Fake 179

Bought off a table at the back of the church of All Saints, Newchurch, Isle of Wight, a place noticed a day or so ago for its unusual piano.

Quite decent jam, but a few flaws earn it its presence in this series.

First, it came with gingham cover, cut out with pinking shears, fixed on with a rubber band, suggestive of home jam making, a variation on the covers of the jam at reference 3. But an effect rather spoiled by having a perfectly ordinary screw top lid, as snapped above, underneath.

I should add that we made a lot of jam when I was young, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and we never used fancy covers of this sort. We used the rounds of clear plastic that came in jam makers' packs sold by the better hardware stores. Along with smaller rounds of waxed paper to lay on top of the warm jam itself, rubber bands, labels and so on.

We also favoured the use of jam jars which had a lip but not a screw. Something simple to slip the rubber band around. Something like the jar snapped above from the V&A; probably originally sold with a metal lid which snapped off, rather than screwed off. Mostly 1lb jars, but occasionally 2lb jars, these last being rather too big to be truly practical in a domestic setting. One does not get through the stuff fast enough.

And while the maker took the trouble to get gingham themed labels, the label tells us that the jam was made in March, a time when no fresh gooseberries are going to be available. So the stuff was made from frozen. Not very WI at all.

Then the jam was not as any thing like as thick as the gooseberry jam I remember, which suggested to me the addition of extra sugar and extra gelling agent. Rather in the way of commercial makers. Furthermore, I thought that it tasted a bit of apple, so maybe some of that was added too, to pad out the gooseberries.

Notwithstanding which and complaints aside, it did very well on white toast.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/fake.html.

Reference 2: https://www.allsaintsnewchurchiow.org.uk/.

Reference 3: https://www.bonnemaman.co.uk/.

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