There is such an abundance of consumer goods available today that it’s easy to forget a time in the not-too-distant past when small treats you had to work for were important.
I remember my mother sewing herself a new blouse made from a pattern she had paid 25 cents for, with cloth she had bought for a couple of collars. She worked long and carefully on that new blouse, and when it was finished it fit perfectly, and she wore it proudly.
It was a small pleasure in a time when pleasures were usually small — like a little jar of wild strawberry jam.
Ah, the wild strawberries! Hard to find and pick, but worth it for their incomparable flavour.
What has this got to do with construction? Not a thing. Not a single thing. But it’s Christmas, a time when for a few days every year, I forget about bricks and mortar, and think instead about the many small things we’ve lost, including, I fear, wild strawberry jam.
Wild strawberries still grow in many parts of North America, including the Canadian Prairies, where my roots are. Few people today have tasted them; maybe some don’t even know they exist. But if you know where to look, you might find a patch or two.
And if you’re willing to do spend two or three hours picking the delicate fruit, you might have enough to make some jam.
We’re only a couple of generations removed from the era when most women — or at least women in rural areas and small towns — produced quarts and quarts of preserves every summer.
The canning season began at mid-summer, and ended in the fall when the last produce from family gardens was harvested.
Through the summer, people canned peas and carrots, green and yellow beans, and saskatoons, small purple berries that remain mostly a prairie treat. They also made jams and jellies from raspberries or chokecherries they had picked, and, with luck, wild strawberries.
These little berries grow in spots all over the world’s temperate regions. On the prairies, they’re usually low to the ground, in small patches in half-shaded woodlands or on sheltered slopes.
You watched for the pretty white blossoms and the leaves with serrated edges. The fruit is often under the leaves, so you had to bend low and turn leaves, looking for berries that were ripe. Ten minutes of picking might yield two or three mouthfuls of berries. Picking enough to make jam was a longer, backbreaking chore, but worth it.
You usually had to visit several patches, since each of them was small. You had to work carefully, because the ripe berries were soft and easily crushed. And you had to fight the temptation to pop the berries into your mouth.
Our family of four people one year happened on several fairly large patches of the berries. Even so, it took most of a Sunday afternoon to harvest enough to fruit to yield about six cups of strawberry jam.
Because she wanted to extend the treat through the winter months, and because she wanted to give some to our neighbours, Mother decided to divide the jam into eight small jars, each carefully sealed with paraffin wax. They were then stored in the cellar to await Christmas.
Two of those jars went to close friends as Christmas gifts.
And on Christmas morning, after the gifts had been opened, Mother made a batch of baking powder biscuits. Dad brought one jar of the jam up from the cellar, and the family had Christmas breakfast — just hot biscuits topped with homemade butter and wild strawberry jam.
The taste was unforgettable.
Few people ever had such a treat on Christmas morning. And for me, Christmas Day will always taste like wild strawberry jam.
Korky Koroluk is an Ottawa-based freelance writer. Send comments to editor@dailycommercialnews.com
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