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Produce => Recipes => Topic started by: Chantenay on July 12, 2007, 10:17:43
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For that petulant school teacher who threw away a jar of home made jam, here is what the Goddess Delia has to say:
"If a mould develops on the surface, remove it plus about half an inch (1cm) of the jam underneath. The rest of the jam will not be affected".
(Page 615 Complete Cookery Course.)
So yah boo to Wasteful Miss!
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Too true. Nothing wrong with the jam underneath.
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Oh I am going to get myself into trouble here, sorry but I have to strongly disagree.
The mould on jam puts out spores that send invisible thread down into the jam, scooping off the top does not remove it.
Delia's book is way behind the times, so are wax paper circles , wax on jam reused old jars and brand new self sealing jars if not water bathed,as it cannot prevent mould.
As I do so much food preservation from jams, jellies, fruit , veggies and meat and fish I have always kept very current on the progress on safe food prep and I squirm when I see directions given in books these days.
I hear someone saying"it has never hurt me and I have been doing it for years" well that is good, but it has hurt a great many people, the mould can make you sick, improperly preserved tomatoes can kill you.
Sorry , but this is one I feel very passionate about, please read more up to date stuff.
Would you really scrape the mould of jam , then put it on toast for your 2 year old?
I know I am going to get blasted for this I usually do, but please read the data.The UK is way behind the times on this one.
XX Jeannine
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Jeannine - I do respect your love of doing, but this is the first time I have to disagree!
There may be new scientific ways of preserving but, in all our very many years, we have scraped it off. No harm to any of our 12 descendants. And still tastes good.
But we still love you!!
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I'm afraid I'm with Tim: 50 years of mould removal from jams and I and the rest of the family are still here :)
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Generations of raid jam scrapers in my family too. Too much emphasis nowadays on ultra-clean food.
The very high incidence of young people and older children being permently ill with stomach upsets is because the kitchen from which they are fed is cleaner than an operating theatre.
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It was my embarrassed daughter who had my jam thrown by the teacher :-[ So I too am a scraper! (The jam was going to be cooked in tarts too!!!)
But then I am quite old school, baby dropped it's dummy, wipe it on t-shirt, suck it and give it back to them! :o :o (running for the door now............)
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1. Blow on food (no idea why - but my Mum used to say blow the fluff off)
2. Eat food
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Regarding mould on jam. There are two basically different types of sugar, Cane and Beet. Proper preserving sugar was made from cane, and preserved jam very well. Then they discovered that beet could be processed to obtain sugar, whilst it serves as a good substitute for normal cooking (and for those people who must heap sugar on their food), it is not good for preserving things. I can remember when jam jars were covered with a paper and tied with string. When opened they had a crust of dried sugar on top which was perfectly edible. Jam was stored all year round and sometimes more than a year. When they started using beet sugar for jam they had then to seal jars hermetically to stop it going bad. Now all commercial jams contain gel which adds another dimension to the problem.
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See what I mean. XX Jeannine.
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Oh I am going to get myself into trouble here, sorry but I have to strongly disagree.
The mould on jam puts out spores that send invisible thread down into the jam, scooping off the top does not remove it.
Delia's book is way behind the times, so are wax paper circles , wax on jam reused old jars and brand new self sealing jars if not water bathed,as it cannot prevent mould.
As I do so much food preservation from jams, jellies, fruit , veggies and meat and fish I have always kept very current on the progress on safe food prep and I squirm when I see directions given in books these days.
I hear someone saying"it has never hurt me and I have been doing it for years" well that is good, but it has hurt a great many people, the mould can make you sick, improperly preserved tomatoes can kill you.
Sorry , but this is one I feel very passionate about, please read more up to date stuff.
Would you really scrape the mould of jam , then put it on toast for your 2 year old?
I know I am going to get blasted for this I usually do, but please read the data.The UK is way behind the times on this one.
XX Jeannine
Hear, hear!
My old mum used to maintain that the mould didn't do you any harm, and was in fact "penicillin" and therefore if anything good for you. We regularly ate mouldy jam (she wasn't the best jam-maker in the world, thinking back on it ;D )
Then she served the family a Christmas pud (made a while before Christmas) that had surface mould on it and which she'd scraped off. I think she'd steamed it to reheat it before she discovered the problem, which may have made it worse.
My goodness, were we ill! I'll draw a veil over the events of Christmas afternoon.
I have treated mould with great respect ever since. It's just not worth it.
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Big problem is that moulds have changed over the generations and are not what they used to be,fruits have changed too and processing has to change to keep pace. Tomatoes were always OK bottled in just a water bath now many just are simply not safe done this way, adding lemon juice is just a crutch.
I know I preach to deaf ears here but I often wonder how many people have actually read the new info, I don't mean an article, I mean the real government guidlines!!
The only reason I stick my neck out is because I do keep pace,and if folks know there are new rules they can choose just like we all do with pesticides for example!!!
What we did and then what we do now with them is hair raising too.
Why take the risk??
XX Jeannine
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Jeannine,
Do you have a link to the current FSA guidelines on home preserving? The USDA ones are always easy to find http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/publications_usda.html
but since MAFF became DEFRA and FSA and goodness knows what other agencies, it's a nightmare to find anything other then baby-talk about 5 a day. ::)
Cheers
Melbourne12
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I always follow the US ones, and if anyone is reading this please make sure you read the most recent one which is 1994. It is a very big document by the way.
As canning is done so widely in the US, much much more than anywhere else I have found I feel they are in a better position to recognise the pitfalls and I trust them implicity.
XX Jeannine
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I'm with Jeannine on this one, chuck the jam away if it's got mould on it, no use getting sick over 25 pence worth of fruit and sugar! :P
I make my jam with preserving sugar, boil it, seal it and then boil it to death in a water bath for a vacuum seal (I use the French jars with rubber seals, all of which are cleaned thoroughly and dried, plus they look great). May be a bit over-cautious about it but I've never had mould on my jam, and it tastes lovely. In fact I made some smashing rhubarb jam just last week.
I also may be very American about it but I don't trust those little bits of paper and string at all. Have to hear the pop! of the vacuum seal.
My mother-in-law (who took a course on this, she's a teacher) says most food-borne illnesses occur from home cooking, so I'm willing to believe her on this one. Not to say everything has to be antiseptic, but a bit of respect for all the ingredients is needed.
Happy jamming everybody! ;D
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It has been the most frustrating thing I have ever found regarding cookery, even at night class courses I have taught I have had folks argue with the facts.
Yet rarely do folks argue about pesticides, even if they don't understand they err on the side of caution.
Not so with preserving.
There are even rules regarding selling home made preserves but few people bother to follow them.
It scare the life out of me when I hear some of the stories, like sealing in the oven etc.
XX Jeannine
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Sorry people - I didn't realise this would start a ruccus - but a very interesting one.
I feel better informed - but I am still a right old s lu t
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I agree with Delia, Tim, et al. Scrape the mould off the top of the jam, and eat whats left!!
I was always told as a kiddie, you have to eat a peck of muck, it helps to build up your antibodies.
That is why I would never take any notice of any USA advice on food. Their food has to be so sterile, that if they came across a stray bug they would have no antibodies to fight it!!
Sugar, vinegar and salt are all preservatives. Why the hell they have to have 'best by' dates on them is a mystery!!
Cheese, for example, was the old method of preserving milk. If I've left a piece of cheese in the fridge, and its grown a bit of mould on it, I would have no problem cutting it off, and eating the remaining cheese, cooked or uncooked!!
I think having food too sterile is the problem.
valmarg
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But generally the muck you ate as a kid didn't have something in it that caused cancer in rats!!
I am not as fussy as you might think by the way,but I am on this particular point.
XX Jeannine
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Where the bl**dy hell are you coming from Jeannine??
The muck that I ate as a child caused cancer in rats!!!
What does that mean??
valmarg
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so you all need to be using tate adn lyle or billingtons sugar which is sugar cane sugar - the rest as far as i know is beet sugar... Also cane sugar is sweeter than beet sugar.
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Unless you have a chromatograph in your kitchen, there is no way to tell the difference between beet and cane derived white sugar. They are absolutely the same for jam making or any other practical purpose.
On a more serious matter, the things we ate and handled as children were less safe, and if you go back a generation or two, quite alarmingly so. I can remember handling mercuric mosskiller with bare hands, and it was a yearly task as a lad to creosote sheds and fences with the most astonishingly carcinogenic stuff. Protective clothing? Hellooooo?
I remember later in life having a conversation with my parents, who maintained that nobody had come to any harm from this, that, and the other unhygienic practice that we now found unacceptable. The peck of dirt argument.
Both my parents had come from large families. Both had lost several siblings in childhood. What did they die of? Well, one had died after a fall, one had died of diphtheria. But the others? They just died. There was no cause and effect. It was just the way it was.
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WARNING....WARNING....WARNING
Stupid question coming up!
What about the mould in blue cheese? Is that a different type of mould?
cj :)
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Valmarg I said the muck you ate as a child DIDN'T cause cancer in rats LOL at least I would hope it didn't.
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Caroline, the answer is yes, but don't ask me to explain the technicalities as I don't know them well enough to quote them. I do know however that some mould on cheese can be harmful. I just can't tell you which.There are so many moulds.
I eat a lot of blue cheeses, but wouldn't touch way overripe Brie which is a no no , yet John does.
I would cut the mould of hard cheese as the spores cannot penetrate far but I would't eat moulded soft cheese even if it was cut off.
XX Jeannine
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I eat mouldy cheese, the mouldier and runnier the better. I don't remove the rind from brie, I don't scrape the mould from cheddar. I drink unpasturised milk, and eat as many unpasturised dairy products as I can. I do accidently eat mouldy bread from time to time when I am left with the last slice and it isn't until I am on the last bite that I notice the blue specks. I steralised everything for my daughter up until she was 6months old - but she was a very very ill baby and I don't know if she would be here now if I hadn't, I didn't bother sterilising anything for my son from birth and he is here and fit and strong. I eat over ripe fruit and game that has been hanging so long it walks into the kitchen and throws itself into the pan. My kids drop something on the floor, and the automatically pick it up and blow it and stick it back in their mouths. We are very rarely sick, coughs and colds maybe, but properly sick, very very rarely, BUT if I open a jar or bottle of my home made preserve, and it is mouldy, I bin it. I have plenty, it cost so little and I have heard so many horror stories that I don't think it is worth the worry, and I open another. I think in all of my years of preserving I have only opened a couple of jars that have been iffy and binned. Tis a funny old world, would be bloody boring if we were all the same.
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I have this picture in my head of you and your family in your kitchen..priceless.
Did you ever eat worms as a kid. I did, some snotty pimply kid bet me his stamp collection for my bike, and I won!! I have never liked stamp collectors since.
XX Jeannine
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Worse, yes I did eat worms, and mud, but mum has me on cine film eating spoon full after spoon full of North Devon beach (westward Ho!) sand. She said my nappies were the thing of nightmares! Daughter has tried a worm when she was little, but didn't like it wiggling. ;D
I don't do the whole water bath thing, but I do like to hear that click as the lid gets sucked tight. If any don't they go straight into the fridge for immediate use.
Oh, I don't buy dented tins either. ;D
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Watch the mouldy bread EJ - that's not good. Very dry bread is OK, mouldy bread's a no-no.
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Regarding the peck of dirt comment.
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I used to work in a hospital and one of our nurses was part hospital staff and part District Nurse. She said she never had any problem with the Gypsy children on her patch, but the more wealthy ones were always having problems. Perhaps it was genetic but more likely the body building up a resistance to disease by being exposed to it. I have been in conditions where the only water available was contaminated by dead animals. It had to be chlorinated to make it safe. This is why all mains water in the UK is chlorinated, water reservoirs are not proof against dead animals getting into them, even if it's only a mouse or bird.
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I eat mouldy cheese, the mouldier and runnier the better. I don't remove the rind from brie, I don't scrape the mould from cheddar. I drink unpasturised milk, and eat as many unpasturised dairy products as I can. I do accidently eat mouldy bread from time to time when I am left with the last slice and it isn't until I am on the last bite that I notice the blue specks. I steralised everything for my daughter up until she was 6months old - but she was a very very ill baby and I don't know if she would be here now if I hadn't, I didn't bother sterilising anything for my son from birth and he is here and fit and strong. I eat over ripe fruit and game that has been hanging so long it walks into the kitchen and throws itself into the pan. My kids drop something on the floor, and the automatically pick it up and blow it and stick it back in their mouths. We are very rarely sick, coughs and colds maybe, but properly sick, very very rarely, BUT if I open a jar or bottle of my home made preserve, and it is mouldy, I bin it. I have plenty, it cost so little and I have heard so many horror stories that I don't think it is worth the worry, and I open another. I think in all of my years of preserving I have only opened a couple of jars that have been iffy and binned. Tis a funny old world, would be bloody boring if we were all the same.
Bl**dy top woman.
Four children and the good lady all healthy and thriving without a visit to the quack in yonks, except for a slight local difficulty with a parachute; me neither.
"If it stay's down, it's good food" A Friend 1964
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I scrape the mould and eat the rest. No way I am wasting precious jam for that! I'm 40 and never been ill from it yet. At school, our cookery teacher actually told us it was fine to scrap and eat and I've done it ever since ;D It's probably the only thing I do it with though - nothing else lasts long enough in our house, LOL
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the mould on my bestest ever homemade marmalade is always lurking on the top!!! but underneath tastes like heaven!!! anyone want some??? lol
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Have to agree with the NO MOULD camp here. The mould you see is only the fruiting bodies of the fungus - the jam will be full of it.
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I often wonder if folks have actually read the research done on this subject,or are they forming an opinion without doing so which I find odd, as in ,most evrrything we educate ourselves.I find this a little scary as so many folks sell their jam .
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As I boil my jam in the jars for 10 mins to seal, is there any way I wil get mould? I dont use waxed paper rings, as I thought it would be OK.
cj :)
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Caroline, if you are boiling your jars of jam in proper jars with self sealing new lids in a water bath and the water level is 2 inches above the jars you will not get mould, the jam is brought back to boiling point in the water and the air is driven out while under water, the jars will seal and the contents will be sterile. They will last years. XX Jeannine
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Oh good ;D Have just made loads of plum jam as my friend has a plum tree. Free plums ;D
cj :)
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If there was a newspaper saying that a food company had sent out products to be sold which contained high levels of mycotoxins, the public would be in uproar about it and demand it was removed from the shelves.
Mycotoxins are produced by moulds as they grow in your food. Whilst the very occasional consumption of these would hardly affect anyone, they are carcinogenic (cancer forming) and continued consumption could increase the risk of developing cancer. Of course, so can lots of other things. I don't eat it, but I don't eat meat that is starting to putrefy either.
With regard to beet/cane sugar, both are sucrose. The chemical sucrose doesn't know whether it comes from cane or beet. Of course, if you have the less refined cane sugars there are going to be a variety of flavour compounds as well but pure granulated sugar is sucrose whether it comes from cane or beet.
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With regard to the difference between cane and beet sugar, I believe that some years ago the WI did a test to see if there was any difference between the two sugars in jam making. The result was that there was no difference at all.
Me, I just prefer cane sugar, and don't buy beet sugar.
valmarg