Jam Trouble - Les Confiture Letter

It's that time of the month again when I go through torture creating the newest Paris Letter.

Inspiration for October's letter came last Spring when Coco Jobard showed off her wonderful old Alsatian jam(confiture) dish towel. Jars of luscious fruity jam spell Fall to me. I'm crazy for the hand-written labels, the fluted glass jars. Jam on toast or a croissant plus tea and a good book is the best no?

But researching jam for 3+ weeks is maybe not the best kind of immersion for the easily tempted.

These jam hats (chapeau pot de confiture) made me swoon. You can find a wonderful variety of hats on Littlemarket.com.

Some of the best hats are worn on the best jam made in France by Alsatian Christine Ferber. She hand-ladles her heavenly jams into each pot to maintain quality. I dream of visiting her shop in Niedermorschwihr if I ever figure out how to pronounce it. These jams are in the new Galerie Lafayette's Food department, moved across the street from the main store.

Three glorious floors of food boutiques and mini restaurants and everything is clearly marked out. Le Grand Epicerie feels like a maze since they redid it. I forever get lost and can't find what I want.

Do come prepared and wear battle gear to browse the huge jam department at Galeries.

If you plan to make jam yourself you'll need a different kind of armor.

Head over to Librairie Gourmands on 92, rue Montmartre 75002 for the best selection of cookbooks in Paris, two floors of them. some are in English. All of them gorgeous.

Their windows right now are full of jam cookbooks. I bought this one though I'll never lift a wooden spoon or stir strawberries in a copper pot. Look for 'cuit au chaudron' (cooked in a caldron) on the labels. Traditional copper pots are great conductors of heat. You want to cook your fruit quickly and evenly.

They have adorable boxed preserves sets with all the essential  accoutrement for jam-making. So tempting.

Researching jam requires a visit to La Chambres au Confitures. There's a new branch in the Marais.

Inside it's wall-to-wall jam divided into seasonal flavors. You can sample every jam in the place and I almost did before deciding on fig. See my sampling spoons below.

If you're like me, you have 'impulse control issues'. Then its best to stick to collecting miniature jam jars. Once jam enters my house it's 'Gone Girl' in the blink of the eye.

Painting jam, on the other hand, is a perfectly safe endeavor for the jam-addicted. It is advisable to work from photographs not the real thing.

Frenchy script on jam jar labels (etiquettes) always intrigues me. My first banner for Parisbreakfast was a jam label. If you're mad for these little paper stickers the best source is BHV, second floor craft department.

I used mini jam jars to sketch from, to minimize the damage of wolfing down big jars of apricot jam in one fell swoop. Size matters.

Parisbreakfast readers often ask for old watercolor still lives so I made this Paris letter more washy.

Finally, after too much jam research, the October letter is done and on it's way to you.

You can see ALL of the October letter uncovered on Etsy. If you've been resisting subscribing here's an enticement. A jar of pear jam (an original watercolor 4" x 6") sent as a bonus if you subscribe to the Paris Sketch Letters. This is the perfect time of year for jam don't you think.

More Jam

 Abricot confiture, original watercolor

Back to Jam again.

Which entails looking first at French fraises or strawberries YUM!Strawberry confiture, original watercolor

I'm interested in the look of French jam as well as the taste..

 I've been researching how French jam got these little cloth hats.. By the way this jam is made by top pastry chef, Sadaharu Aoki. I've yet to find out but I did find instead that: Marmalade was created in 1561 by Mary, Queen of Scots' physician, when he mixed orange and crushed sugar to keep her seasickness at bay. And the feasts of Louis XIV always ended with marmalades and jellies served in silver dishes. The average US kid will eat 1,500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by high school graduation. Per capita consumption of jam in the US is approximately 2.2 pounds annually. Alfred Hitchcock loved French confiture of groiseilles so much, he had it flown to all his film locations so that his breakfast addiction could be satisfied. Even Marie-Antoinette was a jam addict, as were the Sun King and Victor Hugo.

I found plenty of French vocab for the jam lover:

Pots de Confiture
Confitures a l'Ancienne
Confitures maison
gelée

In France Christine Ferber is called "la fée des confitures" the jam fairy.

 My jam collection...none edible. All the jars are 1/2" high..ahem
 

I let out the call for more jam on Flickr, not being satisfied with just the 4 jars on the tray. Spunky Grind showed off her mini collection. They look real don't they? Spunky sent me her mini strawberry jam.If you have any 1/2" jars of jam around the house you could spare let out a shout. If you know why French jam jars wear hats PLEASE do let me know.
BONNE JOURNEE

Queen of Jam / Queen of England

I started collecting Christine Ferber jams (miniatures only) in 2008.

It took me longer to taste the real jam. 

Homage to Jam

La confiture,watercolor 5.5" x 7.5

I know comparisons are odious, but French jams/ confiture are just so damn pretty!

Tell me these are not simply gorgeous. I dare you! Ma confiture,watercolor 5.5" x 7.5French jams are so well dressed too...Ta confiture, watercolor  5.5" x 7.5
And their surrounding interiors are nothing to sniff at either.Were lace doilies invented so Fr. jam could sit on them?
It isn't just French sailors who get to wear the blue and white rayees/ stripes either. And who invented the checked tablecloth pray tell? It has to be the French, so their jam jars could be decked out in the remaining scraps. Non? Not all French jam is sweet by the way. At the Salon du Chocolat, there was chocolate-onion confit to be tasted and bought. I know it sounds weird but believe me it was divine.

Everybody makes jam. Much as I LOVE jam, I am not about to make it myself.

You need way too much equipment and there is all that so-called "cleaning up", which entails licking the bowl, the spoon, the pot etc.
As a matter of fact, no jar of real jam is allowed to cross my threshold. I have a tendency to eat jam straight out of the jar, like a container of yogurt. I have no self-control with jam. Only the tiniest mini jam jars are allowed and the lids of these do not unscrew. I tried. These are all of 1/2" high. I do have an EXTREMELY large collection of miniature jam jars.

C'est comme ca.

BONNE JAMNEE!

Jam Addiction

Certaines personnes/some people have a lot of confiture/jam in their refrigerators. Certaines personnes think it's perfectly OK to go out and leave guests alone in their apartment completely surrounded by jam jars. Certaines personnes happen to be on vacance in Barcelona and are not going to see this post. These certaines personnes have tremendous amounts of jam in their frigo. And lurking on their pantry shelves.Certaines personnes have uncles who make their own honey/miel, so don't even think of giving them a fancy jar of honey when they run out. No way! Certaines personnes have boxes of jam tartelettes just hanging around. Certaines other personnes can only get up close and personal with a jar of jam when it's through a camera lense and behind glass barriers. They are allowed to get chummy with jars of paint pigment.
BUT THAT IS IT. PERIOD.
At Fortum & Masons.
It's best to keep certaines personnes at a distance from the jam jars. They have been known to attack a jar of jam with a spoon and not stop till they hit bottom.

Certaines personnes were contemplating taking these mini jam jars home, but thank gawd they were too embarrassed to do so.

They made the fatal error of going to the top floor at F&M for a tres cher afternoon tea.

Certaines personnes nearly missed their plane lingering over jam at CDG admiring gazillion jam jars.

Certaines personnes are late posting today but they'd much rather be in Paris, even if it is raining on Bastille day.

BONJOUR CERTAINES PERSONNES!