Figs and strawberries, pre-glooping
The scent of Autumn is creeping into the fens, with the nights filled with the hint of bonfire smoke and the trees and hedges covered in a dark riot of berries and fruit. The Cambridge Spy, being a glutton of the first order, loves this time of year above all others, where he can hardly walk down the road without banging into an overhanging branch bending with fruit ripe for the pilfering. The glorious Cambridge market is filled with stalls overflowing with figs, apples, nectarines, berries, corn - you name it, you can nosh it - and if you ask nicely there's usually extra boxes to be rooted through, full of cheap, overly squishy fruit. Being a cheapskate as well as glutton, from the start of September, the Spy's fridge is filled with dozens of jars of every shape and size, full of a painters pallet of gloopy jams made from all the cheapest fruit he can buy, steal, beg or otherwise purloin in an unsavoury and untoward fashion.
All getting cosy in the fridge
On account of the continuing work avalanche, which seems to be gathering force in a wholly ungodly fashion, the Spy has been forced to make these jams at midnight, with the shipping forecast gently spooling out in the background on radio 4 and the smell of smoke and leaves creeping through the window. Not at all bad. There are a million jam recipes online, including information on which fruits need jam sugar and which have enough pectin to get on with it by themselves, so just to give you some ideas:
Marrow, lemon, orange and ginger jam, made with enormous marrows carried 8 miles back from Haslingfield (village of the recent scarecrow-abduction scandal), left on someone's wooden gate for the taking. On that particularly glorious day, nature's bounty hit the Spy hard, and at every turn he was confronted with figs, blackberries, apples, pears, redcurrants, plums; you name it, he guzzled it.
Creepy Haslingfield scarecrows: cannibal Bertie Bassett (L), Harry Potter on broom (R) and... gentleman hanging from the gibbet. It's Midsummer Murders all over again...
Fig, raspberry and red wine jam, with figs and raspberries both from the cheap box from the market fruit stall closest to the city hall.
Fig, strawberry and cinnamon jam, figs and strawberries from the same magical cornucopia crate.
Peach, raspberry and vanilla jam, the surprising, amber-coloured hit of the year.
Pear, vanilla and lemon jam, with the pears pilfered from the tree trapped in the middle of the building site opposite the Catholic church on Hills Road. Turned the most beautiful golden-red colour despite no such colour being in the raw ingredients, great on yogurt.
Now read on...
Finally, the Spy married two of his favourite things on earth - scones and autumn jam - by taking three of the little fellows on a day trip to The Orchard. The wasps seemed to appreciate them too, but quite frankly, there was quite enough to go round....
Gone! It was the wasps, honest guv..
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Early-Autumn apple city. Yum.
