Jellies
by olivia law
Jelly making is an art, according to Mrs Andrea.
Reading the recipes in this section, what this recipe book calls a “jelly,” I would have grown up calling a jam — the section brought to mind memories of trying our hardest to make strawberry jam in our kitchen, using pectin and burning the fruit so it stuck to the bottom of the pot. Mrs Andrea doesn’t offer a solution to this — but apparently prevention is the best cure.
This section introduction is again, very conversational — perhaps reminiscent of a Nigella Lawson show on TV. Mrs Andrea references the housekeepers of “years ago,” and “our mothers and grandmothers.” She also references cultural myths — apparently current jelly should never be made before the Fourth of July, as the currents become ripe after that and so are abundant in pectin.
Even before the recipes begin here, Mrs Andrea offers step-by-step general instructions for the delicate process of jelly-making. She compares her methods to other authors on page 83, and writes of her experiments in crab apples from the previous summer. This section reads rather more like a journal entry, more personal than the brisk tone we heard earlier.