Jam

Jam is fruit cooked with sugar until it sets into a thick, spreadable mass — the most familiar way of preserving the taste of ripe fruit long past its season. Crushed or chopped fruit is boiled with roughly its own weight in sugar (and often added pectin and a little acid) until the mixture gels, then sealed hot into jars. The result is intensely sweet and deeply fruity, glossy and soft-set, ranging from bright strawberry and raspberry to dark plum, blackcurrant and fig. Nutritionally it is almost pure carbohydrate: most of its calories come from added sugar, with only a trace of the fibre, vitamins and protein left from the fruit.