By Bill Vossler
One hundred thirty half-pint jars of jam. That’s what Steve Eckblad of St. Cloud made last year.
“This is the fourth year in a row I’ve made jam,“ he said. “Since last year was dry, and I did minimum watering but ended up with 130 jars, I figured with all the rain this year I’d have a bumper crop of berries to make jam. But some plants contracted a fungus with all the moisture.”
Steve grew up on a farm near Red Wing, and that farmness has stayed with him, even during his years teaching music and conducting orchestras in St. Cloud. His father was a dairy farmer, but had many apple trees.
“He also had a big strawberry patch and big raspberry patch, and remembering that, I decided I wanted to grow stuff. I guess you can take the boy out of the farm, but not the farm out of the boy,” he laughed. “That’s one of the reasons I make jam each year. I like growing things.”
At first, red raspberries and black raspberries. “I grew red raspberries initially to eat, and then the birds pooped out wild black raspberry seeds that started growing in my yard, so I let them grow, principally to eat also.”
Having been to Sweden and Norway many times, Swedish-heritage Steve returned with more planting ideas.
“They plant black currants and red currants, and I liked them. With those currants they also made sparkling juice, which I liked, so I planted black and red currants and made sparkling juice as well, but not many people were interested in it.”
Steve also planted gooseberries, “because I enjoyed eating them as a kid. I also planted blueberries, but they didn’t do well in this area.”
Steve does most of the picking himself. “But if family members are here I put them to work, and this year I got tired of picking black currants, so I left some of them on the bush for the animals.”
The most difficult berries to pick are the gooseberries, Steve said. “They have barbs on the plant that are far worse than rose bushes. Like spikes, and when I pick I have to have a leather glove on one hand. But gooseberries make a delicious jam, and almost all of that jam goes to my daughter and her family because that’s what they really love.”
Steve left picking gooseberries so his granddaughter could help pick them. “But the squirrels and maybe birds figured out how to get them, so none were left for Ari to pick when she came. Birds on the other hand like elderberries more, but they won’t touch black currants. They do like red currants. I think they just can’t really see the black currants, because they’re harder to see than red currants, which are more visible.”
Steve also plants elderberries. “Elderberries have a fun history. In the old country people planted elderberries as a remedy for colds and flu and general health. I don’t know if it is because of vitamin C, but it is very good for colds and flu. I planted them in my back yard where they grow like crazy. They spread out and when I mow the lawn I’m mowing down little sprouts all the time. Also with elderberry flowers you can make an elixir.
“But the berries themselves are really tiny, and on these huge blossoms. I have to be careful because the stems are slightly toxic, so I use a box with a garbage bag insert, and when I clip off a cluster, I beat it against the inside of the box to get the elderberries loose. Laborious, but is a really good old 19th century way of keeping colds under control.”
His first desire with elderberries is to make jam. “But initially I made syrup out of the elderberries to add to sparkling water as a drink for guests. But people were skeptical. So I haven’t done that in the last year or so. Initially I did it with elderberries but since I could never get any takers, last year I made a jelly with them.”
Usually Steve makes jam using only one berry at a time--all red raspberries, or black raspberries, or elderberries, or black currants, or red currants, or gooseberries--whichever ones he has most recently harvested from his plants or pulled out of the freezer.
When the red raspberries come ripe, Steve said he eats many of them. “With the rest I make jam. I pick a small amount and freeze them so I’ll have enough to make a batch of jam. Actually freezing is helpful because it not only keeps them, but it helps break down the cellular structure, so jam is easier to make. Plus, making jam in the fall or early winter when it’s cold out is a lot easier than trying to make them in the summer because it’s a hot thing to do--which reminds me of mom in the kitchen when I was a kid.
“Initially when the black currant was most hardy but I didn’t have many of them, I supplemented that jam with blueberries I bought from a store when they were on sale. But I don’t mix gooseberries, red or black raspberries, and normally I make a wild black raspberry jam, but this year the squirrels ate almost all of my black raspberries, so to have some black raspberry jam I’m mixing regular raspberries to make jam.”
His favorite is black raspberry. “I think black raspberry jam is the king of all jams. Not many squirrels ate the berries this year, like they usually do. Then there’s black currant jam, which has a particular taste you have to get used to. Though people’s first reaction is not necessarily great, they do get to like it. I think gooseberry jam is the next best.”
Steve has “sort of” a recipe for making his jams, he said. “I boil the jam for a half hour to an hour, depending on the jam--the more pectin the berries contain, the less I have to boil them. Gooseberries and black raspberries contain a lot of pectin, which requires less boiling. So do black currants, but they still need to be cooked because the skin is kind of tough, so it takes longer to break down in the pot, meaning at least a half hour of boiling them, and sitting there and stirring them while checking the temperature and so on. Then I add sugar, generally less than the recipe calls for. I cook it until it reaches a certain temperature, where it will gel. I prefer not to work with too much jam from any of the berries at one time. I’ll do four to five pounds of berries at one time, which fills about 15 jars.”
Though it’s rare for a man to make jam, Steve said he enjoys it. “I enjoy growing things, and when it comes time to making the jam I enjoy that too. I really do.”
But he doesn’t do it the “old way.” “All the recipes say to do what your mom did, dipping the full, closed jars of jam in boiling water, but I don’t do that because I have a cycle of speed clean in my dishwasher, so I put the jars in there, and have them hot when I take the jam mixture out and put it into the jars. So there’s no reason to dip the jars in boiling water, which was the only choice a hundred years ago.”
When he finishes a batch of jam, Steve gives the jars of jam away. “To family, like a grandniece who married a Brit. I said to him, ‘Being Norwegian doesn’t mean you like lutefisk, and being Brit doesn’t mean you like black currant jam.’ He said, ‘No, I love it.’ So I always give him a lot of black currant jam. And this year I treated my golf group to a whole bunch of jars.”
People like the jam, he said. “They often want to know how much I want, and I say it’s free. If they say, ‘I’ll buy you a beer,’ I say, ‘Okay.’”
Steve gets jars for the jam in several ways. “I always have to buy some, and when I give jam to people I tell them I want them back, but I don’t always get them back. So I have to buy more.”
Steve said there are differences between jelly and jam. “Jelly doesn’t have seeds, and is usually a little thicker. I find that every jam I make is just slightly different than when I did it before. Last year I made four batches of black currant jam, and none are running, but some are thicker. But jelly has to be thick.”
The main advice Steve would give to people who want to make jam is to plant the berries “and wait for two or three years. On the second year you’ll get a few berries--black currants are the easiest. The thought on black currants is to plant them four feet apart. Well, I don’t know if it has to do with the soil I have back there where I plant mine, but I would say to plant black currants six feet apart, because they grow pretty crazily.
“I don’t know if I learned anything about myself from making the jam. But I like making things, and once a farmer always a farmer, I guess.”