Mes Confitures: The Jams and Jellies of Christine Ferber Hardcover – September 1, 2002

We were visiting friends in France and he was reviewing this book with me and I was working hard to translate recipes to English so I could make some of these jams when we returned to the US. I was very pleased to find this translated version!

Christine Ferber is a jam aficionado from France whose creations are distributed in small batches via the finest hotels, shops, and restaurants across Europe, bringing in over 2 million dollars a year in profit. From jam! Priced typically at 10 euros or more for a jar, her preserves are quite a luxury and highly regarded in culinary circles. Fortunately she's released a cookbook, Mes Confitures, that details her recipes and techniques so that we can affordably enjoy her jams without having to purchase them retail. No pectin powders here! Every jam takes two to three days to make with each recipe calling for the fruit to be cooked down multiple times to create a thick jam consistency. Earlier this month we held our first annual canning party and we prepared a couple of jams from Ferber's book. Some of them set (the honey rhubarb rosemary is amazing as is the carrot cardamom), but unfortunately the largest batch of strawberry that we attempted did not reach jam thickness because I tried to shortcut the method when pressed for time, macerating the strawberries for a much shorter time than called for and only draining and boiling the syrup once. This resulted in strawberries going into the final jam that were much more watery than they should have been, preventing the jam from setting properly. Luckily we enjoy strawberries in syrup just as much as we enjoy strawberry jam so all is not lost. A lot of delicious cakes, bowls of ice cream, and crepes will be adorned with the 9 pints of strawberry jam syrup we created. Note that Ferber does not include any detailed instructions on how to process the jars of jam for storage, so if you're new to canning you'll need some standard "how-to" canning books in addition to her cookbook. We found that processing jams from Mes Confitures at 10 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure after the canner had been emptied of excess air (10 minutes of boiling with the lid on and locked) and brought up to pressure did the trick.

This book of jams and jellies is so wonderfully written. The choices of ingredients is unique. I've been making jam for many years so I love reading other considerations of jams and jellies, especially, according to the seasons. And, it is delightful to follow these recipes (which usually take 2-3 days) and result in beautiful fruit jams, some of which have whole fruits displayed in the finished product. I love this purchase. As she says, there is nothing like homemade jam.One of my favorite recipes here is the Strawberry with Pinot Noir and Spices. I made it two days ago and it has the most extraordinary flavor, which is somehow between the taste of a strawberry and pinot noir. Just wonderfully different. Anybody can make strawberry jam; this recipe takes taste to whole different level. I live in Southern California so I'm particularly interested in the citrus recipes. Will comment more as I go through her many marmalade recipes. Great book.

I have a lot of jam-making recipes and specialist publications on canning and preserving. But none of them using the special light-cooking-macerating-light recooking technique used for nearly every recipe in the book. If you are interested in the light cooking in two stages procedure to preserve the fresh taste of produce used in your jams and jellies, get this book. There are also numerous recipes for unusual flavor-combinations to try. I am a fan of red currants, which are hard to find recipes for. Plenty of options here for red currant lovers. Even one for gooseberry. I love this book because the technique expansion and inclusion of oddball fruits interests me greatly.

I could not decide whether to give this cookbook 3 stars or 4. Clearly, the author has made many incredible jams and is generous enough to provide us with the recipes. However, because she lists very specific varietals of fruits, it makes these recipes seem far more complicated in terms of finding the ingredients. Yes, you can make your own substitutions but then it makes one feel as though you wont get the same results. Also, because she uses a recipe of apple jelly as pectin, you have to make 1 recipe before you even begin this book. Of course, that can be done with planning and once you have the apply jelly you will be fine the rest of the year. But it is an additional step when one is just ready to dive in and try a recipe. There are few pictures. And in a cookbook, even if it is just jam, pictures makes a recipe more enticing. I am really not so sure I will use this cookbook very much. I do appreciate the author's willingness to share her gift, but in terms of it being for the practical home jammer, I would say, look for this in a library first and see if you like it. If you are super creative and have lots of time to shop for the perfect variety of fruit perhaps you will be in love with this book. I am on the fence about how much I actually like it but I will keep it but am also glad I purchased it used.