If life gives you cherries...

...make cherry jam.


Market Stall


One of the fun features of any foreign land is the visit to the market. We are midway between Cisternino, market day Monday, and Locorotondo, market day Friday. So we have done a lot of wandering around the markets admiring the local fresh produce and the ludicrously cheap clothing and housewares.


Mary at a Market Stall

One old boy was selling cherries and it was the end of the day. We asked for mezzo kilo (just over a pound weight) but he kept piling them in the bag despite our cries of "basta!" (enough!). We ended up with 2 kilo (4½ pound) for 5 Euro.


Cherries before triage and stoning

What to do? We couldn't eat that many. So Mary consulted her Italian cook books and found "ciliegie sotto spirito" (cherries in alcohol) and I googled a cherry jam recipe in the internet cafe.

First step was to separate into eating, cooking and chucking. The alcoholic recipe was easy. Buy neat alcohol in the supermarket (not something you can do in the UK, maybe use gin or vodka instead), bung in some cinnamon stick, a couple of cloves and a spoonful of sugar then cover with alcohol.


Cherries under alcohol

The jam was not so successful because I chucked the sugar in then read the recipe which said boil the fruit first *then* add the sugar. I removed as much as I could and proceeded as instructed but I ended up with something more like cherries in syrup than jam. Still it was very tasty spread on toast so I'm happy.