Things Are Starting To Gel

When I was a young’n, just about every weekend I would go with my Dad to my Grandma’s place in DeQueen, where I would be made to do all sorts of slave labor. One of the main things I would slave away at was mowing the vast lawns on her 3 acres during the summer. I actually kind of enjoyed the mowing. Grandma had a lawn tractor, so it wasn’t particularly strenuous, and I’d do a lot of good thinking while mowing. It sure beat the hell out of cutting firewood, the other main chore I was forced to participate in. You can’t think well and load firewood at the same time.

The best part of mowing, however, took place for only a few weeks during June when the wild plums were ripe. Grandma had a couple of wild-plum thickets on her place and few free-standing plum bushes. Every time I’d pass a thicket or a bush, I’d get a big handful of plums and eat them while I mowed. Grandma would also make jelly out of those plums. The best jelly I’ve ever had.

You don’t just run across wild red plums every day. Last winter when I started running out at Two Rivers Park I noticed a couple of small thickets that looked suspiciously like wild-plum thickets. As the leaves came on my suspicions grew. And when the tiny green fruit appeared, my suspicions heightened. And when the fruit ripened about 10 days ago and I ate about two dozen of them, my suspicions were confirmed. Wild plums. Sweet.

I decided some of those plums would somehow become jelly. I’ve been making do with Smuckers™ red plum jam for many years. I’ve even stopped at road-side stands and bought red plum jelly purported to be handmade from wild plums. None of it equals Grandma’s version. Grandma now lives in an assisted living center in Kansas and she’s out of the jelly-making biz. I would have to use my wits to get my newly found plums jellied.

The next time I went out to run I took a gallon-sized ZipLoc™ bag with me. I wasn’t sure how many plums I’d need, but because I’m kicking ass in my statistics class at the University of Central Arkansas, I could estimate a 95 percent confidence interval of needing between a butt-load and shit-ton of plums. I filled up the baggie. (I also got a raging infestation of chiggers.) I put the plums in the fridge until I could figure out how to make jelly. My Mom came to visit and allowed as how she had made wild-plum jelly before, so I figured I would just give the plums to her and let her take it from there. Then I forgot to give her the plums before she left. So I looked up jelly-making on the Internets and went to Wal-Mart to buy the needed stuff, basically a bunch of jars and a packet of magic jelly powder.

On Monday I gathered it all into the kitchen and went to work. I dragged out the camera and flash and umbrella because I thought me creating jelly would make for some good photos. As it turned out, not so much. But I shot a bunch of photos and feel compelled to share them.

First I cooked the plums down to get the juice. The giant pot turned out to be overkill.

Then I separated the juice from the plum carcasses.

Then I strained the juice through a cotton T-shirt. (Don’t worry, I didn’t use the armpit areas.) I suspect this looks a lot like what happens behind the scenes at a blood bank.

Then I took the juice, added a lot of sugar and the magic powder, boiled it for awhile and poured it into five jars. Then I boiled the jars to kill the botulism. I lined up the jars on the counter and listened to the lids pop as they sealed in the wild-plum-jelly goodness.

I’ve got a bunch of jars left over. If I ever get any money, I’m going to stuff it in the jars and bury them out in the back yard. Until then I guess we’ll just drink tea out of ’em.

The next day, I cracked open a jar, toasted up a piece of white bread, and knifed out a hunk. It was clear and not so jelled up that it didn’t spread well. I can’t abide hard jelly that only serves to destroy the toast as you try to spread it. I took a bite and was pleasantly surprised it actually tasted good. Both sweet and tart. I found it comparable to what I remember from Grandma’s jelly, but it seemed to be lacking a little something — probably because I wasn’t eating it as a 13-year-old at Grandma’s house on a sweaty summer weekend in southwest Arkansas.