Summer fruit for a winters day

It was always around this time of year that my late Grandmother would start making jams for the winter cupboard. We would go up to Grandpas garden and pick all the blackcurrants or blackcurns as they would call them in Donegal.  There would be a bucket full of these succulent fruits that were fat and ready to burst with ripeness, or at least that’s how I remember it. Grandma would wash them all and put them in large bowls so we could start to pick off the withered blossom by pinching them between our thumb and forefinger nails. Our fingers would be a dark indigo purple and the sweet blackcurrant perfume would fill the air. If you’re not sure how this would smell, open a bottle of Ribena and you will almost get the same kind of sent. The next few hours, my Grandma would spend slowly stewing the blackcurrants together with Irish sugar, over the black and white Stanley range. Every now and again, my grandmother would take a spoonful and let the newly made jam run down the cold surface of a plate. Once the jam started to set to my grandma’s satisfaction, the large sauce pan was taken off the heat and allowed to cool down until I was as warm as a bowl of porridge that you would eat on a cold winter morning. My grandma would have all the empty jam jars ready and sterilised, warmed in the oven and waiting to be filled to the brim with this delicious homemade preserve. It was a real treat to open a new pot of Grandmas homemade blackcurrant jam and spread the dark purple delight over a fresh slice of Milford bread with real Irish butter. I never remember the jam being too sweet, but I will always remember the rich blackcurrant flavour that I can almost taste now. The funny thing is, I never eat jam, white bread or even Irish butter any more. If ever I have jam in the cupboard, it tends to stay unopened and well past its sell by date before I end up throwing it out. In fact, the last pot of I threw out was three years past its sell by date. It still looked ok as the sugar would have preserved it, although I would not imagine it tasted that good. I think if I had a pot of my grandma’s jam now, well I’m sure you all know what I would do.