WeBeJammin’!

I still had some peaches, I still had some raspberries.  Read up on Australian opera star, Dame Nellie Melba.  The French chef Auguste Escoffier created Peach Melba in her honor, one of four dishes he created that bear her name.  One version involves raspberry sauce atop peaches atop vanilla ice cream.  I'd eat that.  Generally speaking, if you say peach melba, you’re thinking about raspberries and peaches in the same dish.

In 1995 I won the blue ribbon at the Minnesota State Fair for jelly made from two fruits — I used peach juice and raspberry juice and called it Peach Melba jelly.  It was featured in a 1996 summer issue of Family Circle magazine and the recipe they printed bore little resemblance to the prize-winning recipe I submitted to them.  A fat lotta noive that was! Obviously they had their own agenda and I was told when I questioned it that they needed to have an affordable recipe so they used bottled nectar instead of peach juice, if I recall correctly.  I’d have to find the magazine and check.  At least one reader questioned the recipe.  It put me in a bit of an awkward spot.  On the other hand, that blue ribbon winner was still privately mine.  MINE, I tell you!

Later that year I was approached by the folks at the M.A. Gedney Company in Chaska, Minnesota, makers of pickles and condiments for 100 years.  Gedney is a household name in Minnesota and surrounds.  A couple years before, they had initiated a relationship with the Minnesota State Fair to approach some blue ribbon winners for the purpose of possible inclusion in a new line of pickles and preserves featuring the official State Fair logo.  They wanted to make my Peach Melba combination for commercial distribution.  Well, that was more fun than I'd ever had and it made for a very exciting Summer of 1996 because that's when Beck and Jamie married, too. 

Being one of the Gedney State Fair Jam Ladies is a rare honor.  It is a very exclusive club with only about five participants right now.  I have been asked if the recipes are really our (the ribbon winners') recipes and they are.  At least my jams have been.  When they were duplicating the peach raspberry jam I tasted three different variations before identifying the one that was It.  They really did take my opinion seriously, and it was explained that they would duplicate the taste and flavor while meeting the FDA standards for preserves.  What the Gedney folks can do that I cannot is make it the same way every stinkin' time.  They have the equipment, gauges, and the knowledge of their food scientists to be able to do that.  Me?  I get lucky every once in a while. 

A feather in my hat is that I am the only Gedney Jam Lady who has had two of her jam recipes made for purchase by the general public.  About seven years ago, they began the manufacture and distribution of my cherry jam.  That, my friends, is at least as good as what I made that won the blue ribbon for cherry jam in 2004.  It continues to be one of their top sellers in their line of Award Winning Minnesota State Fair Recipes.  You should get some!

Is this a lucrative involvement for me?  Not so much, but the Fun Factor is off the charts.  That's my face on a jar label in the supermarket, not yours.  That was me with the speaking part on the billboard near the fairgrounds.  That was me doing some national media bits, including A Prairie Home Companion, All Things Considered, Family Circle magazine, Chicago Tribune, ABC News and more.  That was me having fun, more fun than a woman my age is legally entitled to.  I still do, more now by virtue of being the State Fair’s only three-time canning champion (subject to change in exactly four weeks), and I enjoy the light while it shines on me.  I have buried too many family members to not enjoy a good time when I’m in the middle of one.  Sue me.

Back to the peaches and the raspberries.  I made some exquisite Peach Melba jam.  I used the Ball Classic pectin and combined the recipes for peach jam and raspberry jam, using 1/3 raspberries, 2/3 peaches, and a middling amount of sugar (the instructions provide two recipes, one using considerably less sugar than the other).    Red fruits get brownish if they've been around too long — have you ever noticed some of the "all-fruit spreads" that are like that?  I have.  You need sugar to help preserve the color.

While I sometimes crush the peaches with my bare hands, lately I've found that my potato masher works well enough and isn't so off-putting to some people.  Yes, my hands are clean.  And wart free.  Leave me alone.

Just let me say that this stuff is amazing.  I was spot on with the fruit ratio.  Both flavors are identifiable.  More than two fruits in one jar and things can easily get sort of lost.

I'm looking at more peaches right now - Californias.  I think they will become Boozy Floozy Peach jam, my peach jam recipe with booze in it.  The Coloradoes should be in but I’m not hearing about it yet.  Everything has been late this year, at least locally.  Ugh.