Four Hours for a Jar of Jam
This is a continuation of Five Mangoes and My Mother’s Summer Jam . If you haven’t read the first part yet, I hope you’ll stop by there before joining me in my mother’s kitchen. After banishing me from the kitchen, my mother got down to business.As expected, K’s face was worth watching when she saw the five mangoes waiting for her. On most days, she only has vegetables to chop. That day, she had to peel and grate five huge raw mangoes as well.By the time she was done, there was a large steel bowl full of grated mangoes sitting on the kitchen counter.My mother added some pink salt and freshly powdered pepper to it and mixed everything well with her hand. Then she covered the bowl and left it alone for about an hour.After an hour, she placed a sieve over another vessel and tipped the mango mixture into it. Taking a potato masher, she pressed down hard, squeezing out as much juice as possible.The juice wasn’t thrown away.”It will be good in rasam or sambhar,” she said, pouring it into a glass bottle and keeping it aside.The squeezed mangoes were then measured and transferred into a heavy-bottomed kadai.For every cup of grated mango, she added a cup of jaggery.She mixed the two with a wooden spoon until the jaggery was evenly distributed. And then, she did absolutely nothing for the next three whole hours.The kadai sat undisturbed on the counter. By the time my mother switched on the stove, a thick syrup had oozed out of the mixture. The aroma was hard to ignore, the tanginess of raw mango mixed with the sweetness of jaggery. I stood there inhaling deeply, wishing there was some way to bottle that smell and keep it for another day. This was the only part of the process that wouldn’t allow her to walk away. She stood by the stove, stirring continuously and keeping a close watch on the kadai. I sat at the dining table watching her. That’s how I know she stirred it for exactly seven minutes. At the end of the seventh minute, she switched off the flame. I don’t remember her looking at a clock even once. It was almost as if an invisible timer had gone off in her head. Exactly seven minutes. Not a second more.Only then did she add the powdered misri and dry ginger that had been waiting patiently since morning. I am fairly certain she had slipped in a few cardamom pods while powdering the misri because there was a gentle hint of cardamom lingering in the kitchen.She gave everything one final stir and left the jam to cool.By then, nearly four to five hours had gone by.Four to five hours, if one counts the hour K spent peeling and grating the mangoes, the hour the grated mango rested with salt and pepper, the three hours it sat with jaggery slowly drawing out its juices, and finally those seven minutes at the stove that my mother guarded so carefully.And then came the best part.The jam didn’t even last an hour.We spread it over chapathis, sandwiched generous spoonfuls between slices of bread, and tucked some inside buns.It was my daughter who suggested trying it over vanilla ice cream. During the summer months, there is almost always a family pack of Amul vanilla ice cream sitting in our freezer. We simply love it because its mild flavor goes well with almost anything.A spoonful of the jam over a scoop of ice cream turned out to be surprisingly good. The cold creaminess of the ice cream balanced the sweet, tangy jam beautifully.My mother sat quietly watching us eat.There wasn’t enough left to fill a proper jar.But she didn’t seem disappointed.She leaned back in her chair, looking immensely pleased with herself, grinning like a cat that had got its cream.Perhaps that was what she had wanted all along.Not rows of jam bottles lined up on a shelf.Just her family gathered around the table, happily eating something she had spent an entire afternoon making.