Years ago, we took a family trip to Hawaii. We wanted to see the volcanoes, and so we picked the Big Island as our destination, composing an itinerary that exposed us to its many biospheres: spectacular coastlines, exotic lava fields, and dense rainforest. I could write a month’s worth of essays about that trip, but today I’m going to focus on just one small segment.
To transition from our seaside hotel near Kona on the west coast to another proximate to the active volcano of Kilauea, we drove up, along the coast, then across the island. It’s not a particularly long trip, but long enough that a stop to rest and stock up on provisions makes sense. We chose Hilo, the eastern town at the foot of Volcanoes National Park, where we cooled down at a popular shaved ice store. Shaved ice is a recommended experience for all visitors, but we particularly wanted to compare the local experience to shaved ice desserts from Singapore, such as “ice jelly” and “ice kachang” (the latter better known as “ABC” to my friends from Malaysia).
As we made our way back to the car, we noticed a small open-air marketplace that had popped up at a street corner. I’m sure you know the kind: white tents on poles sheltering knock-down tables covered with wares. We didn’t expect much, but stopped anyway, thinking we might pick up some souvenir shell bracelets for the boys. For me, however, it was a memorable visit because of a small stall, tucked away in a corner, selling locally-made jams. Not just any jams, but locally-made tropical jams. That experience is what I’ve written about today, but first, a little background might help.
You see, I am a jam lover.
I’m that guy who gets a little tingle at fancy hotels where they have the cute and tiny (but perhaps environmentally unjustifiable) jam pots. You may know them - the little jars with a slim sticker affixed from the lid to the glass, presumably an indication that it hasn’t been opened, and therefore has been awaiting your enjoyment this morning. I enjoy the satisfying pop of the vacuum seal being released from a vessel of such diminutive size, and the somewhat absurd gymnastics of scooping a tiny sliver of jam out with a bread knife five times as long as the diameter of the cap. When it comes down to flavor selection, like everyone else, I expect a strawberry and maybe a mixed berry. Strawberry must be the most popular jam flavor in the world. But if I’m paying a pretty penny for breakfast, a marmalade is de rigeur – the MVP, or minimum viable preserve – and as I elaborate below, my expectations only ramp up from there.
Now, to be clear, I’m not a big fan of expensive hotel breakfasts – during our summer stay in Washington D.C., we alternated between Panera and McDonalds to start the day. I definitely don’t make the sort of money that justifies paying as much for bacon and eggs as a night’s hotel room. But even so, especially when we travel overseas, I will insist that we have at least one overpriced hotel breakfast if we can. It’s nice for the parents not to have to get out of bed, walk a block or two, get on line, order, check the order is correct, walk back, set up, and clean up; it’s nice to be able to have a little fresh fruit, or hot oatmeal; it’s nice not to have to carry the little boxes of corn flakes all the way from home; it’s nice to put your lips to the smooth contours of a coffee cup, to warm your palms against its contours, rather than hastily slurping through the crevice betwixt the rolled cardboard rim and the flappy plastic tab of a McCafé paper cup.
Hotel breakfast is indeed a luxury, but it is one I have learned to make the most of. I like observing how each member of my family assembles their unique combination of breakfast items, whether it be hot cakes with real syrup, or scrambled eggs with cracked pepper, yoghurt with fresh strawberries, or bacon that crunches with a satisfying snap. I like observing how fingers enjoy the tactile sensation of tablecloth and china; I like the smiles that come with mixing flavors of juice to find new delightful combinations; I like the banter that such an infrequent experience produces, and the inevitable comparisons with prior such experiences, along with recalling happy memories from past holidays.
Some frown on luxury because it is performative, and indeed, much of it is. But there is also an experiential aspect to nice things that is satisfying and memorable, and my wish is that you are blessed with that, from time to time, even in small measure. Not for the sake of having something that others don’t, but because, in my experience, appreciating good things given to us can be the basis of charity extended to others, and the world is in great need of such charity.
And so, for us, the phenomenon of a hotel breakfast is, in all the right ways, a gift. But with this penny-pinching dad, even such gift horses receive lengthy and excruciating oral examinations. To be rated as value for money, having a proper orange marmalade is as essential to passing as capers with the smoked salmon, more than one cheese selection at the egg station, and being able to opt for iced coffee over hot. And to be clear, while a proper orange marmalade (with just a hint of bitter and a little rind to add texture) merits a pass, if said fancy hotel wants the 5-star review, and consideration for a return visit, then marmalade alone will not suffice. The flying colors badge demands much, much, more. But what, exactly, warrants a good score?
A variant on the pedestrian, such as a strawberry rhubarb, is always appreciated. A pot of apricot always earns an appreciative eyebrow curl and a nod. But to be special, truly special, more exotic selections must be purveyed. Let’s talk pineapple, shall we? It’s such a cheap fruit – yellow chunks of it swim around in the $2 can of Dole’s fruit cocktail, after all – but a hotelier’s audacity to offer pineapple jam could be a good sign. In the upside case, it means one has chosen to dine with an establishment unafraid to take some risk, to throw down the breakfast gauntlet, if you will. But, you may ask, how so?
Here’s my reasoning. It’s not that hard to find a recent culinary school graduate who can churn out a decent egg white, spinach, mushroom and Havarti cheese omelet. But to have the courage to slide pineapple jam onto the breakfast restaurant chess board is a daring move, because it’s all to easy to smother out the tart, tasty goodness of Maison de Bob le Sponge with an overdose of sugar, to turn it into a sad, runny excuse for a tropical treat. A good jam-maker knows how much pineapple pulp to keep for a weighty, satisfying, mass to sit on the tip of the breadknife, primed and ready to be convincingly spread into the crevices of a good slice of rye or an English muffin. They know how much sugar to add to take just enough of the edge off the citric bite – so that the fruit’s ability to evoke its origin in the tropics – let’s call it pineapplessence if we are in the mood to make up words – is not lost, but is sufficiently and aggressively present to be suitably enhanced by the saltiness of the accompanying butter as your teeth sink through it and into the toast.
Yet, pineapple is but a gateway jam. Perhaps, like me, you are one who appreciates the pursuit of proportionality that persists in the perfection of pineapple preserve. Perchance, then, a plethora of pleasures will profit your patience. Because if you can ask so much of the humble pineapple, what might you ask of the pear, whose subtle flavors demand enhancement, rather than tapering? What of blueberry? Is it bold, as when its flavors are coaxed forth in the sizzle of a pancake on a hot grill, or is it offensively absent, as when chemically induced and slathered between the shell of a Pop Tart? The challenge of finding a decent blueberry jam is as confounding as that of its sister fruit, the raspberry, the preserving of which demands retaining not only the tartness and characteristic aroma of the fruit, but also finding that delicate balance in the grittiness of the crunch of raspberry seed – too coarse, and the smooth impression of luxury is lost; too fine, and evocations of mass production and large industrial factory blenders intrude the mind, ruining the toast.
I’ll bet you never thought someone could write this much about boiled fruit.
But friends, I’m not done yet.
Let’s go back to Hawaii. Hilo, market stall, tropical jams. I’m listening to the guy manning the stall. And he is saying all the right things. His sister makes the jams out of local fruit. This is the only place they sell them. Suddenly, my mind is doing a mental inventory of all the jams I’ve tasted on this trip so far, because it has been a treat. I mean yes, when I stay at the fancy hotel in London or whatever, I am getting an apricot here and a raspberry there. But very rarely do I see guava, lilikoi (passonfruit) or papaya jams. In Hawaii, it’s the norm.
So here I am, on a dusty street corner in Hilo, a drive up the side of the volcano and a night gazing at lava glow ahead of me. Be that as it may, the memory of good shaved ice is fading fast in my mind, and all I can think of is what should I expect from “mango-pineapple marmalade” or “passionfruit-papaya jelly”"? But my dilemma gets worse. Much worse. Because there is no fancy marketing on these jams. There are no romantic references to places like France, as one is conditioned to expect by St Dalfours. There is no subliminal hint of farm freshness alluded to by the gingham print on the lid of a Bonne Maman, or the unerring commitment to authenticity promised by the botanical drawing on each jar of Sarabeth’s.
In other words, what I’m facing looks nothing like this:
Instead, the label looks like it was made by an ink jet printer, smudgy outlines and washed out colors. It’s just a standardized label, the exact same one on every bottle, regardless of flavor. And this is the best part, the shivers down the spine part: to figure out the flavor, since it’s not on the printed label, you have to read miniscule hand-written cursive on tiny white labels stuck on the plain white lid that seals each plain glass jar. There are no nutrition facts, there is no GMO certification, and my heart is pounding because my mind is screaming: this is freakin’ authentic small batch, dude. This is small batch in a beach side town on the east side of paradise, every flavor is “not strawberry”, and you are stuck, because there is no way – no way – you are going to persuade Florence, a/k/a Mrs Deeply Boring, to let you buy one of every flavor. Because, in addition to a guaranteed overweight baggage check in at American Airlines, all that melted sugar in glass jars is going to be catapulted to 40,000 ft of decompression over the Pacific, tucked in the suitcase alongside the nice clothes she picked out for this trip she has waited a year for. As tempting as it is, it would be foolish, and you know she would be right.
Whatever you pick is going hand carry, with your laptop. So pick a number, be it five jars or three jars, or whatever you believe you can get away with, and then you pick those flavors smart, boy, because you know you will never be back here, in this place, at this time, picking out legit one of a kind tropical flavors made by this guy’s sister who I am sensing could be some kind of Polynesian jam savant, based on the options laid out in front of me.
Think, man!
Think hard and think fast!
I glance over my shoulder and Florence is paying for some souvenirs, so I know my time is running short. I’m starting to break a sweat and so I go into information discovery mode. The first decision I need to make is single flavor vs. mixed. Go mixed and I risk missing out on the best passionfruit jam of my life. But what if I never see guava-orange jelly ever again? Oh man, she’s collecting the change, and I have a million questions. There are no tasting spoons in sight. I’m about to interrogate the guy, but then a calm comes over me, and I realize I have a path. That there is a way.
All I need to do, to walk away from this transaction without regret, is to ask:
“Which ones are your family’s favorites?”.
The world spins, I lose time, and my hearing comes back just in time to catch Florence’s sweet, inquisitive voice behind me. “Whatcha up to?” she asks. And with that, I have been discovered, caught red-handed, in my moment of weakness. I smile weakly and lay out the crime scene for forensic investigation. The evidence is being bagged and labelled even as she records my confession: passionfruit, pineapple marmalade, guava.
“Those sound good,” she offers.
I breathe.
“How long is the drive to the hotel?”
The page has been turned, and I breathe again.
I looked forward to those jams for the entire trip and our long flight home, where they joined the cache of special flavors gathered from country farms, European grocery stores, and specialty retailers. And yes, they did live up to their promise. Sadly, an Internet search turned up no way to purchase more from the mainland – and so I was right to trust my instinct and to go for it when I could.
For now, a trip back to Hilo is on the bucket list, though I fear my encounter was but a dalliance with a small family affair that may not have persisted for long. I haven’t read about the IPO or a buyout by Smucker’s. They may be there, or not, and I may never know.
Readers may be conditioned to expect that this is the point, near the end of the essay, that I try to offer something more profound for your consideration.
Regrettably, I have no such deep insight to offer today.
Sometimes, life offers something sweet and delightful.
My suggestion?
Just enjoy it.
Grace and peace,
J/1 Tim 6:17
Thanks for regaling us with these intricately woven tales of your jam dilemmas. Our favourite foods, or the imminent lack of it can affect us in such visceral ways.
I could feel a sliver of anxiety creep through even through your wry and mildly humorous recounting, and a thought occurred to me, in case you ever feel panicky again, here's a link to hacking the dilemma altogether. Make your own: https://www.joshuaweissman.com/recipes/best-easy-fruit-jam-recipes.
I've made my own jam on more than one occasion (including pineapple jam) not necessarily because I'm a jam fan like you are, but because I don't like wasting fruit or because I wanted to try a new recipe (pineapple tarts)!
When I made strawberry jam previously, in a bid to not allow the punnet to go to waste, it was surprisingly easy, and adding that extra bit of balsamic took it over the top in terms of flavour and depth.