Annie , my opinion, my favorite appetizer. Can’t remember what year I started making. Know for sure in 70’s. I was always asked to bring to potlucks. Back to favorite jam, love raspberry; but my favorite, fig preserves Mother made each year from our tree. For some reason , mine doesn’t taste the very same.

I rarely eat jam, and really don't like store bought jam except for Bonne Maman orange marmalade.

When I do eat jam, it's wild Alaskan raspberry. My brother makes it for me every year, those wild berries have the most intense raspberry flavor!

Black Raspberry.

Seedless raspberry, followed by seedless blackberry. One of these days I'll try the Bonne Maman brand since so many of y'all say it's so good.

Raspberry jalapeno over cream cheese with some type of cracker or crusty bread. I don't often use jam or jelly unless I'm having an English muffin.

UptownGal: My Grandad used to grow black raspberries. He called them Black Caps. They are totally different than regular raspberries, I love them. They are really hard to find now.

My homemade damson plum jam. And Ikea's Lingonberry jam.

Sour cherry preserves on English muffins and also alongside a glass of hot tea, Russian style.

Blueberry. It's hard to find here...☺

If I make home made jam, I always make raspberry-peach jam. You can't buy it anywhere so gotta make it. But if I buy store bought jam, it's always raspberry. Now and then I'll crave cherry jam but it's harder to find.

Growing up in Mass. My favorite was wild blueberry that my mom would make from the wild blueberries that grew all over our 40 acres. Commercial blueberry jelly doesn't have the same intense flavor. I tried making it from fresh store bought blueberries but they are almost flavorless.

"I got my husband a Bonne Maman Advent calendar. 24 of the cutest little jars of jam and honey!"

bpath, I think during the rest of the year the little jars are made with hotels in mind. They're very commonly seen in French hotels at the breakfast table/buffet, small one-portion Bonne Maman jars for guests' breakfast use. Clever of them to also market them to the general public using an Advent calendar as the format.

I get Seville oranges from friends in Arizona and make real marmalade-not my favorite but super popular with them and DH. My personal favorite is strawberry but I do not eat jams or jelly on toast or muffins. I eat it on my morning yogurt.

Those PNW blackberries are the native ones and the flavor is amazingly intense. I have been surprised no one has grown them commercially. They are related to the southern Dewberry which are much larger but have a similar intense flavor. These are native blackberries.

My DM used to make delicious strawberry rhubarb jam when I was a child and I would love to have a jar of the jam today! We always picked our own wild raspberries and strawberries which have the very best flavor. Otherwise, I like orange marmalade, raspberry and strawberry jams. A friend once gave me a jar of apricot jam where she didn't use enough pectin and it was more like a sauce. I ate it over pancakes and it was wonderful.

Stacey_mb

"Those PNW blackberries are the native ones and the flavor is amazingly intense. I have been surprised no one has grown them commercially. "

Only one species of blackberry is native to the PNW, Rubus ursinus, and they do not lend themselves well to cultivation. They are a low-lying, trailing plant with a rather limited habitat preference. And they tend to be easily overwhelmed by a introduced invader, Himalayan blackberry, which grows in large arching thickets everywhere. If not quite as intensely flavored, Himalayan blackberries are large, produced in abundance and although considered an invasive weed, they are much loved by locals for their juicy sweetness in late summer. Pacific blackberries are tiny in comparison and not produced in nearly the numbers as the Himalayan

We can thank Luther Burbank for the dispersal of Himalayan blackberries as he introduced the seeds as part of his plant breeding experiments and used them - as well as the Pacific blackberry - as parents in various blackberry hybrids that ARE grown commercially, like Chehalem, ollalieberry, marionberry, loganberry and boysenberry. Not all of these are Burbank's efforts entirely but he certainly started the show!

There is a local ice creamery, Mora, that is now known nationally as one of the best ice creameries in the country. It is named after our local wild blackberries - 'mora' is Spanish for blackberry - but it is not the native they use but the invasive Himalayan berries.

Thanks for that detailed info, gardengal. I'm always kind of amused by the hype over the Himalayan blackberries, esp by people who weren't raised here and/or who have never tasted the small, native trailing blackberries.

The natives are hard to find, but often are prolific a few years after a forest fire or slash burn in the foothills. It can take hours to pick enough to make something - but a wild blackberry pie cannot be beat. I'm too old/arthritic now to climb over logs to pick them, but have a younger friend who picks in the summer and freezes some for a wild blackberry pie for our Christmas dinner. Yum!

I never bother with the Himalayan, unless I'm grazing along a trail, or the outer reaches of my property and they are warm from the sun. I did pick enough once for a 5 gallon batch of blackberry wine, which was the perfect use for them.

Mayhaw jelly, no I don't expect anyone else to have even heard of it.

Blackberry jam is my all time favorite, followed by strawberry.

Oly, I have the natives growing on my property as well but they are almost entirely obscured by ivy and the Himalayans :-) I usually only see the vines when they creep out of the woods into my lawn. Maybe - just maybe - I will see a fruit or two!!

But the Himalayans are productive and delicious and I always pick enough for a blackberry cobbler at least once a season. And they make a wonderful jam!

Sand Hill Plum Jelly. That is when I can get it and it made right. Subtle flavor but some makers water it down too much. Other seasons, blackberry jam and fresh strawberry jam. I save rhubarb cravings for making pie!

Prunus angustifolia, or Sand Hill plum or Chickasaw plum, is native in much of Kansas. It is the most common wild plum in western Kansas. It is found naturally on sandy prairies where it is very effective in stopping blowing sand.

Elmer, now that I think about it, you’re right, I have probably seen them on a room service tray or in a welcome basket. And they would have less need of them now, with less travel this year, so putting them in an Advent calendar is a good way to sell them. TBH I don’t know if they’ve done them before.

The Advent calendar itself was so pretty, like a Paris house with, of course, windows for the windows. And it was double-layered so windows on both side, But golly was it hard to get the little jars out of the plastic casing. I was thinking that next year (if they continue it), I’d not only get one again but another one or two I’d give it as a gift, but I’d have to be selective, choosing only someone with strong, slender fingers!

Edit: they have been making them for at least a few years, different styles each year, I just haven’t seen them.

"But the Himalayans are productive and delicious and I always pick enough
for a blackberry cobbler at least once a season. And they make a
wonderful jam!"

You don't find them too seedy? There seems to be two kinds of "weedy" blackberries, too. Are they both Himalayan? One is smaller (not the Pacific), the leaves seem to be more toothed, and I think they might even be thornier than the larger Himalayan. Do you know what I mean?

I don't find them too seedy.....but then IMO, their flavor is hard to beat!!

The other species commonly found here is Rubus laciniatus or cutleaf evergreen blackberry. Also an introduced invasive species. Fruit is tasty and this species has also been involved in blackberry breeding programs. I don't find them particularly thorny and nothing compared to the man-eating thorns of the Himalayans!! They are also far less common, with the Himalayans dominating.

Gardengal, we also have the invasive cutleaf ( R. laciniatus ) Evergreen blackberries.

Locals used to pick the native trailing blackberry to sell to restaurants for pies. It apparently paid fairly well. They would go to areas that has been cut over or burned. Since the native plant only produce fruit in the second year on the cane I can see it would be problematic to manage. Too bad as they taste wonderful making the others taste watery by comparison. I went through a period of selecting the larger fruited plants and growing them on a frame but got sidetracked.

TVQ1.....lol My grandpa used to grow them too...I loved them. Always spent

some time in the summers with them, and he would say, "hmmm. someone

with purple lips has been stealing my berries". LOL He always sent a quart

home with me.

(they were tough to pick sometimes, though )

Thank you, gardengal! I didn't remember for sure about the thorns, just remembered that I thought there were two kinds of the large blackberries.

Uptown Gal--I love that story! My grandad used to say " Snicklefritz, how about we go out to the berry patch and pick us some black caps". Oh, the memories!

perennialfan, I just saw your comment about kudzu. I have never heard anything about making jelly out of kudzu and I've lived in the south all my life. It wouldn't surprise me though that someone has tried to make some use out of it as it is so out of control and prolific.

Kudzu fruit/berries are inedible. But they do make a jam of the blossoms and the leaves and root are edible.

I remember Kudzu flowers smelling like grape koolaid. I wonder if that is how they would taste. It was the oddest smell. I was living in Kentucky at the time. I know it was originally for cattle browse but I never saw a cow eat any.

The rhubarb mulberry jam that my grandmother made. Tasted like the very best blackberry jam, which is my next favorite.

I very rarely use jam or jelly. I have an aversion to anything sticky and for this reason, I also don't like syrup. Strange, I know

Not so strange ;-) I dislike syrup as well. I dislike anything that makes something soggy that shouldn't be soggy. So just butter on my pancakes or waffles. But I do enjoy jam on any kind of toast, English muffins or biscuits. Sticky I can deal with....soggy I can't!!

Raye Smith, I had a neighbor bring me a jar of mayhaw jelly, made by her mother, back from Louisiana years ago. I have no recollection of how it tasted though.

I have a wild (native) plum tree in the back yard, which sets a fair amount of fruit every year. Unfortunately there is a critter (or critters) keeping as close an eye on the fruit as I do - he/they clean off all the fruit just as they are approaching ripe! So I have yet to taste one!

I don't eat jams and jellies very often, but I do like most - quince preserve is my hands down favorite. In fact I just finished off a container of homemade quince paste with a wedge of manchego cheese! Sadly my source of quince (a bush at my DD's apartment complex) was cut down and removed last year.

Apple jelly and raspberry are my least favorites. I like to make strawberry rhubarb sauce, and marmalade from my calamondins even though marmalade is not among my very favorites I do like the balance of sweet and tart from that fruit.

Blueberry jam, Cherry jam.

We don’t go through much, typically buy Bonne Maman when I do buy it. But recently my MIL gave me a hot pepper jelly and that lasted about half a day although I wished it had more kick. I‘ve also enjoyed fig preserves.

Ooh, FOAS, thanks for reminding me. The women of my church make green pepper jelly and red pepper jelly every year and sell it for the holidays. Oh, is it good. Atop cream cheese on a cracker. Yum. And festive.

I used to make lillipilli jelly when I had a lemon tree (you need lemons to make it set). Thsat was really good and popular with friends and family.

Black raspberry jelly. Homemade is the best.

Sie

Chokecherry jelly really is very good. I highly recommend trying it if you haven't.

I'm sure most of you are accomplished fruit preserve makers. Not so apparently many we know who give us a jar of their products as gifts. They're usually far too sweet and we discard them. Bonne Maman for consistency.

A new neighbor gave us a Christmas gift this year, a jar of plum preserves with a label saying " Kitchen of X Smith, Homemade Plum Jam, Summer 2015." Hmm, no, straight into the garbage can.

Mulberry jelly is the best, hands down.

The mulberry tree I used to source for my jelly was torn out by the cretin who thinks they are just a pest tree...but I have two more at an abandoned school that hopefully won’t be developed any time soon.

I have my own blackcurrant bushes in my yard from which I make jelly, and it is good...but nothing comes close to the taste of mulberry.

To: perennialfan275

Its the leaf (green part) that is poisonous, The red portion of the stem is okay. The leaf contains oxalic acid. A small leaf fragment may not affect one at all. However, do not eat rhubarb that has been damaged by cold, Discard it. Those stems may contain poisonous chemicals.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rhubarb+poison+part&t=h_&ia=web

I love Bonne Maman too. Good stuff.

raee_gw zone 5b-6a Ohio mayhaw jelly is very pale pink with a light, sweet flavor similar to scupernong grapes.

Smuckers Tart Cherry.

Also love apple butter, but It gets moldy before I can eat it.

Peach on English Muffins or bagels.

I love rhubarb preserves when I can find it. I consume lots of fresh rhubarb when it is in season - so good with a sprinkling of salt and then use some of it for making stewed rhubarb which I eat with toast. I love crabapple jelly and make a jar or two when crabapples are in season, Robertson's Marmalades are my favourite marmalades to use. Golden Shred or the more bitter Thick Cut Marmalade. Right now we are on a grape jelly kick. If I can find ED Smith's Lemon Spread in the store that is another childhood favourite to put on toast.

Growing up, i loved my grandmother's wild plum (or as we called it "sand plum" jelly, hence my user name.

Strawberry jam and I don't like preserves. Sand plum jelly is great too.