Homemade Scented Geranium–Tomato Jam - Self-sufficient

When I'm visitng a garden, I can’t help but let my fingertips graze the leaves, occasionally rubbing one on my skin for the aroma imparted by its essential oils. I can smell the faint essence of the fruit or herb, be it a tomato leaf, a spindly shoot of lavender, or a rose petal.

Before international transportation made vanilla beans readily available, every good housewife knew how to use the leaves and flower petals from her garden to scent creams, cakes, jams, and jellies. Geranium leaves, for example, were traditionally used to scent butters that would be made into frostings for cakes. This is simply contact cooking: leaves are laid directly on butter, wrapped tight, and allowed to infuse overnight. Amazing, right?

Along with rose petals, scented geranium leaves are my favorite oldworld culinary florals. There are many types of scented geraniums, from pineapple to ginger and rose, and each lends its own note to food. To know what kind of geranium you have, rub a leaf and then smell your fingertips. There should be an easily recognizable scent: lemon, perhaps, or orange, or mint. This is the essence that will be shared with the food.

This recipe takes that concept one step further: adding the bruised leaves at the end of the process enables the perfume to permeate the jam as it sets up in its jars.

Make 2 Quarts (Four 16-ounce jars)Scented Geranium–Tomato Jam

Ginger- and pineapple-scented geranium leaves are my favorites to pair with overripe, perfect-for-jamming tomatoes. To get scented geranium, start your own seeds or go to a nursery for seedlings. Just make sure plants haven’t been sprayed with chemicals. This jam is great with hard, salty cheese and is a nice complement to a steamed or roasted piece of fish or a lightly grilled chicken breast.

On your work surface, set

• 5 pounds overripe tomatoes (preferably Beefsteak or Brandywine)

With a paring knife, remove the cores, then make a small X at the bottom of each tomato. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and set an ice-water bath next to the sink. Add the tomatoes to the boiling water, cook 20 seconds, and with a slotted spoon, transfer them to the ice-water bath.

Once the tomatoes are cool, peel the skins and put them on top of a large square of cheesecloth. (They add natural pectin to the jam.) To the skins, add

• 12 whole cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick

Gather the ends of the cheesecloth to make a sachet and tie with kitchen twine. Set aside.

Put a cutting board inside a rimmed baking sheet. On the cutting board, chop the tomatoes into bite-size pieces. You want the juices to run off into the sheet pan. Put the tomatoes, juices, and spice sachet in a 4-quart or larger nonreactive pot.

Add

• 3 cups sugar
• cup water
• 2 lemons (rind included), thinly sliced, seeds removed
• 1 (2-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped

Over medium heat, slowly bring the ingredients to a simmer, stirring occasionally, and then let simmer, stirring often, until the tomatoes cook down, the mixture is thick, and the lemon rinds break down (you can help them along by pressing them against the sides of the pot as the mixture cooks), 1 to 1½ hours. Scoop up the spice sachet in a slotted spoon and, with another spoon, press down on it to extract all of the liquid trapped inside. Stir in

• cup scented geranium leaves (ginger or pineapple)

Cook to wilt the leaves, about 2 minutes, then divide the jam among four sterilized 8-ounce jars (see page 19). Follow the instructions for canning on page 21 and process the jars for 20 minutes in a boilingwater bath.

When serving, remove the leaves: they contributed their fl avor, but their texture is not appealing.

An Infatuation with Freshness

The idea of “freshness” is a postmodern concept that has caused excessive strain on our global food system. Before refrigeration, many fruits, especially delicate ones like tomatoes and berries, would not be expected to show up on the dinner table unless you lived on a farm or had a garden or access to a nearby orchard. Those delicate foods were always preserved. Underripe fruits were pickled; overripe ones were turned into jams, jellies, and marmalades. Both pickling and gelling help fruits reach their potential inside a glass jar. Fresh fruit was a luxury.

The age of refrigeration is just a blip on the timeline of history, a century, at most. But now that we take it for granted, our view of foods and their fl avors is somewhat skewed. That is, certain foods were meant to be used only fresh, in season: nature’s way. That’s why you’ll never see a tomato or a berry in the refrigerator at my house.