Today I spent about 5 hours picking the seeds out of redcurrants with a goose quill. I kid you not. This is the traditional way of preparing the fruit for the most expensive jam in the world. No wonder!
My Shellac Sister Veronica’s dad had a wonderful crop of redcurrants so we picked them fresh from the bush. 7 helpers in rotation of 5 at a time sat at a table in the conservatory, quills in hand, picking out the seeds of half a pound of fruit. There are some fab pictures over on the flickr site. It was a day of much hilarity and heavy industry. Dorothy M, Trix and Kat created a mammoth vat of chutney AND some plum jam AND some delicious blackcurrant cordial. We managed half a pound of deseeded redcurrants which resulted in 12 beautiful teeny tiny jars of Bar-Le-Duc.
One of our epepineuses (she-seed-removers) summed it up perfectly when she left, “Goodbye everybody. It’s been weird fun.” Yes indeed. And a heartwarmingly wonderful way to spend a Saturday, creating rays of sun in crystal jars. We chose the nicest looking jar to enter in the WI jam competition. We’re planning a trip down to Denman College in October to the Real Jam Festival to see how our baby gets on. None of us are members of the WI but we’ll bundle down there in “Shrek” anyway, shrieking like banshees and brandishing our goose quills.
For more information on the crazy jam that is Bar-Le-Duc, here is the article that inspired me to have a go at it. I cannot imagine what occasion will feel special enough to actually crack open my jar of it. It’s a precious artefact…
After looking at your photos and reading the FX Cuisine article, I can understand why bar-le-duc might be so expensive! You’re lucky you had friends to help! Can you imagine spending all day shut up in your house deseeding a measly 1 lb of redcurrants? Aaaaah!
Your bar-le-duc looks amazing, by the way. Let us know when you find that special occasion.
It was SO MUCH FUN! If I wasn’t so broke I would hop on the Eurostar taking a jar of bar-le-duc with me so that I could rock up in Paris for breakfast, buy a super fresh baguette and some unsalted butter and sit in the sun scoffing it! Apparently Jean-Christophe Novelli would charge £304 for one of these sandwiches…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1419095/Some-crust-the-304-sandwich.html
In the 1940’s many tea rooms and reastuarants featured bar-le-duc sandwiches. I especially remember the Tick Tock served a combination of blackberry jam and cream cheese on black rye. I stll enjoy the same sandwich today.
Wow! That’s amazing. Mmmmm. The blackberry jam and cream cheese on black rye sounds absolutely delicious and I might give that a go myself. Thanks for stopping by…
Growing up in the 1950s, I was introduced to a dessert that my father used to request from Mom that he called “bar le duc.” It consisted of cream cheese and blackberry jam spread on ritz or saltine crackers. We would help ourselves, putting some of the three ingredients on our dessert plates, and then constructing and gobbling the delicious little open faced sandwiches. Points were won when all ingredients came out even, and no bit of one or the other was left on your plate. I’ve looked all over for a mention of this bar le duc dish, but find only data about the red-current jam from Bar le Duc, France. I’m so glad you remember the construction that used jam and cream cheese spread on rye. Do you have any more information?
Wow, I love this story. I also really love the sound of cream cheese and blackberry jam on ritz crackers – mmmmmmm! Thanks for sharing your reminiscence – perhaps Gloria who mentioned the Tick Tock has more info…