Читать книгу Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table - Nigel Slater - Страница 28

To the French, the Italians, the Turkish and all the other great preserve-makers, the perfect jam is all about the flavour, the amount of fruit, and a texture poised somewhere in that heavenly state between syrup and a lightly set jelly. To the Spanish, the Swedish and the Bosnians too, it should have visible fruit suspended in a luscious jelly the colour of a jewel in a royal crown. To the British jam-maker, all that seems to matter is ‘the set’.

When you mention, casually and perhaps over coffee, that you made jam last weekend, the question will not be ‘Does it taste wonderful?’ but ‘Did it set?’ The British jam-maker is obsessed with getting their jam so stiff you could turn the jar upside down and the contents would stay put. The rest of Europe makes jam that slides sexily off the mound of clotted cream and dribbles down the edge of the scone (an exquisite moment if ever there was one). We make jam that sits prim and straight, like a Victorian child at Sunday school.

Commercially produced British jam is easily spotted because it stays put when the jar is moved from side to side. We make jam a little bit like ourselves. A jam that is a bit uptight and reserved, a preserve that wobbles tautly rather than falls off the spoon with a slow, passionate sigh.