have an industrial model of preserves in their minds” declares June. “I’m an artisan. Today’s large-scale production methods sever our connection with food and nature. If you work by hand, then you can control things. Touching and feeling is how I’ve learned and it’s crucial that we keep those links.”  

For more, visit http://www.junetaylorjams.com 

© 2008, Anne Willan

Three Citrus Marmalade

Almost any citrus can be used in marmalade, with a base of orange for sweetness and juice. Here I’m adding blood oranges for color and limes or kumquats for a touch of bitterness.

Wash 2 juice oranges, 2 blood oranges, and 2 limes or 4 kumquats. Cut off and discard ends. Cut peel from fruit, discarding any thick white pith. Cut peel in fine shreds. Slice fruit, setting aside pits. Tie pits in a piece of cheesecloth (they add pectin to the marmalade). Put fruit, peel, seed bag, and 3 quarts water in a preserving pan or large soup pot. Simmer until peel is tender, stirring occasionally, about 1 hour. Heat 5 cups sugar in a very low oven. Stir it into fruit and boil as fast as possible to the jell point (220°F on a sugar thermometer), 30-45 minutes. Stir marmalade often, standing back as it sputters. Let marmalade cool slightly, then ladle into sterilized jars, discarding seed bag. Seal while still warm. Makes 5 cups marmalade.

Candied Seville Orange Peel

This recipe works also for other citrus fruits such as pomelos, grapefruit, and tangerines.  The cooking time for the peels will vary with their thickness.

Score peel of 6-8 Seville (bitter) oranges (about 2 pounds) in quarters. Wipe oranges clean and cut them in half. Juice them, saving juice. Add enough water to the juice to make 1¾ cups and set aside.  In a pot cover shells with cold water and bring to a boil. Discard water, cover shells again with water and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer until shells are tender when pierced with a knife, 30-45 minutes. Drain and let them cool. With a teaspoon, scoop out loose membranes and discard. Cut fruit in pieces about a half-inch square. In the pot heat 1½ cups reserved juice and 2¼ cups sugar until dissolved. Bring to a boil and simmer 2-3 minutes.  Pour into a measuring jug. Measure 1 cup back into the pot and stir in peels, reserving remaining syrup. Simmer peels, stirring occasionally, until they are translucent, 30-40 minutes. Take out a few bits of peel, let cool, and taste; they should be tender.  The syrup should be very thoroughly reduced.  Do not stir too often, or sugar may crystallize.  If crystals start to form, stir in a few tablespoons of the reserved syrup.  Do not let the syrup reduce so much that it caramelizes. Measure 4 cups of sugar into a large bowl. Transfer peels with a slotted spoon to the bowl and toss with the sugar, separating each piece of peel.  Spread pieces on a rack covered in parchment paper in a single layer. Leave to dry overnight. Toss peels in a colander to remove excess sugar. Candied peel keeps well several weeks in an airtight container. Makes 3 cups peels.

Autumn Apple Cheese

Apple cheese is traditionally made from pockmarked windfall apples as they fall from the tree. Look for a tart variety good for applesauce such as Jonathan, McIntosh, or Cortland.

Wash and dry 12 apples (about 4½ pounds) and cut in chunks, with peel and cores. Put in a large soup pot with 1 quart water and 1 quart apple cider. Cover, bring to a boil, and simmer until apples are very soft, 45-60 minutes, stirring occasionally. Work through a sieve or food mill and measure pulp. Set aside 3 cups light brown sugar and 1 teaspoon each of ground cloves and ginger for every quart of pulp. Wipe out pot, add pulp and simmer until reduced by about a third, 15-30 minutes depending on ripeness of apples. Stir in sugar and spice. Transfer pot to a 350°F oven and continue simmering, stirring often, until pulp has formed a stiff cheese that holds a firm shape when lifted on a spoon, 2 ½ to 3 hours. NOTE hot pulp sputters and can cause burns. Let butter cool slightly, then spoon into a sheet pan or metal or silicone candy molds. Leave in a cool dry place 2-3 days until dry. Cut sheet pan into 1-inch squares, or unmold candies. Makes 9 dozen candies.

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