Preserving or Putting up Fruit

Figs and Blackberries are in Season now, beauty in the fields.

Here in Italy fruit preserves are known as marmalade, yet there is something I like about the idea of juxtaposing the word concepts of "preserving" or "putting up" the fruit. When I think of the notion of preserving I think of a caring aspect of keeping something going for a long time, like historical preservation. However, when I think of putting up, I think of mom saying, “I am not putting up with that anymore!” There is a sense of tolerance, patience and coping that comes with putting up something, even with putting up a guest for the night, which wouldn’t be said if you were thrilled to have them.

I love the first days of making preserves, the picking, cleaning, and slow process that is calming to my soul. After a while though it is good to take a break, otherwise, I would just be putting up the fruit. One of the sweet ways of making it truly a preserving spiritual practice is to remember all the wonderful people who have been part of my history of making marmalade and canning salsa. As I pick the fruit there is time to pray for all who have journeyed with me in this beautiful work. The memories of picking berries with my brother, who always ate more than ended up in bucket, my mom and various relatives who if we were lucky would be visiting us when the blackberries, aunt Judy’s raspberries, or apples were to be harvested.

I remember watching grandma and aunt Judy making their prized jams, and even have a picture of grandma in her kitchen, but boy was I young then. My first teacher of preserves was Kenna Jones, a sweet friend who had nothing but sons who were not inclined to cook, and was happy to teach me her art of making strawberry preserves. She then guided me through the process of apricot preserves from the fruit of our tree in the backyard. As a young adult, my neighbor Pasqualina Verdi would teach me how to make Italian tomato sauce and pesto. Through the years friends from Mexico would show me an array of ways to prepare salsa, depending on where I was living at the time and what was available in the local gardens. My friend Teresa at my last church in Seattle was a great scrounge and creator of preserves as well, we would harvest figs together and swap stories of where we obtained our fruit in the area, always proud of free found food, more for the hunt than for the free. A bounty of God’s good earth!

Here in Piegaro my friend Maria is great to show me where local free fruit can be found, and others will tell me as well. It is a great gift that now Maria doesn’t tell me where to find local wild finds, but instead asks me where I am finding my goodies, then will nod and say she knows the tree, but she has a tree in her yard so needs no fruit from my find. Maria Pia, Peppina, Renata and others have handed me large quantities of freshly harvested fruits of their family gardens, a joy to preserve. There is a common bond between friends who enjoy the harvesting of fruit, preserving foods for the cold days ahead, and swapping recipes. In this town as with so many towns I have lived in over the years, food is the heart of so many stories, something essential in life as an art form.

God gives us a bounty of food, so often forgotten in the fields, alleys, and even city neighborhoods that enrich our lives in many ways. To see this rich bounty not as something trivial, as something to Put Up, but as a treasure to preserve is a joy and gift for me. It takes me to precious memories of loved ones, to new relationships around this sweet topic, and will be a joy to partake of in the future…a gift of hope from the kitchen!

How do you most enjoy the bounty of God’s food?
What is your perspective on the preparation of food, what memories does it provoke?