I like making my own jams, my family always has done it, but I recently noticed something: nobody eats apple jam, despite it being delicious.
Every year this anomaly irks me more and more.
There's a lot of apple production in my country and the jam section of any supermarket here has strawberry, peach, blueberry, pear, plum, and sometimes even orange jam, but there never is apple jam.
Why? WHY?
If people likes pear jam, why wouldn't they like apple jam?
Maybe because pears, peaches, plums and berries are shorted lived and more a pain in the ass to transport without them getting bruised, while apples are more sturdy, so it's more profitable to throw the delicate cheap crops into jars and sell the apples fresh.
We call it apple butter here, it's fairly popular. Growing up someone would always have some in their fridge because it's one of those foods that grandmas make or neighbors give to each other.
I agree with you.
I'd assume it's cuz apples keep longer without being preserved whereas strawberries don't. So historically, you'd more frequently turn strawberries into jam to store the calories while apples you can get away with not doing that for longer.
Apples are high in pectin and turn into mush, so it's harder to make it have the consistency of jam. That's why apple butter is a thing.
Also other fruit goes bad more quickly. Apples stay preserved for longer, so there was always less of a point for making it into a jam.
Apple jam is probably the second most common jam here, what else are you supposed to do with all the apples?
Duh, sell them to rich countries so you can funnel those dollars to Miami
Anyways, the second part of the post was gonna be about how a lot of famous desserts that could have apple jam are filled with other jams. For example, I have watched all the bake offs, sugar rush, zumbos, and etc and never saw even a single cupcake filled with apple jam
Maybe because pears, peaches, plums and berries are shorted lived and more a pain in the ass to transport without them getting bruised, while apples are more sturdy, so it’s more profitable to throw the delicate cheap crops into jars and sell the apples fresh.
yeah i think you solved it. apples are hella shelf-stable for fruit.
you go into apple country though and you'll get the whole spread of shit you can do with apples produced from the shit they didn't think they could sell as whole fruit.
Apple jams are require you to use proprietary lightning cables instead of the ubiquitous USB-C
maybe the consistency of apples has something to do with it? apples are pretty firm whereas pears, plums, strawberries, grapes etc are all soft. never had apple butter but i will have to give it a shot
I've never made my own preserves/jam but don't you have to cook them for a hour or two?
Oh! I forgot to add, fig jam is also popular here, and you can find it fairly easy in supermarkets.
Would you call apple butter apple jam? Even though we grew apples around where I lived we still made that. It serves a similar purpose to jam.
Idk what's the difference between jam, mermelade, jelly and this butter you mention cuz non native soeaker
After looking it up apple "butter" is just a jam but more smooth like butter. Hence the name.
If you're interested in knowing I believe jam has fruit chunks seeds and or fruit pulp in it and jelly does not. Only being made of thke juice. (Jelly is like jello is how i remember) As for marmalade I think it has to be a citrus fruit and contain the peels.
wtf i just realized I never had apple jam before even though I love apples (honeycrisp and grannysmith ftw)
it might be because of the association of apples with apple sauce instead of jams perhaps?
Apple sauce isn't relevant in my culture.
As with any other jam/jelly, I preffer to actually not end up with an homogeneous paste, but rather chop the fruit kinda big and stop "early", when the fruit dices are already well cooked but still recognizable.
Or make it homogeneous, I'm not the jelly police
