Jam evokes nostalgia and brings out stories.
After making and selling nearly 100,000 jars of jam, Daniel Perry has lots of stories to share.
They smell impossibly sweet and distinctly peachy through the closed box.
Simply Recipes / Daniel Perry
Last week, the peaches were mediocre.
But not this week.
Its peak summer fruit season, so hes working 80 to 100 hours a week making jam.
Perry is a jam maker based in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the owner ofJam According to Daniel.
Its easy to get to the bottom of the jar quickly when spread on thick slices of sourdough bread.
She was referring to people like Perry.
He found his calling.
It turns out, jam unleashes a torrent of memories in people.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
When I lost that job, I came down to the farmers market to sell jam.
It was July of 2008thats 14 years ago.
I did a thousand jars of jam my first year.
Now Im at 10,000 to 12,000 jars, which is about 10,000 to 12,000 pounds of fruit per year.
The jam is right here.
People, especially when it comes to jam, have their own stories.
I have this one guy who’s a good customer.
He just hates rhubarb.
He told me his grandmother would make stewed rhubarb and hed have to polish his plate.
It was just so terrible and slimy.
So, just get the plain strawberry jam.
The strawberry rhubarb is not slimy, stringy, or gross, but I get it.
The rhubarb just spoils it for you.
Do you get a lot of stories about peoples grandmothers jams?Definitely.
Yours is the only one that I could ever eat that stood up to hers.
Ill get some for her.
She found another jar of her own jam!
I told her its just one jar, but she said, No!
This is my jam.
Its tastes just like my jam.
If Im fooling the blind grandma, thats pretty high praise, right?
His mom would drive him to the beach, where there were beach plums on the dunes.
Shed say, Fill up the sack and then Ill pull you out.
Hed pick plums all day and then shed cook them.
In this sensory spacethis stand of jamit’s so intimate.
There’s no filter.
Sometimes people say, Oh, that one was not your finest or not to my taste!
And you never know what stories youll get.Where else could we interact with each other on that level?
The feedback loop between me and the customers at the farmers market is like this far apart.
[Holds index finger and thumb close together.]
Plus, it’s more intimate because they’re eating the jam.
