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Wild Southern Roadside Hog Plum
Jam
Ingredients:
- Pulp &
juice from 6 quarts wild plums
- Juice of ½
lemon
- 1 pack (1.75 oz.) of
Sure Jell (pectin)
- 8 cups
sugar
- ½ of a “pat” of
butter or margarine
Steps:
- Pick a bucket (6
quarts) of roadside wild plums (Prunus Americana or the smaller reddish…our locale…Chickasaw
plums, Prunus angustifolia), not over-ripe.
- Barely cover the
stemmed but intact plums with water and cook (careful not to scorch) just until skins split;
remove from heat & let cool.
- Pour off excess
plum-juice/water into a reserve bowl & rinse out the large
pot.
- If you need to, you
can freeze the pulp (#5) and 6 cups of juice (#7) as an initial step until you have time to
produce the jam (I’d not delay more than a few weeks).
- Using hands, squish
pulp from pits and collect pits into a colander or other container with small holes & sweep
pits around & around the inside as additional pulp squeezes out through holes & combine
with initial pulp..
- Take 6 cups of this
pulp and return it to the large pot, add the pack of Sure Jell, the juice of ½ lemon, the
butter (reduces foam) and stir together.
- Return up to 6 cups
of the reserved plum-juice/water to the pulp mixture (to thin the mix from a pudding-like
thickness to a more watery thickness) and bring to a boil that returns promptly after stirring
(a hard boil).
- Add sugar &
bring back to “hard boil” for a minute. Remove from heat & remove
foam.
- Ladle into sterile ¼
or ½ pint canning jars, leaving a slim 1/8 inch of head space; wipe rims clean; apply lid &
ring. Produces about 18-24 half pints of delicious jam. For extra safety do step
#9.
- Process in boiling
water bath 5 minutes and tighten lids.
- For lesser
quantities of plums, reduce recipe proportionately.
check out the Highest
TRUTH
check out my Family Favorite Recipes list
(posted 28
June 2005) |