It must be the ghosts of my grandmothers and great-grandmothers that nudge me into things that I should not even think about doing. Somewhere they are sitting around in their easy chairs, saying to each other, “Want to see something funny? Let’s convince her to do this!”
It was the muscadines that started it. A friend had a bumper crop of the tart, aromatic fruits of the fall, and I was a lucky recipient of part of the bounty. I ate several, squeezing the skin to get the juice out and then popping the inner fruit into my mouth and spitting out the seeds. (There is an exact method to the eating of the muscadine.) But as I enjoyed them, something came over me. There were too many to eat. Maybe I could make jelly.
In my almost 70 years, I have never made jelly. I have helped my mom with jelly a few times, but I had only a vague notion of the process. I knew it involved sterilizing jars and lids and boiling the jars of jelly in a big pot of water. Big pots of boiling water have always intimidated me, but something came over me last Friday and I started looking at Pinterest for instructions on making muscadine jelly. Pinterest is one of the most dangerous places on the internet. More disasters have occurred as a result of viewing its cheerful pages than can be counted. There should be a warning at the top of the page for people like me.
I found recipes with headings like “Real Southern Muscadine Jelly,” or “Simplest Muscadine Jelly,” or “Easy 3 Ingredient Muscadine Jelly.” I have found over the years that my expectations of simple and easy do not always line up with other peoples’ idea of simple and easy. I was perplexed at directions that mentioned hot water baths and inversion methods and jelly bags. There were recipes that seemed to leave out details like the proportion of sugar and juice, or exactly how long to cook the mixture and how to tell when it becomes jelly. I got sidetracked reading about the inversion method because a lively argument took place in the comments about that method, with several people giving dire warnings of botulism and potential death and the author of the recipe insisting that her mother and grandmother taught her to make jelly, everyone in her family from the beginning of time had made it that way, and no one had died yet. The jelly bag was another mystery. It said to take cheesecloth, gather the cooked fruit into a bag and hang it over the pot, letting the liquid drip into the container. What do you hang it from and where can you even find cheesecloth now?
I got out Mama’s big stock pot and my biggest cooking pot and put the washed fruit in the pot, covered it with water and turned on the stove eye. I had to search for the potato masher, which was the suggested implement for mashing the juice out of the fruit. So far, so good. The aroma of the fruit filled the house and I had thoughts of hot biscuits on winter mornings with jelly made by my own hands.
The first inkling that I might not quite be as prepared as I should be came when I started looking for small jars. I managed to scrounge up what I thought might be enough jars, then realized I had no lids. A trip to town was necessary – surely the Dollar General still had jar lids. They didn’t. But I needed a few other things and decided I might as well pick them up while I was there. Twenty dollars later, I left for another store. I found the lids there, along with thirty more dollars’ worth of stuff. Chicken breast was on sale and I felt the need for donuts. Okay, this jelly was going to be more expensive than I anticipated. But the muscadines were free so there was that.
An hour later, I had used every pan in my kitchen, several different strainers and I had three containers boiling on the stove.
I got the jelly in the jars, lids on and rings screwed on the top. Now another dilemma arose. How to get the jars in the pot of boiling water without burning myself or breaking the jars. It didn’t occur to me until much later that I could have put the jars in while the water was still cool and just bring the whole thing to a boil. Those first jars were wrought with danger, until I figured out that I could hold them on the top with my tongs and slide a ladle under the bottom. Easier said than done, and one jar slipped and turned upside down in the water. I don’t know if that mattered or not but by then I didn’t really care. I was so busy worrying about getting the jars situated that I forgot to look at the clock, so I had to guess when fifteen minutes had passed.
I fished the jars out, set them on the counter and looked around at the mess I had made. I thought things were going okay when I started hearing the little pops that meant the jars were sealing. That was about the extent of my knowledge of canning food. When they had cooled a little, I moved them to the dining room table. The jelly was beautiful, a clear light purple. It just seemed to be more like syrup than jelly. Surely it should be a little thicker than this. Two hours later, the kitchen was still a mess, and I still had syrup.
I had been at this now for two days with eight little jars of syrup to show for it. And I had a whole bunch more juice left in the refrigerator. I did some research and found that you could open all the jars, pour the stuff back in the pot, add more pectin, and cook it longer, repeating the sterilizing of jars and boiling of the filled jars.
Sunday after lunch, I went back to the store and bought more jars, lids, pectin, a better set of tongs, and a pot of mums. Twenty-five more dollars went out of my bank account. I was not going to let this thing beat me. It was now day three of this project, and I was convinced that the price of jelly, which I always thought was outrageous, was a bargain and I would never complain about it again. Those people who make jelly deserve every penny they charge. I figure mine cost me at least $15 a jar.
I decided to start fresh with the extra juice in the refrigerator and decide what to do about the eight jars of syrup later. I mixed the juice and an obscene amount of sugar in my big pot, sterilized my new jars and lids, and added twice as much pectin as my recipe called for. When it seemed the juice was beginning to thicken, I poured it into the jars and put them in the stock pot. This time I waited until the jars were inside before bringing the water to a boil and I remembered to look at the clock. When I removed the jars, they immediately started sealing and I took that as a good omen. I decided to tackle yesterday’s syrup, so I emptied it into my pot, added another box of pectin with reckless abandon and sterilized the empty jars.
Another hour later, and I was amazed to see that today’s new batch was beginning to thicken a little. After supper, I looked again and all fourteen little jars had JELLY in them! Real, honest to goodness muscadine jelly!
In my quest for jelly recipes, I ran across a recipe for muscadine cake that sounds good. I still have just about as much juice as it calls for. Tomorrow I will go to the store again for the ingredients I don’t have and try to find my bundt pan. At least I am familiar with the process of making a cake and it doesn’t involved pots of boiling water.
Whatever the fever was that caused me to decide to make jelly at this point in my life, I believe it has passed. I hope my ancestors are satisfied and have had their laugh. Next time they decide to inspire me to do something uncharacteristic, I hope they will pick something easier, like maybe chopping firewood or butchering a hog.
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