Mermelada de Rosa Mosqueta

the Patagonian roadside preserve: hips of the escaped sweet briar gathered wild in autumn, sieved free of seeds and hairs, and cooked to a tawny-orange jam eaten on bread and with cheese

Origin: Chile

From the journey of Rose.

European settlers carried the sweet briar, Rosa rubiginosa, to southern Chile and Argentina in the nineteenth century as a garden plant and a hedging shrub, and in the cool, wet, temperate country of Araucanía, Los Ríos, and the Andean valleys around Bariloche it escaped, naturalised, and spread with such vigour that it is now classed as an invasive weed across millions of hectares, choking pasture, riverbank, and roadside alike. What Patagonia then did with it is the reverse of the usual story: rather than fighting the plant, the region learned to harvest it. The hips, called rosa mosqueta throughout the southern cone, are gathered each autumn by rural families and by Mapuche communities, and the trade has become substantial, supplying a cold-pressed seed oil that is now a significant cosmetic export and a pulp that goes into jams, purées, syrups, and infusions. The mermelada is the domestic end of it, sold at every roadside stall and craft fair from Villarrica to Bariloche in unlabelled jars: tawny-orange, sharply tart, faintly resinous, and eaten on bread at breakfast or, better, alongside a hard sheep's or cow's milk cheese, where its acidity does the work that a quince paste does further north.

Ingredients

  • 1.5 kg ripe rosehips (rosa mosqueta), gathered after the first frosts
  • 900 ml water
  • 700 g granulated sugar, approximately (see method)
  • 2 whole lemons, juiced
  • 1 whole cinnamon stick (optional)
  • 1 strip orange peel (optional)

Method

  1. Pick over the hips, discarding stalks, leaves, and any that are soft or blemished. Rinse, top and tail them, and chop them roughly.
  2. Put the chopped hips in a pan with the water, the cinnamon, and the orange peel if using. Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for 35 to 40 minutes, until the flesh is completely soft and collapsing.
  3. Press the whole contents through a fine sieve or a food mill, working the pulp through and leaving the seeds and skins behind. Then pass the purée through a second, finer sieve or a scalded muslin.
  4. Weigh the purée and return it to a clean pan with three-quarters of its weight in sugar and the lemon juice. Warm gently, stirring, until every grain of sugar has dissolved before it comes near the boil.
  5. Bring to a rolling boil and cook, stirring often, for 10 to 15 minutes, until it thickens and a little dropped onto a chilled saucer wrinkles when pushed. Pot into hot sterilised jars and seal at once.

Notes

Any hip will make this, and the large fleshy hips of Rosa rugosa give a far better yield for the labour than the small ones of the wild dog rose; the true Patagonian mosqueta is somewhere between the two. Never gather from busy roadsides or from sprayed hedges. The jam keeps a year sealed and should be refrigerated once opened. Eat it on toast and on sopaipillas, but the better use is the local one, alongside a firm cheese or a cold roast meat, where its sharpness earns its place. The same purée, stopped before the sugar goes in and thinned with water, is drunk as a hot infusion through the Patagonian winter, and thinned with syrup and frozen it makes a very good sorbet.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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