Rubus phoenicolasius (Japanese wineberry) We were over visiting my mentor, chatting about when and what time we would sling the honey harvest. He had called the day before and asked if we would like to have some of his Japanese wineberry fruits. We have never jammed any of these, but thought we would give them a try. The taste of these berries are especially delicious if you pick them and eat them right off the bush, so we thought ...ah, this could make a good jam. Now, the jury is still out if that because we could not get the jam to set at all. We boiled it for a very long time and had used some sugar that had pectin in it...so I don't know. When we got home from the visit, we immediately began the jamming process as to use the berries as fresh as possible. It was not too long before we could see that the jam was not going to be thick at all. We did the wrinkle test a couple of times with negative results. If we try this again, we will combine the wineberry with another fruit and experiment with the pectin. The taste is good, although not the same as when you eat them right off the bush, but that is not surprising. After doing further reading we learned that it is not a good candidate for jamming at all. hahaha. Yeah--reading AFTER cooking....how clever. Never mind that--we are not deterred by the "bad press"-- we liked trying it anyway. The thing is that my bride has an extensive collection of recipe's catalogued by fruit sort and weight so that when we begin jamming all we need is to weigh the prepared fruit and then she has a recipe for that amount of that fruit. That's great; however, we have never done this sort of fruit so she had no guideline. What we did was to follow the directions on the pectin-sugar pack. ...I just wanted to say this in our own defence. This morning when I got up, the first thing I did was to go into the kitchen and check the jam----still runny. Too bad; however, I shall just keep it in the fridge once I open a jar and it will be thicker. It'll be alright.
That is a perfect bowl of fruit. I have never seen these before. We are really not jam and jelly eaters but I would like to try this. I have googled it and found a recipe for the jam. Maybe that would help. When my child was a little one, if I had something that didn't thicken correctly I found it poored great over ice cream.
Maybe they are only meant to be made into wine...hence the common name? I know some wine grapes make terrible jelly but wonderful wine.
WARE--Well, I can say that if you ever bought one of these bushes you would love eating the berries right out of your hands, for they are especially delicious. 2OF--You and Ware have good suggestions about what to use the jam with. I suspect that I will spread it over bread and toast...as well as with my yoghurt. My mentor and his bride drink kefir and I expect that they could use it in their kefir if they do not use it on bread or bikkies. You could be right, TONI--It is an unusual fruit in terms of jamming, at any rate. If they ask us next year, we will try jamming again and simply adjust the pectin...and possible add another fruit with them, like a green apple.
What a perfect bowl of berries. Back in the day (of the dinosaur) I used to make mega jars of jam but no more. These do look to be perfect for jamming though - a bit disappointing they have insufficient pectin to jam BUT sometimes syrups are good to make.
Thanks for your comments and comfort, ISLAND-- Well, I shall not let them go to waste, that's for sure. I like jams and eat some every day, so these will fall into the rotation. I am pretty sure that my mentor's bride will like these. I am going to split the jars with her since they were her own fruits.
I love ANY type of berry myself. Blueberries & raspberries top my list but nobody has ever had to twist my arm to get me to eat all other types of berries (in any form - fresh, cooked into a syrup or jam)
Oh my, Mart !!! ---You know how to make a guy drool, don't you. I could certainly live with THAT option.
