the uncooked Oregon preserve that keeps the fresh berry's flavour: crushed marionberries set with pectin and stored in the freezer, tasting of the August cane all winter long
Origin: United States
From the journey of Blackberry.
Freezer jam is the American home preserver's answer to a simple problem: how to keep the bright, fresh flavour of a soft summer fruit without cooking it away. Rather than boiling the fruit to setting point, which drives off the volatile aromas and dulls the colour, the crushed raw berries are set with a special powdered pectin and a little sugar and then simply frozen, so that the jam tastes almost exactly of the fresh fruit even months later. In the Pacific Northwest, and above all in Oregon, marionberry freezer jam is a fixture of the August kitchen, made in quantity when the local cane is heavy with its brief, intense crop and stashed in the chest freezer to be brought out through the winter. The marionberry, with its deep colour and its concentrated, winey flavour, is the perfect fruit for it, and a spoonful of the jam on toast or a biscuit in February carries the whole of the Oregon summer. It is one of the easiest of all preserves, needing no boiling, no thermometer, and no skill beyond crushing fruit and stirring.
Freezer jam sets softer than boiled jam and stays a fresher, brighter colour and flavour; it is meant to be kept cold, not stored in the cupboard. If marionberries are unavailable, any ripe blackberry, boysenberry, or a mixture makes excellent freezer jam by the same method. The proportions of sugar and pectin are dictated by the pectin you buy, so always read the packet, as some brands are formulated for much less sugar than the traditional cooked ratio.
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