A recipe for end-of-summer hot tomato jam
Having a vivid, emotional memory about a food you don't actually have any vivid emotional memories of eating is probably uncommon, but it happened for me in the form of my dad's hot tomato jam, which made an appearance every August, around his birthday. Summer seemed to me to be dad's favorite time of year for food, since it brought with it all the things he grew up eating in Iowa, most notably fresh corn and tomatoes eaten like apples, garnished with just a sprinkling of salt, the eater leaning over the sink to catch its juices. The latter ingredient also prompted the annual making of hot tomato jam, an activity I didn't care much about then, because it involved a confusing combination of savory and sweet, not to mention spice.
This year, though, I knew I wanted to attempt it, and see what I'd been missing by my allegiance to orange marmalade on my toast. I knew I had to try when my mom told me she had a bunch of tomatoes, a bounty from her first year with a vegetable garden. My father's homemade tomato jam by way of my mother's ingredients? The stuff that nostalgic newsletter dispatches are made of.
The actual execution, however, got a little more complicated. As is starting to become rote, dad's recipe leaves some things to be desired. For one, "X Pounds of Tomatoes and an equal amount of sugar" is sort of an instruction, but also, what? For another, if the amount of tomatoes and sugar changes, wouldn't that mean that things like the "1-2 lemon juice and rind slivered" should shift in tandem? A seemingly basic recipe turned daunting quickly, and prompted me to realize that this is why people are taught things like canning and preserving by their relatives: because repetition and a guiding hand help in more complex tasks.
But as I was preparing to tackle the hot tomato jam I had never enjoyed as a youth, I was also in the middle of deep reads of a few books that explore these traditions, techniques brought to me not by my own experience, but via the stories of others who have lived their importance. One is the aforementioned Deep Run Roots by Vivian Howard; a lengthy and heavy tome divided into chapters by ingredient, Deep Run Roots explores the food-related skills and passions Howard acquired growing up in eastern North Carolina. Similarly, Heritage by Husk founder Sean Brock dives into how he has learned to develop Southern cuisine while preserving it. Both books embrace a part of American cuisine that emphasizes holding onto the old ways, not because we should for health and sustenance reasons, but because they teach us something about our pasts. That, and they're often delicious.
Both books also have tomato jam recipes, just a few of the many that are available out there, though some keep for only two weeks in the fridge, whereas the ones that are canned require more time and some careful planning. While doing research to contextualize my father's recipe, I found that ingredients-wise, most of what is out there isn't too different from his: tomatoes and sugar are key, and the types of spices depend on preference. What concerned me more than taste was the canning part; I wanted to be sure I bought the right number and size of jars for how much jam I would be making, and that the jam would be properly sealed. My research suggested that one cup of tomatoes and one cup of sugar would come out to one half-pint of jam. Then came the tricky part of weighing my mom's mix of heirloom and plum tomatoes to make sure I had enough to equal a cup for each jar; I took a trip to the Fort Greene farmers market to pad out my supply in case I came up short, though only ended up using one of two of those. I felt semi-confident in my subpar math skills, used these proportions as my north star, and hoped for the best.
While my dad's recipe calls for boiling the jars before the jam goes in, it doesn't go much further than that. I felt fairly confident that this technique has likely been used by many home cooks over the years with success i.e. no botulism. But I didn't know how long or even how he stored his jam. So I resolved to be a more thorough in my canning, making sure to boil-slash-warm (depending on which part requires what) the jars, lids and rings before I put the jam in them. (I went deep on the National Center for Home Food Preservation website into the science of canning and really suggest you do the same if you're attempting to tackle it yourself; there's a lot of interesting information about the hows and whys of food safety!) Tomatoes have a high acid content, so they don't need to be pressure canned the way some other foods do ( the lemon in this jam helps as well). But I ended up adding some vinegar because some people believe that modern tomatoes don't have as much acid as they used to, and for safety reasons it's important that the jam be acidic. Plus vinegar is Good with tomatoes.
Outside of doing relatively extensive canning research, I didn't really read the actual steps of making the jam closely (at this point I really do sound like a broken record) and so set aside just a Sunday to do all this canning. This was a mistake, since I missed it that once the tomatoes are scalded (a technique I had to look up, because the last time I watched this done I was probably watching my dad eat this very jam and I actually couldn't remember what that meant I had to do!) and the sugar, pepper flakes, lemon, ginger and cinnamon stick are added, everything is actually supposed to sit overnight in the fridge. I did not want my future jam to sit 24 hours — which is when I'd next be able to get back to finishing cooking it — though I was fairly certain that probably wouldn't hurt it. I decided instead to go out for the rest of the day and finish cooking it that night, letting the jam rest for somewhere around 6 hours, assuming that would be enough time to let the flavors infuse or whatever is the intent behind that step.
Once I returned to my rested jam mixture, questions cropped up again. "Drain juice from the pulp and cook down" meant I was supposed to cook just the juice down alone, right? Right, that makes sense. Then adding the pulp to that cooked down juice and waiting until I could see it all "pearl and thicken," well...what does pearling look like? A shine developing? Okay, that makes sense. While many recipes you've never made before provoke some hesitation as to whether you're doing the right thing, this one in particular had me worried I was messing up constantly. I didn't know how long it would take the juice to cook down, or the pulp, so had to consult similar tomato jam recipes to see what they said (around two hours, all told). The recipe said both slivered lemon rind and zest; which was it? (I cut the lemons in fine strips.)
But as the juice started to cook down, the semi-occult took place: I started to remember. Not how to make something I'd never actually made before, but that smell! It filled my whole body and brought me straight back to my childhood kitchen with my dad, impressions I hadn't known I'd had resurfacing. As the jam thickened, I took a taste and the impact was startling, the flavor sweet and hot but not too hot all at once.
When the tomatoes seemed to have properly turned themselves into as much of a jam as they would become, I loaded them into their jars (forgetting to check for air bubbles around the sides; it didn't seem to make much of a difference!) and went about sealing and sterilizing them in my makeshift canner, aka a large pot with boiling water approached with some long tongs. When they were done (again, I settled on consulting this Serious Eats recipe for specifics with regards to the canning safety part of the recipe) I let them sit out on the counter and as they rested for the next few hours I could hear their tell-tale "pops" as they sealed and resealed themselves.
The house was full of the best smell, and upon tasting it, I felt a deep calm I hadn't even been seeking. The flavor was the same, but this time, I loved it.
I passed out cans to my family members a few weeks later, and if you want to impress people, spend a few hours making a jam they haven't had in years. They had recollections of Danny's Hot Tomato Jam of their own; my sister says one of her most memorable meals is me making her a grilled cheese in our shitty old toaster oven, tomato jam spread inside. I haven't tried the jam on a grilled cheese yet — made in a toaster oven or not — but if there's a way to serve this I'd recommend as the most authentic to at least one person, it's that way.
