The days when we needed to make great autumn preparations to provide ourselves with a hedge against winter starvation by filling the loft with apples, the cellar with root vegetables, and the larder with barrels of salt fish and pickled pork, are over (in spite of the occasional snowstorm to keep us on our toes). But it is still a satisfying pleasure to keep the memory of high summer in the winter by making jams, pickles and little preserves.
A few pots of jam, made in the fruit season - strawberry and raspberry in June, blackcurrant and redcurrant jelly in July, plum in August – can provide enough home-made jam for the tea table all through the winter. And with the flushes of eggs, apples, onions and tomatoes you can make a pot or two of old-fashioned pickles now and then, enough to fill the shelves and give an enormous boost to the degree of pride with which you can present cold meat or chicken, or dull sausages or hamburgers.