Jam Session 1: Yes, We Have No Bananas

A word about the principles I adopted and challenges I set myself during my first-ever preserving project:

1. I decided to make only seasonal jam, insofar as summer fruits are most definitely not to be had at their best right now. Of course, bananas aren't ripening on the tree in my corner of the world at the moment but they must be growing somewhere, mustn't they? Anyway, I do not believe their quality varies greatly with the time of year. Since home preservers typically work with citrus over the winter months, all my recipes made free use of this fine fruit family.
2. I shunned recipes requiring commercial pectin, reasoning that the employment of Sure-Jell and the like takes all the challenge out of the proceedings. Where's the fun without a tingling uncertainly and the constant lurking threat of total ruination?
3. I was determined to vacuum seal every jar I made, just to see if I could do it.
4. To heighten the suspense and investigate their properties, I employed three different brands of jar, each with its own peculiar lid configuration.

Since banana jam was the raison d'etre for this whole canning catastrophe, I decided to start with a recipe from one of my iCookbooks that included raisins, limes, and ginger. Having foraged for and found all the necessary ingredients at my friendly local supermarket, I promptly threw my best-laid plans out the window when I received a last-minute e-mail from dear Toad, preserver nonpareil. She herself had just received a new jam book (via UPS, I assume, since it is definitely not Kindle-able: I checked), the English translation of Christine Ferber's magnum opus, Mes Confitures. Toad kindly forwarded to me one of Ferber's (many!) recipes for banana jam, which I decided I had to taste without delay. I made alternative marmalade plans for the limes, re-arranged my other priorities and ingredients, and set to work with a will.

My first batch of Jam de Banane was fabricated using a recipe more or less identical to the one in Mes Confitures. It took almost 24 hours total and was utter heaven when it was done. I used a variety of citrus fruits for their flavor and pectin content and chose for the final storage vehicle Ball jars from the good old US of A, with their cunningly separate seals and rings.

Here's how I did it.

I peeled ripe (but not mushy!) organic bananas until I had 1.5 pounds' worth in their nude state. I lost count, but I think there were about nine total. I sliced them into 0.5 inch rounds and arranged them in my big pot with 4 cups of sugar, citrus juice squeezed from 1 lemon, 2 tangerines, and 3 navel oranges, orange zest, and a scraped vanilla bean draped artfully o'er all.

I slowly, slowly heated up the mixture, stirring more or less constantly while the sugar melted. This took some time, so I entertained myself by humming all the while Ja, Wir Haben Keine Bananen, as sung by the geriatric East German cafe orchestra that serenaded Jimmy Cagney in One Two Three. Images of Horst Buchholz with his 'Yankee Go Home' balloons and Uncle Sam cuckoo clock danced through my head. This always happens when I think of bananas.

Back to business! I was awakened from my reverie to find my jam mixture had come to a simmer. I decanted it into a big glass bowl, covered the surface with parchment paper, covered the whole thing with plastic wrap, and let it sit quietly until the following day. 

It looked quite pretty in the morning sun!

At this point, the recipe became a little vague. The big question for this preserve concerned texture and appearance: the jam of my memories was smooth like a fruit butter, but these slices of banana were so attractive against the glass of the bowl that I considered leaving them the way they were, perhaps even including slices of the vanilla bean pressed against the outsides of the jars for extra fanciness. Sanity returned when I recalled that my organic vanilla bean had cost more than three dollars, necessitating that - in order to get my money's worth - I use and reuse it until the day I die.

Into the food processor for whizzing with the big metal blade! When the mixture was fairly smooth (with some pleasing banana bits for texture) I returned it to the pan and brought it to a boil. I cooked it, stirring frequently, until it reached 221 deg F on my candy thermometer, by which time it was also thick and syrupy.

Meanwhile, I had heated up all the canning accoutrements in various pots scattered about the kitchen, in readiness for my hot jam. There was a certain kerfuffle as I retrieved my jars from their hot water bath and tried to figure out the best place to work (I got into the groove during my second batch, and figured out an effective system for keeping lids, jars, and rings organized). I ladled the jam into my quilted jars, left the requisite 'head space' of 0.5 inches, wiped their sticky rims, popped on the seals, and screwed the rings finger tight. Back into the bath!

When the water reached boilage, I set my timer for ten minutes and cleaned all the spilled and sprayed banana jam off the floor, walls, and ceiling.

I retrieved my jars after their processing and put them on a wire rack to cool. I was cheered by their merry pinging as they settled into their vacuumed state.

When they were done popping about half an hour later, every single one sported a pronounced dimple, the proud badge of the successful American home canner.

I'm reluctant to open any of the jars, yet, having vacuumed every single one shut (astonishingly, given that Ferber is silent on the vital subject of yields, I cooked precisely the amount required for the 3 eight-ounce jars and 5 four-ounce jars I had prepared). I can tell you, though, that we licked the cooking pan utterly clean.

The jam was just as wonderful as I remembered.

Next up: I use some of my remaining bananas for an awesome chutney and discover the perfidiousness of Italian canning jars.