Raspberry jam

When I was young, we used to make raspberry jam out of raspberries and sugar. Guessing, it took maybe 12 ounces of fruit and 12 ounces of sugar to make 16 ounces of jam. There was certainly a lot of boiling down until you got to the gel point. No idea whether the sugar came from sugar cane or sugar beet, although we may well have used the slightly brown cooking sugar, then (not now) rather cheaper than table sugar.

While over the past week we have been entertained by the labelling science which has gone into a pot of St. Dalfour raspberry spread, St. Dalfour being the people at reference 1, although I dare say there is some big food combine lurking discretely in the background.

First, for some reason it is called spread, rather than jam. Perhaps because it only contains 51% raspberries by weight. Perhaps getting past 50% is important. Perhaps because it is rather runny and nowhere as deep in colour as the homemade stuff used to be on a good day.

Second, they are very concerned to tell us that no unnatural sugar has been included in the mix, by which I think they must mean the sort of sugar you make from sugar cane or sugar beet. Perhaps the fact that glucose is said to be worse for us than fructose has something to do with it.

But the bit that really amused me was that when you get through the small print, not only is the spread fortified with sweet grape juice (British wine makers do something of the sort to bring the home grown grape juice up to brewing strength), but it is given its real lift by adding date juice, just about within the umbrella term 'fruit juice'.

The spread itself is not bad, particularly on white toast, but it does have an oddly sour after taste. But then, I dare say BH only bought it because it was being discounted at Sainsbury's.

PS: Bing suggests that St. Dalfour is a company which started in 1984 and now operates in more than fifty countries and that there is a HQ operation at 'St. Dalfour International Incorporated, 175 SW 7TH St Miami, FL, 33130-2992 United States'. But Google does not recognise this address and I can't find a corporate website. So who knows.

References

Reference 1: https://www.stdalfour.com/.