I had forgotten the flavor of Raspberry jam

-Originally posted to Tumblr.

I was running out of raspberry jam, and I was thinking the stuff I buy at the grocery store was kind of meh. This was all it took for me to decid to can my own, now that I have a kitchen big enough to do it.

First, I did a lot of reading. I have never done it before, so I bought three Ball cookbooks on canning. I had some of those Amazon credits for slower delivery options, so that was nice. I got them for free.

I was not prepared for the sheer options in canning. Just in what you could make. The flavor options for jams were really cool. Like stuff you will never find in a grocery store for any price.

Second, I bought some jars and supplies on Amazon. I have discovered my mix of Verones and Ball came out with me really liking the Ball jars better. They pop when they come out, and are easier to work with in my opinion. This is important because the rings are not the same exact size between brands, which is annoying.

Third, I went to the grocery store and got raspberries and strawberries. I should have stuck with one, but I got excited.

Finally, today I got everything together and I made the Berry or Black Currant jam recipe on page 29 of the Ball Complete Book of Home preserving.

All my cans are sitting and cooling now, but as I licked the utensils and my cans are cooling?

I had completely forgotten what raspberry tasted like. You know, I have been eating raspberry jam 3, 4, 5 times a week since I was a kid. It’s my go-to comfort food, and some things I just don’t change up much.

The raspberry jam from the store, any of them because I switch it up often looking for a good one, don’t taste like this. Yet, I remember this flavor because when I was a kid, the jams we bought from the store tasted like this.

I think this is yet another 10th of a cent corporation issue. It goes like this, the company board wants to save money, so they work out that they can save a 10th of a cent on every product if they just use less great ingredients, or save costs on packaging, or use a cheaper option somewhere.

This goes on for years, slowly the product has no real comparison to the one you ate 30 years ago.

I think this is what’s happened to all the jams I used to eat.

When I licked the spoon when I was done? It was like a memory from childhood back when raspberry jam was raspberry flavored, and not a red artificially over sweet jam that tastes like it had sat next to a raspberry at some point in it’s life.

I think this is a metaphor for capitalism and corporations making money at the expense of there own products, and now we live in a world were we have little choice in the matter but to take what few products there are, because most companies are owned by very few corporations at the top.

In any case, I am ecstatic at the success of my jam, and shocked at the loss of raspberry flavor in my store bought jams.