Currant Preserves

A few weeks ago I went to the North Side Farmer's Market in Youngstown. I've always been fond of markets and have been fortunate enough to live in a few places that held them within walking distance of where I lived or worked. The nicest by far was in Burlington, Vermont where the vendors had covered the entire block with tables of pastries and coffee, baked goods, handmade gifts and produce, but in our culture of sterile mega-marts, outside markets big or small are a treat.

The North Side market was held across from Wick Park at the Youngstown Unitarian Universalist Church, and as such contained produce alongside beaded jewelry, fair trade coffee and petitions. I walked through the tables and talked with the vendors, some of whom I knew from my college days in Peace Council. I had lived for a while in a student apartment off Wick Park and had awoken delighted one day to find Tent City encamped across the street.

I ended up only buying a few items from among the baskets of tomatoes, beans, apples, plums, potatoes and other edibles available. From a couple of fellows sitting behind a card table I purchased a wicked-hot, smoky salsa that without a lot of fiddling could have been turned into a great gazpacho. Further down the sidewalk was a table with tiny fruits still on the stem, nearly translucent and perfectly round. I hadn't seen currants since I was a kid in the sixties when I'd help my grandmother make jam from fruit she grew in the back yard. The family had kept a garden during the Depression and she was unable to let the fruit go to waste. She continued to can jellies as long as she was able, and after she died we found jar after jar of hand-labeled preserves in the cellar.

I bought a small container of currants, which yielded about a cup and a half of cleaned fruit. With the addition of some raspberries, sugar and a recipe from the Internet I boiled up my first (and I may add, only) jar of lovely, tart, dark red jam. How richly satisfying the making of one jar of jam was, given the day and the memories and the visit to the North Side.