It’s strawberry season here in Florida, and that means jam! Making homemade jam suits my inner thrifty and resourceful prairie woman. If it sounds complicated, I promise you it’s as easy as chopping and boiling fruit. No pectin or special canning equipment required. Just a solid, respectable jam that can live in your fridge or freezer to spread on toast, waffles or PB&Js.

If you’ve never been strawberry picking, I highly recommend Southern Hill Farms in Clermont. It’s a little bit of a drive but absolutely worth it to pick your own fruit. It’s really easy for kids to pick strawberries as they are low to the ground. We filled a four-pound box incredibly quickly because the strawberries are so big. Make a day of picking berries and sunflowers while snacking on their seasonal strawberry donuts. If you miss strawberry season, blueberries are up next, usually available in March or April. If you’re up for more of a day trip, Plant City hosts its annual strawberry festival from March 3-13. 

So what even is jam? Or jelly? Or fruit preserves? The main difference is that jam is made with chopped whole fruit. Jelly is made by removing the fruit pulp after cooking. Jam or fruit preserves have been around for hundreds of years to (you guessed it) preserve fruit. In times before refrigeration or freezing, you had to wait all year until the fruit was in season to harvest. Even during harvest, what to do with all the excess? Jam! It helped fill in the gaps of the seasons. Once scurvy and vitamin C deficiencies were correlated, preserved citrus helped sailors get through long journeys at sea. Honey was also a popular choice for preserves because of its antibacterial properties.

In the United States, jam is synonymous with Smucker’s and Welch’s. Jerome Smucker (of Smucker’s) got his start by selling apple butter from the very trees that Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman) planted years before. Dr. Thomas Branwell Welch used the now-famous Concord grapes to produce a new grape jelly in 1918. It was so popular that the United States Army bought the entire inventory. Advances in sterilization and sanitation have allowed for reliable commercial production. 

How did they make safe jam in the old days? Well, sugar itself is a natural preservative. Citric acid, or lemon juice in this recipe, helps with preservation as well. Home canning is a bit more of a process, involving sterilizing mason jars, but if it’s a process you’re familiar with, go right ahead and make several batches of this jam and you’ll have preserves for months to come. After all, that is why jam was invented. If you’re not using a canning method, just remember to keep it in your fridge. This jam lasts about a month in the fridge or up to six months in the freezer. The sugar level is right in the middle, so if you want to add more or less, it adjusts well. This recipe can be doubled or tripled. If you make several batches, you can give some away as a thoughtful homemade gift.

Strawberry Jam

(Makes one 16-ounce mason jar. Can be doubled or tripled.)

1 pound strawberries (scrubbed, tops removed and sliced)

½ cup sugar

Juice of half a lemon

Instructions:

1. Wash and dry strawberries well. Remove tops using a paring knife. Slice strawberries.
2. Bring strawberries, lemon juice and sugar to a boil. 
3. The strawberries will begin to release their juices. Continue to stir every few minutes.
4. Reduce heat to medium high and allow to cook for 15-20 minutes, stirring every few minutes using a wooden spoon or silicone spatula until it has reduced to a thick sauce. Be sure not to walk away. It will need stirring so that it doesn’t burn.
5. You know when it’s done by how much it has reduced. It should be like a loose jam. When it cools, it will set up more, like store-bought jam. Allow to cool completely before filling mason jars. Refrigerate and enjoy.