Labor Day Ritual

Back in the day, when school started the week after Labor Day, the first weekend in September in our house was beach plum jelly time.

It was a multi-day affair. Beginning with picking the fruit down on the beach(day 1). Followed by boiling the fruit and the jelly jars(day2) and straining the liquid into the jars and labeling them ( day 3). You can see why we needed a long weekend to complete the process.

Finding the beach plums is a closely guarded secret in many families. No one wants to go to their favorite bush to find it picked over. We just ambled down the road to the old coast guard station where they were plentiful. We collected them easily in pots and colanders. We made baskets made from plastic bottles and a string long enough to wear around the neck to keep both hands free for picking.

We learned everything we needed to know from our Aunt Nan, who was the local queen of fruit picking and canning. One of her musts was to only make jelly on a clear sunny day . Cloudy weather meant cloudy jelly. If you wanted to avoid using Certo or Sure Gel – add green plums to your bounty, for natural pectin. After we boiled the fruit with sugar and skimmed off the coveted foam, everything was poured into a pouch fashioned from cheese cloth, Tom Sawyer style, and tied to a broom stick and left to drip overnight into a lobster pot on the front porch. This practice earned us the nick name of The Beverly Hillbillies one summer from a new neighbor, who did not expect abutters to actually live on their front porch.

We used the same quilted half pint ball jars that you see in stores today. Ours came from the local hardware store. We gave our jelly as Christmas gifts to teachers and hostess gifts to friends. One neighbor, always placed his order in January after he had polished off his Christmas jar, with anticipation for the following fall. We saved our jars to use again and again, year after year. We had to replace the labels of course, and the lids often became separated and new ones had to be purchased. We never gave anyone botulism, as far as I know.

If you have never had a slice of Portuguese bread toast with Beach Plum Jelly, you are missing a treat.

Thank you to both Nancy Longleys for all the jelly.

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