April 7, 2025 • 30 mins
Jams, jellies, preserves, savory jams, conserves, and chutneys! You know that with the publication of our revolutionary book COLD CANNING we're all about these things.
Let's talk through the differences among them: what's a jam vs. a preserve? What's a chutney and how has it changed in the modern world?
We're Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, the authors of three dozen (and almost "plus one") cookbooks. We're here to share our passion for food and cooking with you. Thanks for being with us.
Want to preorder our book COLD CANNING? Thanks! Please use this link here.
Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:
[00:33] Our one-minute cooking tip: use a salt brine to get the smell of cut onions and garlic out of cutting boards.
[02:53] The differences among preserves, marmalades, njams, jellies, savory jams, conserves, and chutneys.
[27:20] What’s making us happy in food this week? Smoked salmon salad and and the kale salad at Mecha Noodle Bar.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bruce (00:01):
Hey, I am Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast
Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
mark (00:04):
And I'm Mark Scarborough, and together with Bruce, my husband,
we have written 36 cookbooks.
We're publishing our 37th this summercold canning, and we're gonna be talking a
little bit about that, about some variouscategories of preserved things that
sometimes cause, uh, definition problems.
Let's just say we've got a oneminute cooking tip as per usual,
(00:24):
and we'll tell you what's makingus happy in food this week.
So let's get started.
Bruce (00:33):
Our one minute cooking tip.
And guess what?
I'm not doing it this week.
Mark is.
mark (00:37):
I am.
'cause it's mine.
And here it is.
Did you know you can get the smellof onions and garlic out of wooden
and sometimes plastic cutting boardswith a little salt water brine.
This is an old Julia Child trick, andif you find that your cutting boards
have a bit of an onion or garlicsmell to them, even after washing them
(00:57):
with soy water, if you make a brine.
Of, oh, about, let's say a onepart, , salt to five or six parts,
water, and then you use thatto wash down the cutting board.
You can get the smell ofonions and cut garlic out of
Bruce (01:11):
it.
And why wouldn't we just put salt onthe cutting boards and rub that in?
mark (01:15):
Well, because it can abbra it and
you don't wanna nick up the wood on awooden cutting board if you don't know.
By and large wooden cuttingboards have better microbial
resistance than plastic ones do.
That's because wood has anatural microbial deterrent
in its chemical structure.
(01:35):
So in general, woodencutting boards are preferred.
Bruce (01:39):
Yeah.
And also those plastic ones, when youmake those knife cuts and knife grooves
in them, moisture can get locked.
Into those grooves and it never dries out.
Whereas wood, it gets absorbed deeperinto the wood and it does dry out, which
will also kill microbes when it's dry.
mark (01:52):
Yeah, that's right.
And you'll notice that neither of us istalking about glass cutting boards at all.
Bruce (01:56):
I don't even understand the point of glass cutting boards.
What a great way to both ruin your knife.
Yes.
And it's the most awful soundand feeling in the world to
cut on a glass cutting board.
mark (02:06):
Some of us like the sound of, of, of, uh, fingernails on chalkboard.
But, for the rest of us, , that'sapparently a bad sound glass cutting
Bruce (02:14):
board.
That's like an oxymoron.
mark (02:16):
It does ruin your knives.
You really, if you have a glass cuttingboard, should think about switching
to wood, although they are expensive.
Okay, that's our one minute cookingtip about salt brine and cutting
boards with the smell of gut onionsand garlic if you would like.
To know more about this podcast,we have a Facebook group cooking
with Bruce and Mark posting videos.
There you can see us making varioussalsas and, uh, nachos and talking about
(02:42):
the cookbooks, all that kind of stuff.
And there's always a place where you cantell us what's making you happy in food
this week, each week after the podcast.
So check out that Facebookgroup in otherwise, let's move
on to the curious differencebetween some things that get put.
In canning jars and the ways these thingsare often confused, one with another.
(03:03):
So let's get started
Bruce (03:08):
most of the time you open a jar of jam or jelly, but there's so
much more on the shelves in the storeand on the shelves of people who put
this stuff up like marmalades andpreserves and all sorts of things.
Conserves, chutneys, so.
What are the differencesbetween these things?
mark (03:26):
I just wanna say that I think a lot of people use the terms jams and
jellies to mean a lot of these things.
And in fact, those are actually veryspecific items, jams and jellies.
So we wanna talk about that.
And let's start right at thetop with the biggest category.
Well, I guess no, the biggestfruit or vegetable category,
which is preserves and marmalades.
Bruce (03:47):
Yeah, and I think what makes them the biggest fruit is that these
are the things made with the biggest.
Pieces of fruit, right?
When you have a marmalade, which isusually a citrus based, , preserve,
? Usually orange I think was thetraditional, a bitter orange.
Although you can get sweet orangemarmalade, I think it's kind of
disgusting, but bitter orangemarmalade is the perfect marmalade.
(04:08):
It's either has.
Big chunks of orange whereit has just pieces of orange
mark (04:13):
rind.
One type of reason I found, Ithink we were at Dean in DeLuca
in the city in New York City.
We were somewhere we found an orangemarmalade that was literally mandolin
or really thin slices of orange.
A small orange just stacked upin a jar with, yeah, with all of
the jellified orange juice aroundthe, but it was really just a jar
(04:33):
of stacks of thin slices of orange.
Oh, it was so
Bruce (04:36):
good because they'd been.
Poached and cooked in this sugar syrupand they were like spoon tenders.
You could dig through them, right?
And then they were put in thisjar so carefully and beautifully
with that syrup poured over them.
I, I aspire to be able to do that,but I can guarantee you I don't
do it very often 'cause first ofall, you have to get oranges that
are exactly the size of your jars.
Yeah.
That's probably why they werecharging like $35 a jar for that
(04:59):
particular orange marble leg.
How much it
mark (05:00):
was.
But it was expensive.
Bruce (05:02):
Yeah.
And preserves.
Are non citrus basedwhole fruit preserves.
Sweet.
They're they're sweet.
They're very sweet.
So like blackberry preserves will havewhole chunks of blackberry in it, right?
And strawberry preserves might haveentire strawberries in that jar
inside that syrupy jelly-like mixture.
mark (05:22):
And this is why when you go to the store, if you look for things to
put on toast or peanut butter and jellysandwiches or whatever, preserves are
often the most expensive because ofcourse the manufacturer must preserve
in some sense the whole fruit.
So the strawberry preserveshave strawberries in them.
Oh, when I was a kid, there was this uh,uh, strawberry preserve manufacturer.
I think it was in Texas, in Oklahoma.
(05:43):
I grew up in Texas and I thinkit was around there and it
was called Best of the Crop.
I'm not making this up, and it would come.
Out the strawberry preserves once a yearand it was very limited production, and my
mother would wait until best of the crop.
Strawberry preserves appeared on theshelves because it was whole strawberries
(06:03):
in a ified syrup, and she would buythem and they would this huge splurge.
Now Bruce makes a similarthing and in fact.
In our upcoming book called Canning,there is something with this French
preserves in which you, uh, preserve thewhole strawberries inside the preserves.
I get this
Bruce (06:19):
technique, so I take the strawberries and I layer them in a
big bowl with sugar overnight, so nowthe strawberries are condensed down,
but they're still whole, they'vegiven off so much of their liquid.
And you bring that liquidto a boil and you cook it.
Then you put the wholestrawberries in for a few minutes.
Pull them out.
'cause now they've released even more.
Then let the syrup cook down again.
(06:41):
You put the whole berries in again.
It's just this whole process whereyou end up with these beautiful
jewels of candied strawberry inside.
Side this syrup, it's very muchlike that sliced orange marmalade.
Only it's strawberries.
Mm-hmm.
And the inspiration for that mm-hmm.
Came from something made bya British company tip tree.
And tip tree makes a strawberry preservethat they have made forever called.\
(07:05):
Little Scarlet and Little Scarlet arethese tiny, almost wild strawberries,
mark (07:10):
right?
They're almost French deis
Bruce (07:12):
and they preserve them whole, just like this French technique.
And it's even back in the eighties.
So we're talking 40 some odd years ago.
It was $10 a jar, and my grandmotherwas, that was her big splurge.
She would buy tip trees a littlescarlet, and that was her thing,
but it was also my grandmother's.
So she would eat like onestrawberry out of it a week.
mark (07:33):
Yeah.
No, no, no.
But we went to, uh, Bruce's cousins inWashington to sea a few weeks ago and
visited them for the weekend, and webrought them homemade preserves as a house
gift, and we had breakfast with them.
The next morning after we'd seenthem, of course, we got up and
had breakfast and they put out ourpreserves, and I think they were
dumbfounded that Bruce and I essentiallyate half a bottle of one of them.
Bruce (07:54):
I don't understand why people don't know how much
preserves you're supposed to put.
I don't care whether it'sjam, jelly or preserve.
Shell used should be shellac.
They, they put like the thinnest,thinnest coating on there.
Right?
We have very close friends, uh, livenear us who I give my jams to all the
time, and they'll have a jar of itthat lasts them like three months.
(08:16):
And I'm like.
How did that last you?
Three months.
Okay.
Since you said that itlasts me, me, three minutes.
All
mark (08:21):
right.
Since you said that, we're gonnamove on to the next category
you said I give my jams to.
So we're gonna move on to jams becausethis is probably the most, uh, popular
or the largest category of these,um, jams as opposed to preservers.
In marmalades jams are made from fruit.
Pulp.
Mm-hmm.
So it's fruit that has been mushed up insome way, or cooked up in some way so that
(08:44):
it has broken down, but it is still pulpy.
Bruce (08:47):
And you know, the best way to do that on your own is put gloves on and
get your hands in that bowl of berries.
Yes.
It's,
mark (08:53):
it's a, we talk about this endlessly in cold canning is put on kitchen and
gloves and go at it with your hands.
Bruce (08:58):
Your hands are the best tools you have in the kitchen.
You should be using them fortossing salads, for mixing
dressings , into, coleslaw.
So long
mark (09:06):
as you put on kitchen gloves or scrupulously, clean your hands.
Bruce (09:10):
I have even put on gloves to make.
Chicken salad, tuna salad.
It's like get your hands in your food.
It is fun.
It feels good, and you'llhave a better distribution.
And in terms of jams, you'llhave a beautifully even mashup
and you can control it so well.
So you can have pieces offruit, but not total mush.
(09:30):
So if
mark (09:30):
you're making this at home, this is basically how it goes.
If you're making blackberrypreserves, you're gonna.
Put the blackberries into thesugar syrup fairly late in the
process so that they stay whole.
If you're making blackberry jam, you'regenerally gonna put them in very early
in the process, so they cook in thesugar syrup, and you're also gonna
take, I don't know, a wooden spoon or apotato mash or something and mash them
(09:54):
up during the cooking so that they're.
Pulpy, but inside ofall of that sugar syrup,
Bruce (10:00):
potato masher is the next best tool you have after your hands.
Plus, I wouldn't suggest putting yourhands into a pot of boiling jam No, no.
To continue to mash up that fruit.
No.
Because that's not a smart idea.
mark (10:13):
No.
And this is all in contrast to jellies.
So if preserves and Marleys arewhole fruit and jams are made
from fruit pulp, then jellies.
Are made from fruit juice.
Mm-hmm.
This is the big difference.
There's no pulp in it.
Just think about grape jelly.
It's smooth or strawberry jelly orI don't know what else is there?
(10:34):
A blackberry jelly.
It's smooth
Bruce (10:37):
and translucent.
Yes.
When you shine a light through it, youshould be able to light up that jar.
It should look right.
Beautiful.
It should glow.
Some of them are clearerthan others, like.
Apple jelly you can actually see through.
Right, of course.
And I do a strawberry jelly thatyou could see through, but darker
things like Mark said, concord,grape jelly in particular, you can't
see through 'cause it's dark purple.
But uh, green grape jellyyou can see through Oh,
mark (10:59):
which we have a recipe for in the book.
Gold canning for green grape jelly.
But I should say that too, uh, while we'retalking about this, that when getting
light through even Concord grape jelly,we were able to get some light through
it in the photo shoot for the book.
But you can't get.
Any light through Concord grape jam No.
Or any light through strawberry preserves.
(11:20):
Well, part
Bruce (11:21):
of why we got light through it is the extraordinary talent of Eric Medsker,
a photographer based in Brooklyn, , whosenumber one talent in life is light.
Eric can create light that looksmagical no matter what he's doing.
He can, he photographed all thejams and jellies and chutneys that
are in this book and they glowand they glisten and they look
mark (11:42):
gorgeous.
Mostly shoots, cocktails.
You can look him up on Instagram, Medsker,M-E-D-S-K-E-R, Eric Medsker, and you can
see his cocktail shoots and, uh, his crazyshoots for our death and co and other
big, uh, hip bars and all this stuff.
And he gets amazing lightinside of cocktails, so, okay.
Just a review preserves our wholefruit jams or fruit pulp jellies, our
(12:04):
fruit juice, which then leads us to anoxymoron category, which is savory jam.
Um, this is a whole different categoryin itself, and this is also a bit
of a misnomer because given ourdefinitions of what a preserve is and
what jams are, and what jellies are.
This should actually becalled a savory preserve.
It
Bruce (12:22):
should be, but
mark (12:22):
no one calls it that.
Everyone calls it savory jam.
And this is part of the difficultyand the definitions here,
Bruce (12:29):
and the word savory is confusing too.
It would make you think there's nosugar, but there's a lot of sugar, of
course, because you're making a jam.
So it is a strange category, a savory jam.
So let's imagine I have a sweetbut not too sweet jam and the.
Basic ingredient instead ofraspberries or strawberries is onions.
Mm-hmm.
Or it's bacon.
(12:50):
Mm-hmm.
Or it's kimchi.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
I created a kimchi jam for this new book.
So a savory jam is, not a chutney becausethere's no spices and vinegars in it.
We'll get to chutneys in a minute.
It is strictly a savory jam.
You
mark (13:05):
might know this.
There was a very famous productthat came out, oh my gosh.
What?
20?
30 years ago, which is the StonewallKitchen's Savory Bacon Jam.
Mm-hmm.
Bacon, onion Jam or Bacon Jam.
It was
Bruce (13:16):
their bacon, onion jam.
It was one of their first products ever.
It won them an awardat the Fancy Food Show.
Yep.
About 25 years ago.
It set
mark (13:23):
their career off it set those guys' career off in
Bruce (13:26):
Stone Kitchens.
What?
Put it's what?
Put them on the map and from there theywent on to do lots of other things.
But yes, there.
Bacon.
Onion Jam was the first nationallydistributed product that was like that.
Yeah.
Right.
And it was earth shattering.
You could put it on a burger.
You can have it with roast chicken.
You could mix it into chicken salad.
(13:47):
I probably wouldn't put it on an Englishmuffin to have with a latte in the
mark (13:51):
morning.
No, no, no.
That's the whole point issavory jams don't go on toast.
Bruce (13:55):
Well, what if you're having it with eggs?
Butter.
And then you have bacon
mark (13:57):
and No, I still think that's gross for me.
That's gross.
You could try it.
But to me these are thingsfor roasts, they're things to
put on burgers, on hot dogs.
They're, the savory jam is muchcloser to a, a true condiment.
Mm.
Even though it's sweet.
It has sugar in it, but
Bruce (14:13):
ketchup is like by the number one condiment in the world and that is sweet.
There's a lot of sugar in it.
It so it makes sense.
I mean, I could see, um, a bacon,onion jam, even on a hot dog.
Of course, I could see it on apastrami sandwich of course, because
there's something about that sweet.
Then with the smokey and, oh, I
mark (14:28):
don't think you're gonna get bacon onion jam in your kosher deli on a
pastrami sandwich, but okay, go on dude.
You can.
Pastrami is
Bruce (14:35):
not.
Only a kosher meat.
mark (14:36):
Oh, okay.
Um, uh, your own relatives are gonnarise up and slap you right now, though.
Bruce (14:42):
My relatives whose idea of kosher was a separate pan for the bacon.
Yes.
They're gonna rise up andslap me for putting bacon
jam on the pastrami sandwich.
mark (14:51):
Okay, so a savory gem is a bit, as we say, of an oxymoron.
It's not really a gem, it's a preservebecause the onions are pretty whole,
the shallots are pretty whole,they're cut up mm-hmm of course
into small bits, but they're, theydon't dissolve into a mush in it.
You
Bruce (15:02):
know what they are.
mark (15:03):
The bacon is, you know, in tiny little bits, but it's still in there.
Bruce (15:07):
And that's the funny thing, bacon.
You think of bacon in therefrigerator as getting congealed,
and the fact gets gross and it.
Doesn't in this partly is youcook the bacon so long that
there is no fat left, right?
You render out every bit of fatfrom that meat, so it is only
charred little chunks of bacon meat.
(15:27):
And
mark (15:27):
Bruce mentioned kimchi cham, which is was spectacular.
It was a revelation to me tohave this, uh, sort of sweet
product made with whole kimchi.
So it's really spicy.
But we should also say that there arecarrot jams, there are bell pepper jams.
These are.
All part of this savory jam category.
It doesn't have to include bacon.
Mm-hmm.
In fact, you can just have shallotjam, which is part of this, uh,
(15:51):
weird category of savory jams, whichreally, again, should be savory
preserves, but nobody says that.
So people say savory jams.
Okay, so now we're gonna moveon to the fifth in our list.
So we've come through preserves and Marlonlights, and then we had jams, and then we
had jellies, and then we had savory jams.
And now we're movingon to a very esoteric.
Uh, category, which is conserves
Bruce (16:10):
and conserves are interesting because the word conserve basically can
almost encompass this entire categoryof what we're talking about, man.
But in olden, in olden times, andif you look in old cookbooks and old
things, a conserve was just a preserved.
Thing.
mark (16:26):
Yes.
But in UK parlance and in USparlance, a conserve has been
restricted in its definition.
So
Bruce (16:33):
what is that definition?
Well,
mark (16:35):
one thing is a conserve is generally, not always, but
generally is a very general rule.
It's less sweet than anythingwe've currently been talking about.
Less sweet than preserved jams,jellies, or savory jams in any way.
Bruce (16:47):
Less sweet is good.
mark (16:48):
Yep.
And it's also often made with other.
Aromatics.
Sometimes there are tomatoes in the mixand usually there are nuts and toes.
So think about, let's say a conserve withtomatoes, chilies, ginger, and almonds.
Mm-hmm.
And it's.
Sweet.
Without a doubt, it's still in thissweetish category, but it's moving away
(17:13):
from anything you would put on toast.
So it's
Bruce (17:16):
almost like a semi-sweet tomato jam with nuts and onions in it.
Yes, that's right.
Which is really an interestingcondiment and it's a great thing
to serve with roasted vegetables.
Yes, it's a great thing toput on a roast beef sandwich.
mark (17:29):
Yes.
Bruce (17:30):
While I might.
Put a savory jam on a burger, I wouldfor sure put a conserve on a burger.
Right.
Because it's less sweet.
mark (17:37):
Right.
In recipe testing, we madea tomato ancho conserve.
Mm-hmm.
And it's got ancho chilies, and tomatoes.
And onions, and I think it has a bunchof, uh, southwestern spices in it.
Maybe even I, I put pine nuts in that one.
I maybe, and maybe even.
Smoked paprika goes in it.
Mm.
So that it gets this very savory taste,although it is sweet and so it's perfect.
(17:58):
A conserve for all kinds ofmeat applications, as they
say in the food business.
And ESP Bruce has roasted vegetables.
Now, I will say that in our book, wedo have a blackberry conserve, and
it's made with ginger and blackberriesand all kinds of aromatics and
Bruce (18:13):
walnuts
mark (18:14):
and walnuts, and I do like it on toast, but I have
to confess to you that I.
Ask for that, uh, thisPassover on the chopped liver.
So there go, and we are recording
Bruce (18:24):
this the week before Passover.
So the livers have been ordered and theblackberries are on the shopping list.
mark (18:30):
And I think you're going to hear this long after Passover, but okay.
It's probably
Bruce (18:33):
going to be what's making you happy in food.
Next week when we record the nextbatch of these was that blackberry
conserve and my chopped chicken livers.
Right?
mark (18:41):
So you, I I do like that blackberry conserv because it's.
Blackberries on toast.
It's less sweet than a traditional,uh, preserve or jam, but it's also
really great on chopped liver.
It would be great on pate, itwould be great with cheese.
Conserves are by and large good withcheese, especially soft runny cheeses.
Even Brie, they're really greatas a topper to those things.
(19:02):
You probably know some ofthese, uh, conserves from like
what's often called ginger jam.
Just think if you kind of.
Bumped up the spice range of ginger jamand maybe even added some nuts to it.
Well, yeah, I, you would getit very close to a conserve.
I
Bruce (19:15):
think nuts are really a key.
And also when I cook a conserve, I tendto cook them until they're a little
firmer than jams and savory jams,which are a little more spreadable.
Conserves are a little more dollop.
I would think they're, I would thinkof a conserve almost as the texture
of a, uh, a chunky cranberry sauce.
mark (19:35):
Okay.
So.
Again, go back.
Preserves are the whole fruit jams are thefruit pulp jellies are the fruit juice.
Savory jams is an oxymoron.
The conserves are less sweetand include a lot of other
aromatics and most often nuts.
And now we come to the lastcategory, which is the most
difficult of these sweet.
Uh, can preserved sweet canned things,which is a chutney, and there's
(19:58):
a reason why this is difficult.
Bruce (20:00):
Well, it is probably my most favorite category of all of these.
Okay.
And part of it is as a chefmaking a chutney is much more
flexible and forgiving thanmaking any of the above category.
And part of that is most chutneysare not going to use pectin.
So I don't have to worry aboutmy ratios as clearly, right.
(20:23):
I'm not gonna have to say,well, how much sugar versus how
much pectin to how much fruit?
It's much more forgiving.
There's always a vinegar content, sothere's a liquid added, the kind of sugar.
I think that's key.
Let's just stop
mark (20:34):
right there.
I think chutney the keyis that it has a vinegar.
Mm-hmm.
Or sour component.
It does of some sort inmost, but not all chutneys.
Bruce (20:45):
Right.
And the kind of chutney that youwould get in a standard American
East Indian restaurant, like amango chutney, mango chutney.
It's easy to make because you dumpeverything in the pot at once.
The sugar, the vinegar, the fruit,the ginger, the garlic, all the.
Asian spices that go in there andyou just cook it, and you cook it and
cook it and cook it until it boilsdown and thickens and becomes the
(21:07):
texture that you want it to become.
And that gives you the flexibilityand the freedom to add other things.
Do you want to add raisins?
Do you want to add chopped apples?
Do you wanna add celery?
It is so flexible.
That's why I like making them.
mark (21:19):
Now, here's why this is problematic, what we now think of as chutneys, which
are vinegary sweet, savory condiment jam.
Like preserve, like substances,
Bruce (21:31):
like mango chutney, like major gras chutney.
mark (21:33):
Yeah.
And like major grays, chutney are actuallya product of the Raj of the English.
Overrun of India.
And here's the deal.
When the English overran India, rememberfrom your history books in the East
Indian Trading Company and all thatbit, and the Raj, the English control of
(21:55):
India, many traditional Indian foods werethen CD through English cooking styles.
And what happened here is that,um, traditional chutneys, and
we'll get to those in a minute,traditional chutneys got sied through.
English jam making techniquesand got crossed up into what most
(22:15):
of us now think of as a chutney.
In fact, that sort of jam likechutney is in fact the common
chutney in India at this point.
So it's a kind of backward, reverse,cross-cultural problem that goes on here.
The original chutney is just to say.
Were much drier.
Yeah, and much fresher.
(22:36):
They were not necessarily cooked?
Bruce (22:39):
Not always, no.
No.
They often were just things like cilantroand spices pureed up or chopped up
with chilies in a mortar and pestle.
Correct.
And then what?
Usually happens is, and they call itthe tempering, \, but the spices that
are used are fried and oil, and thatspicy fried oil is imported on top.
And that is the temperingmoment of those cut
mark (23:01):
coconut in there too, right?
There
Bruce (23:02):
can be, there's often there are.
There are.
Often, sometimes just coconutchutneys, which use fresh grated
coconut and maybe chopped up cashews.
And then these tempered spices.
And that was what constituted a chutney.
So it's like their colonizers camein, created something different out
of what they were calling a chutney.
Right?
And then the indigenous people liked it.
(23:23):
Yes, exactly.
And it stuck and it went worldwide.
mark (23:25):
Exactly.
I I, I mean, I think that this is thesame problem with, uh, n not to step
on a landmine here, but this is thesame problem with Navajo fry bread.
It's not necessarily intrinsic to theculture, but over centuries it has become
intrinsic to the culture because it'sactually taking this dough that probably
was baked and then frying it now inoil, and now of course we think of it.
(23:48):
As part of indigenous culture, andeven indigenous people think of it
as part of their culture, but it's aweird cultural mix that has happened.
And I should tell you just before we,uh, move on, on chutney, I should just
say that what we're telling you is a bitcontroversial in food historian parlance.
Not all food historians agree thatwhat happened is that these fresh and
(24:10):
relatively dry, or as Bruce suggests.
Fried oily chutneys got passedthrough English techniques to
create what we now think of as majorgrays or mango chutney, et cetera.
Um, in fact, some people willsay, no, that's not true.
And actually other thingshappen to create these.
But the bulk of food historianshold to this story about how what
(24:31):
we now called chutney came about.
So chutney, people think of itas mango, but it's not right.
Bruce (24:36):
Chutney is anything you can make a plump chutney is anything.
It could be made from grass clippings.
Well, it would be interestingto try a grass chutney.
Oh, gross.
Look, mango chutney.
The base fruit is mango.
Then you add garlic and ginger andcelery and carrots and chopped apples.
But you could make a similar chutneywhere your base fruit is plums.
(24:57):
Oh yeah.
About that.
That's what we have in the house
mark (24:59):
right now is plumb.
Chutney.
Bruce (25:00):
I make a plumb chutney every year from Santa Rosa plums that my sister sends
me from her backyard trees in California.
Yep.
And I chop up the plums and I addvinegar and sugar and brown sugar and
celery and garlic and onions and ginger,and I add mustard seeds and cloves
and it cooks down into this sweet andsour and spicy and complex condiment
(25:24):
that I put in everything, and myfavorite way to use it is chicken salad.
I buy a rotisserie chickenat the supermarket.
I take all the meat and off.
I throw the bones and skin away.
I get my hands in there and Ismush up that meat and I add in
mayonnaise and more chopped celery.
And a big dollop of this plumb,chutney and a L curri powder.
And nuts.
(25:45):
I had lots of chopped walnuts too.
mark (25:46):
Yeah.
Well, I think that it is reallyinteresting to think about chutneys
as beyond man coke, because mostof us think of major grays, and I
will confess that I'm not a fan ofmajor gray's chutney, so I didn't
know much about chutney until I met.
Bruce and Bruce was a kind ofchutney connoisseur already
when I met him 28 years ago.
(26:07):
So I learned a lot more, and I learnedthat there was a world beyond, beyond
major gras that includes all kinds ofcrazy things like peach chutneys and
apple chutney and tomato chutneys, allkinds of various fruit based chutney
that move off into savory and evenextraordinarily spicy renditions.
(26:27):
Mm-hmm.
To create chutney.
So there's our rundown.
Preserves of marmalades jams, jellies,savory jams, conserves and chutneys.
Those are various sweet things thatyou can preserve and put in jars.
Our book called Canning, which isout this summer, has many recipes
for these, but it's not all the book.
In fact, these only make up about a third.
Of this giant tome, cold, canningmore on what's ahead for that later.
(26:52):
But we wanted to just nail downthe difference between these.
Before we move to the last segment of thispodcast, lemme say that it would be great
if you could rate or like this podcast andeven greater if you could write a review.
Remember, this is an ad free podcast.
Think about that.
How many podcasts do youlisten to that have no ads?
This is an ad free podcast.
We wanna keep it that way, and one ofthe ways you can help us is by either
rating it, can I ask for five stars?
(27:14):
Or.
Even better dropping a review, whichkeeps it fresh in the algorithms.
Thanks for doing that.
Okay, onto what's makingus happy in food this week.
Bruce (27:28):
Hot smoked salmon salad, or as my family used to call it, baked
salmon salad, baked salmon salad.
So our local supermarket here in NewEngland has started carrying this smoked
salmon called honey smoked salmon, that'slike the brand name, and it was on sale.
So I bought a couple packagesin Each package is an.
Eight ounce piece of hot smoked salmon.
And it is so smoky that when I openedthe package, it smelled like jerky.
(27:51):
I mean, that's how smoky it is.
Mm.
And I decided yesterday that a piece wassitting in the refrigerator too long, ea.
So I opened the package.
I.
Took the skin off, I threw itin the food processor with more
mayonnaise than you can imagine.
And I word it up.
I put in about a tablespoon of sweetpickle relish and it was homemade
hot smoked salmon salad, and Markdevoured the entire container,
(28:12):
leaving me only a spoonful to taste.
But it is what made me happy.
This
mark (28:16):
week I came home from teaching Flannery O'Connor for two hours.
I ended up eating smokedElla, which was kind of great.
Kind of a nice antidote to FLA O'Connor.
Um,
Bruce (28:25):
I bet she never had smoked salmon salad.
I bet she
mark (28:27):
didn't either.
Uh, so, so it goes, uh, I guess what'smaking me happy in food this week is
something from a chain of restaurantsthat has actually blown across the
country and they're growing exponentially,and that's MEChA Noodle Bars.
So shout out to MEChA,M-E-C-H-A, MEChA at Noodle Bar.
They may be in a city where you live, andI have to say their kale salad is, mm-hmm.
(28:48):
Just spectacular.
It's, it's made with a miso vinegarette.
It has golden uh, raisins in it.
It Bruce and I go to MEChA Noodle Barjust to order the Kale Caesars so well.
I've never had
Bruce (29:00):
a salad like that.
There go.
'cause it is half fresh kaleand half deep fried kale.
Yeah.
So you have these super, super,super crunchy bits and these
super fresh but still crunchybits and the beautiful dressing.
They always
mark (29:12):
top it with the avocados.
They stop.
Mm-hmm.
It's
Bruce (29:14):
worth the drive for us.
To go where they are, which isabout an hour and 20 minutes away.
mark (29:18):
So we love MEChA Noodle Bars.
Kale, salad.
Okay, that's the podcast for this week.
Thanks for joining us, and thanksfor being a part of this journey.
We appreciate your time inthis vast podcast landscape.
Thanks for being with us.
A long to talk about food and cooking
Bruce (29:33):
and while TikTok is still available, and let's hope while you're
listening to this, it is still available.
Please.
Go to TikTok, even if you never havebefore, download the app because there you
will find our channel cooking with Bruceand Mark and we post some fabulous videos,
and also go to, go to Instagram whereyou'll see cooking with Bruce and Mark
as well there with lots of great videosand photos of our life and food and you
(29:56):
get to share more of what's going onwith us at cooking with Bruce and Mark.
Hey, I am Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast
Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
mark (00:04):
And I'm Mark Scarborough, and together with Bruce, my husband,
we have written 36 cookbooks.
We're publishing our 37th this summercold canning, and we're gonna be talking a
little bit about that, about some variouscategories of preserved things that
sometimes cause, uh, definition problems.
Let's just say we've got a oneminute cooking tip as per usual,
(00:24):
and we'll tell you what's makingus happy in food this week.
So let's get started.
Bruce (00:33):
Our one minute cooking tip.
And guess what?
I'm not doing it this week.
Mark is.
mark (00:37):
I am.
'cause it's mine.
And here it is.
Did you know you can get the smellof onions and garlic out of wooden
and sometimes plastic cutting boardswith a little salt water brine.
This is an old Julia Child trick, andif you find that your cutting boards
have a bit of an onion or garlicsmell to them, even after washing them
(00:57):
with soy water, if you make a brine.
Of, oh, about, let's say a onepart, , salt to five or six parts,
water, and then you use thatto wash down the cutting board.
You can get the smell ofonions and cut garlic out of
Bruce (01:11):
it.
And why wouldn't we just put salt onthe cutting boards and rub that in?
mark (01:15):
Well, because it can abbra it and
you don't wanna nick up the wood on awooden cutting board if you don't know.
By and large wooden cuttingboards have better microbial
resistance than plastic ones do.
That's because wood has anatural microbial deterrent
in its chemical structure.
(01:35):
So in general, woodencutting boards are preferred.
Bruce (01:39):
Yeah.
And also those plastic ones, when youmake those knife cuts and knife grooves
in them, moisture can get locked.
Into those grooves and it never dries out.
Whereas wood, it gets absorbed deeperinto the wood and it does dry out, which
will also kill microbes when it's dry.
mark (01:52):
Yeah, that's right.
And you'll notice that neither of us istalking about glass cutting boards at all.
Bruce (01:56):
I don't even understand the point of glass cutting boards.
What a great way to both ruin your knife.
Yes.
And it's the most awful soundand feeling in the world to
cut on a glass cutting board.
mark (02:06):
Some of us like the sound of, of, of, uh, fingernails on chalkboard.
But, for the rest of us, , that'sapparently a bad sound glass cutting
Bruce (02:14):
board.
That's like an oxymoron.
mark (02:16):
It does ruin your knives.
You really, if you have a glass cuttingboard, should think about switching
to wood, although they are expensive.
Okay, that's our one minute cookingtip about salt brine and cutting
boards with the smell of gut onionsand garlic if you would like.
To know more about this podcast,we have a Facebook group cooking
with Bruce and Mark posting videos.
There you can see us making varioussalsas and, uh, nachos and talking about
(02:42):
the cookbooks, all that kind of stuff.
And there's always a place where you cantell us what's making you happy in food
this week, each week after the podcast.
So check out that Facebookgroup in otherwise, let's move
on to the curious differencebetween some things that get put.
In canning jars and the ways these thingsare often confused, one with another.
(03:03):
So let's get started
Bruce (03:08):
most of the time you open a jar of jam or jelly, but there's so
much more on the shelves in the storeand on the shelves of people who put
this stuff up like marmalades andpreserves and all sorts of things.
Conserves, chutneys, so.
What are the differencesbetween these things?
mark (03:26):
I just wanna say that I think a lot of people use the terms jams and
jellies to mean a lot of these things.
And in fact, those are actually veryspecific items, jams and jellies.
So we wanna talk about that.
And let's start right at thetop with the biggest category.
Well, I guess no, the biggestfruit or vegetable category,
which is preserves and marmalades.
Bruce (03:47):
Yeah, and I think what makes them the biggest fruit is that these
are the things made with the biggest.
Pieces of fruit, right?
When you have a marmalade, which isusually a citrus based, , preserve,
? Usually orange I think was thetraditional, a bitter orange.
Although you can get sweet orangemarmalade, I think it's kind of
disgusting, but bitter orangemarmalade is the perfect marmalade.
(04:08):
It's either has.
Big chunks of orange whereit has just pieces of orange
mark (04:13):
rind.
One type of reason I found, Ithink we were at Dean in DeLuca
in the city in New York City.
We were somewhere we found an orangemarmalade that was literally mandolin
or really thin slices of orange.
A small orange just stacked upin a jar with, yeah, with all of
the jellified orange juice aroundthe, but it was really just a jar
(04:33):
of stacks of thin slices of orange.
Oh, it was so
Bruce (04:36):
good because they'd been.
Poached and cooked in this sugar syrupand they were like spoon tenders.
You could dig through them, right?
And then they were put in thisjar so carefully and beautifully
with that syrup poured over them.
I, I aspire to be able to do that,but I can guarantee you I don't
do it very often 'cause first ofall, you have to get oranges that
are exactly the size of your jars.
Yeah.
That's probably why they werecharging like $35 a jar for that
(04:59):
particular orange marble leg.
How much it
mark (05:00):
was.
But it was expensive.
Bruce (05:02):
Yeah.
And preserves.
Are non citrus basedwhole fruit preserves.
Sweet.
They're they're sweet.
They're very sweet.
So like blackberry preserves will havewhole chunks of blackberry in it, right?
And strawberry preserves might haveentire strawberries in that jar
inside that syrupy jelly-like mixture.
mark (05:22):
And this is why when you go to the store, if you look for things to
put on toast or peanut butter and jellysandwiches or whatever, preserves are
often the most expensive because ofcourse the manufacturer must preserve
in some sense the whole fruit.
So the strawberry preserveshave strawberries in them.
Oh, when I was a kid, there was this uh,uh, strawberry preserve manufacturer.
I think it was in Texas, in Oklahoma.
(05:43):
I grew up in Texas and I thinkit was around there and it
was called Best of the Crop.
I'm not making this up, and it would come.
Out the strawberry preserves once a yearand it was very limited production, and my
mother would wait until best of the crop.
Strawberry preserves appeared on theshelves because it was whole strawberries
(06:03):
in a ified syrup, and she would buythem and they would this huge splurge.
Now Bruce makes a similarthing and in fact.
In our upcoming book called Canning,there is something with this French
preserves in which you, uh, preserve thewhole strawberries inside the preserves.
I get this
Bruce (06:19):
technique, so I take the strawberries and I layer them in a
big bowl with sugar overnight, so nowthe strawberries are condensed down,
but they're still whole, they'vegiven off so much of their liquid.
And you bring that liquidto a boil and you cook it.
Then you put the wholestrawberries in for a few minutes.
Pull them out.
'cause now they've released even more.
Then let the syrup cook down again.
(06:41):
You put the whole berries in again.
It's just this whole process whereyou end up with these beautiful
jewels of candied strawberry inside.
Side this syrup, it's very muchlike that sliced orange marmalade.
Only it's strawberries.
Mm-hmm.
And the inspiration for that mm-hmm.
Came from something made bya British company tip tree.
And tip tree makes a strawberry preservethat they have made forever called.\
(07:05):
Little Scarlet and Little Scarlet arethese tiny, almost wild strawberries,
mark (07:10):
right?
They're almost French deis
Bruce (07:12):
and they preserve them whole, just like this French technique.
And it's even back in the eighties.
So we're talking 40 some odd years ago.
It was $10 a jar, and my grandmotherwas, that was her big splurge.
She would buy tip trees a littlescarlet, and that was her thing,
but it was also my grandmother's.
So she would eat like onestrawberry out of it a week.
mark (07:33):
Yeah.
No, no, no.
But we went to, uh, Bruce's cousins inWashington to sea a few weeks ago and
visited them for the weekend, and webrought them homemade preserves as a house
gift, and we had breakfast with them.
The next morning after we'd seenthem, of course, we got up and
had breakfast and they put out ourpreserves, and I think they were
dumbfounded that Bruce and I essentiallyate half a bottle of one of them.
Bruce (07:54):
I don't understand why people don't know how much
preserves you're supposed to put.
I don't care whether it'sjam, jelly or preserve.
Shell used should be shellac.
They, they put like the thinnest,thinnest coating on there.
Right?
We have very close friends, uh, livenear us who I give my jams to all the
time, and they'll have a jar of itthat lasts them like three months.
(08:16):
And I'm like.
How did that last you?
Three months.
Okay.
Since you said that itlasts me, me, three minutes.
All
mark (08:21):
right.
Since you said that, we're gonnamove on to the next category
you said I give my jams to.
So we're gonna move on to jams becausethis is probably the most, uh, popular
or the largest category of these,um, jams as opposed to preservers.
In marmalades jams are made from fruit.
Pulp.
Mm-hmm.
So it's fruit that has been mushed up insome way, or cooked up in some way so that
(08:44):
it has broken down, but it is still pulpy.
Bruce (08:47):
And you know, the best way to do that on your own is put gloves on and
get your hands in that bowl of berries.
Yes.
It's,
mark (08:53):
it's a, we talk about this endlessly in cold canning is put on kitchen and
gloves and go at it with your hands.
Bruce (08:58):
Your hands are the best tools you have in the kitchen.
You should be using them fortossing salads, for mixing
dressings , into, coleslaw.
So long
mark (09:06):
as you put on kitchen gloves or scrupulously, clean your hands.
Bruce (09:10):
I have even put on gloves to make.
Chicken salad, tuna salad.
It's like get your hands in your food.
It is fun.
It feels good, and you'llhave a better distribution.
And in terms of jams, you'llhave a beautifully even mashup
and you can control it so well.
So you can have pieces offruit, but not total mush.
(09:30):
So if
mark (09:30):
you're making this at home, this is basically how it goes.
If you're making blackberrypreserves, you're gonna.
Put the blackberries into thesugar syrup fairly late in the
process so that they stay whole.
If you're making blackberry jam, you'regenerally gonna put them in very early
in the process, so they cook in thesugar syrup, and you're also gonna
take, I don't know, a wooden spoon or apotato mash or something and mash them
(09:54):
up during the cooking so that they're.
Pulpy, but inside ofall of that sugar syrup,
Bruce (10:00):
potato masher is the next best tool you have after your hands.
Plus, I wouldn't suggest putting yourhands into a pot of boiling jam No, no.
To continue to mash up that fruit.
No.
Because that's not a smart idea.
mark (10:13):
No.
And this is all in contrast to jellies.
So if preserves and Marleys arewhole fruit and jams are made
from fruit pulp, then jellies.
Are made from fruit juice.
Mm-hmm.
This is the big difference.
There's no pulp in it.
Just think about grape jelly.
It's smooth or strawberry jelly orI don't know what else is there?
(10:34):
A blackberry jelly.
It's smooth
Bruce (10:37):
and translucent.
Yes.
When you shine a light through it, youshould be able to light up that jar.
It should look right.
Beautiful.
It should glow.
Some of them are clearerthan others, like.
Apple jelly you can actually see through.
Right, of course.
And I do a strawberry jelly thatyou could see through, but darker
things like Mark said, concord,grape jelly in particular, you can't
see through 'cause it's dark purple.
But uh, green grape jellyyou can see through Oh,
mark (10:59):
which we have a recipe for in the book.
Gold canning for green grape jelly.
But I should say that too, uh, while we'retalking about this, that when getting
light through even Concord grape jelly,we were able to get some light through
it in the photo shoot for the book.
But you can't get.
Any light through Concord grape jam No.
Or any light through strawberry preserves.
(11:20):
Well, part
Bruce (11:21):
of why we got light through it is the extraordinary talent of Eric Medsker,
a photographer based in Brooklyn, , whosenumber one talent in life is light.
Eric can create light that looksmagical no matter what he's doing.
He can, he photographed all thejams and jellies and chutneys that
are in this book and they glowand they glisten and they look
mark (11:42):
gorgeous.
Mostly shoots, cocktails.
You can look him up on Instagram, Medsker,M-E-D-S-K-E-R, Eric Medsker, and you can
see his cocktail shoots and, uh, his crazyshoots for our death and co and other
big, uh, hip bars and all this stuff.
And he gets amazing lightinside of cocktails, so, okay.
Just a review preserves our wholefruit jams or fruit pulp jellies, our
(12:04):
fruit juice, which then leads us to anoxymoron category, which is savory jam.
Um, this is a whole different categoryin itself, and this is also a bit
of a misnomer because given ourdefinitions of what a preserve is and
what jams are, and what jellies are.
This should actually becalled a savory preserve.
It
Bruce (12:22):
should be, but
mark (12:22):
no one calls it that.
Everyone calls it savory jam.
And this is part of the difficultyand the definitions here,
Bruce (12:29):
and the word savory is confusing too.
It would make you think there's nosugar, but there's a lot of sugar, of
course, because you're making a jam.
So it is a strange category, a savory jam.
So let's imagine I have a sweetbut not too sweet jam and the.
Basic ingredient instead ofraspberries or strawberries is onions.
Mm-hmm.
Or it's bacon.
(12:50):
Mm-hmm.
Or it's kimchi.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
I created a kimchi jam for this new book.
So a savory jam is, not a chutney becausethere's no spices and vinegars in it.
We'll get to chutneys in a minute.
It is strictly a savory jam.
You
mark (13:05):
might know this.
There was a very famous productthat came out, oh my gosh.
What?
20?
30 years ago, which is the StonewallKitchen's Savory Bacon Jam.
Mm-hmm.
Bacon, onion Jam or Bacon Jam.
It was
Bruce (13:16):
their bacon, onion jam.
It was one of their first products ever.
It won them an awardat the Fancy Food Show.
Yep.
About 25 years ago.
It set
mark (13:23):
their career off it set those guys' career off in
Bruce (13:26):
Stone Kitchens.
What?
Put it's what?
Put them on the map and from there theywent on to do lots of other things.
But yes, there.
Bacon.
Onion Jam was the first nationallydistributed product that was like that.
Yeah.
Right.
And it was earth shattering.
You could put it on a burger.
You can have it with roast chicken.
You could mix it into chicken salad.
(13:47):
I probably wouldn't put it on an Englishmuffin to have with a latte in the
mark (13:51):
morning.
No, no, no.
That's the whole point issavory jams don't go on toast.
Bruce (13:55):
Well, what if you're having it with eggs?
Butter.
And then you have bacon
mark (13:57):
and No, I still think that's gross for me.
That's gross.
You could try it.
But to me these are thingsfor roasts, they're things to
put on burgers, on hot dogs.
They're, the savory jam is muchcloser to a, a true condiment.
Mm.
Even though it's sweet.
It has sugar in it, but
Bruce (14:13):
ketchup is like by the number one condiment in the world and that is sweet.
There's a lot of sugar in it.
It so it makes sense.
I mean, I could see, um, a bacon,onion jam, even on a hot dog.
Of course, I could see it on apastrami sandwich of course, because
there's something about that sweet.
Then with the smokey and, oh, I
mark (14:28):
don't think you're gonna get bacon onion jam in your kosher deli on a
pastrami sandwich, but okay, go on dude.
You can.
Pastrami is
Bruce (14:35):
not.
Only a kosher meat.
mark (14:36):
Oh, okay.
Um, uh, your own relatives are gonnarise up and slap you right now, though.
Bruce (14:42):
My relatives whose idea of kosher was a separate pan for the bacon.
Yes.
They're gonna rise up andslap me for putting bacon
jam on the pastrami sandwich.
mark (14:51):
Okay, so a savory gem is a bit, as we say, of an oxymoron.
It's not really a gem, it's a preservebecause the onions are pretty whole,
the shallots are pretty whole,they're cut up mm-hmm of course
into small bits, but they're, theydon't dissolve into a mush in it.
You
Bruce (15:02):
know what they are.
mark (15:03):
The bacon is, you know, in tiny little bits, but it's still in there.
Bruce (15:07):
And that's the funny thing, bacon.
You think of bacon in therefrigerator as getting congealed,
and the fact gets gross and it.
Doesn't in this partly is youcook the bacon so long that
there is no fat left, right?
You render out every bit of fatfrom that meat, so it is only
charred little chunks of bacon meat.
(15:27):
And
mark (15:27):
Bruce mentioned kimchi cham, which is was spectacular.
It was a revelation to me tohave this, uh, sort of sweet
product made with whole kimchi.
So it's really spicy.
But we should also say that there arecarrot jams, there are bell pepper jams.
These are.
All part of this savory jam category.
It doesn't have to include bacon.
Mm-hmm.
In fact, you can just have shallotjam, which is part of this, uh,
(15:51):
weird category of savory jams, whichreally, again, should be savory
preserves, but nobody says that.
So people say savory jams.
Okay, so now we're gonna moveon to the fifth in our list.
So we've come through preserves and Marlonlights, and then we had jams, and then we
had jellies, and then we had savory jams.
And now we're movingon to a very esoteric.
Uh, category, which is conserves
Bruce (16:10):
and conserves are interesting because the word conserve basically can
almost encompass this entire categoryof what we're talking about, man.
But in olden, in olden times, andif you look in old cookbooks and old
things, a conserve was just a preserved.
Thing.
mark (16:26):
Yes.
But in UK parlance and in USparlance, a conserve has been
restricted in its definition.
So
Bruce (16:33):
what is that definition?
Well,
mark (16:35):
one thing is a conserve is generally, not always, but
generally is a very general rule.
It's less sweet than anythingwe've currently been talking about.
Less sweet than preserved jams,jellies, or savory jams in any way.
Bruce (16:47):
Less sweet is good.
mark (16:48):
Yep.
And it's also often made with other.
Aromatics.
Sometimes there are tomatoes in the mixand usually there are nuts and toes.
So think about, let's say a conserve withtomatoes, chilies, ginger, and almonds.
Mm-hmm.
And it's.
Sweet.
Without a doubt, it's still in thissweetish category, but it's moving away
(17:13):
from anything you would put on toast.
So it's
Bruce (17:16):
almost like a semi-sweet tomato jam with nuts and onions in it.
Yes, that's right.
Which is really an interestingcondiment and it's a great thing
to serve with roasted vegetables.
Yes, it's a great thing toput on a roast beef sandwich.
mark (17:29):
Yes.
Bruce (17:30):
While I might.
Put a savory jam on a burger, I wouldfor sure put a conserve on a burger.
Right.
Because it's less sweet.
mark (17:37):
Right.
In recipe testing, we madea tomato ancho conserve.
Mm-hmm.
And it's got ancho chilies, and tomatoes.
And onions, and I think it has a bunchof, uh, southwestern spices in it.
Maybe even I, I put pine nuts in that one.
I maybe, and maybe even.
Smoked paprika goes in it.
Mm.
So that it gets this very savory taste,although it is sweet and so it's perfect.
(17:58):
A conserve for all kinds ofmeat applications, as they
say in the food business.
And ESP Bruce has roasted vegetables.
Now, I will say that in our book, wedo have a blackberry conserve, and
it's made with ginger and blackberriesand all kinds of aromatics and
Bruce (18:13):
walnuts
mark (18:14):
and walnuts, and I do like it on toast, but I have
to confess to you that I.
Ask for that, uh, thisPassover on the chopped liver.
So there go, and we are recording
Bruce (18:24):
this the week before Passover.
So the livers have been ordered and theblackberries are on the shopping list.
mark (18:30):
And I think you're going to hear this long after Passover, but okay.
It's probably
Bruce (18:33):
going to be what's making you happy in food.
Next week when we record the nextbatch of these was that blackberry
conserve and my chopped chicken livers.
Right?
mark (18:41):
So you, I I do like that blackberry conserv because it's.
Blackberries on toast.
It's less sweet than a traditional,uh, preserve or jam, but it's also
really great on chopped liver.
It would be great on pate, itwould be great with cheese.
Conserves are by and large good withcheese, especially soft runny cheeses.
Even Brie, they're really greatas a topper to those things.
(19:02):
You probably know some ofthese, uh, conserves from like
what's often called ginger jam.
Just think if you kind of.
Bumped up the spice range of ginger jamand maybe even added some nuts to it.
Well, yeah, I, you would getit very close to a conserve.
I
Bruce (19:15):
think nuts are really a key.
And also when I cook a conserve, I tendto cook them until they're a little
firmer than jams and savory jams,which are a little more spreadable.
Conserves are a little more dollop.
I would think they're, I would thinkof a conserve almost as the texture
of a, uh, a chunky cranberry sauce.
mark (19:35):
Okay.
So.
Again, go back.
Preserves are the whole fruit jams are thefruit pulp jellies are the fruit juice.
Savory jams is an oxymoron.
The conserves are less sweetand include a lot of other
aromatics and most often nuts.
And now we come to the lastcategory, which is the most
difficult of these sweet.
Uh, can preserved sweet canned things,which is a chutney, and there's
(19:58):
a reason why this is difficult.
Bruce (20:00):
Well, it is probably my most favorite category of all of these.
Okay.
And part of it is as a chefmaking a chutney is much more
flexible and forgiving thanmaking any of the above category.
And part of that is most chutneysare not going to use pectin.
So I don't have to worry aboutmy ratios as clearly, right.
(20:23):
I'm not gonna have to say,well, how much sugar versus how
much pectin to how much fruit?
It's much more forgiving.
There's always a vinegar content, sothere's a liquid added, the kind of sugar.
I think that's key.
Let's just stop
mark (20:34):
right there.
I think chutney the keyis that it has a vinegar.
Mm-hmm.
Or sour component.
It does of some sort inmost, but not all chutneys.
Bruce (20:45):
Right.
And the kind of chutney that youwould get in a standard American
East Indian restaurant, like amango chutney, mango chutney.
It's easy to make because you dumpeverything in the pot at once.
The sugar, the vinegar, the fruit,the ginger, the garlic, all the.
Asian spices that go in there andyou just cook it, and you cook it and
cook it and cook it until it boilsdown and thickens and becomes the
(21:07):
texture that you want it to become.
And that gives you the flexibilityand the freedom to add other things.
Do you want to add raisins?
Do you want to add chopped apples?
Do you wanna add celery?
It is so flexible.
That's why I like making them.
mark (21:19):
Now, here's why this is problematic, what we now think of as chutneys, which
are vinegary sweet, savory condiment jam.
Like preserve, like substances,
Bruce (21:31):
like mango chutney, like major gras chutney.
mark (21:33):
Yeah.
And like major grays, chutney are actuallya product of the Raj of the English.
Overrun of India.
And here's the deal.
When the English overran India, rememberfrom your history books in the East
Indian Trading Company and all thatbit, and the Raj, the English control of
(21:55):
India, many traditional Indian foods werethen CD through English cooking styles.
And what happened here is that,um, traditional chutneys, and
we'll get to those in a minute,traditional chutneys got sied through.
English jam making techniquesand got crossed up into what most
(22:15):
of us now think of as a chutney.
In fact, that sort of jam likechutney is in fact the common
chutney in India at this point.
So it's a kind of backward, reverse,cross-cultural problem that goes on here.
The original chutney is just to say.
Were much drier.
Yeah, and much fresher.
(22:36):
They were not necessarily cooked?
Bruce (22:39):
Not always, no.
No.
They often were just things like cilantroand spices pureed up or chopped up
with chilies in a mortar and pestle.
Correct.
And then what?
Usually happens is, and they call itthe tempering, \, but the spices that
are used are fried and oil, and thatspicy fried oil is imported on top.
And that is the temperingmoment of those cut
mark (23:01):
coconut in there too, right?
There
Bruce (23:02):
can be, there's often there are.
There are.
Often, sometimes just coconutchutneys, which use fresh grated
coconut and maybe chopped up cashews.
And then these tempered spices.
And that was what constituted a chutney.
So it's like their colonizers camein, created something different out
of what they were calling a chutney.
Right?
And then the indigenous people liked it.
(23:23):
Yes, exactly.
And it stuck and it went worldwide.
mark (23:25):
Exactly.
I I, I mean, I think that this is thesame problem with, uh, n not to step
on a landmine here, but this is thesame problem with Navajo fry bread.
It's not necessarily intrinsic to theculture, but over centuries it has become
intrinsic to the culture because it'sactually taking this dough that probably
was baked and then frying it now inoil, and now of course we think of it.
(23:48):
As part of indigenous culture, andeven indigenous people think of it
as part of their culture, but it's aweird cultural mix that has happened.
And I should tell you just before we,uh, move on, on chutney, I should just
say that what we're telling you is a bitcontroversial in food historian parlance.
Not all food historians agree thatwhat happened is that these fresh and
(24:10):
relatively dry, or as Bruce suggests.
Fried oily chutneys got passedthrough English techniques to
create what we now think of as majorgrays or mango chutney, et cetera.
Um, in fact, some people willsay, no, that's not true.
And actually other thingshappen to create these.
But the bulk of food historianshold to this story about how what
(24:31):
we now called chutney came about.
So chutney, people think of itas mango, but it's not right.
Bruce (24:36):
Chutney is anything you can make a plump chutney is anything.
It could be made from grass clippings.
Well, it would be interestingto try a grass chutney.
Oh, gross.
Look, mango chutney.
The base fruit is mango.
Then you add garlic and ginger andcelery and carrots and chopped apples.
But you could make a similar chutneywhere your base fruit is plums.
(24:57):
Oh yeah.
About that.
That's what we have in the house
mark (24:59):
right now is plumb.
Chutney.
Bruce (25:00):
I make a plumb chutney every year from Santa Rosa plums that my sister sends
me from her backyard trees in California.
Yep.
And I chop up the plums and I addvinegar and sugar and brown sugar and
celery and garlic and onions and ginger,and I add mustard seeds and cloves
and it cooks down into this sweet andsour and spicy and complex condiment
(25:24):
that I put in everything, and myfavorite way to use it is chicken salad.
I buy a rotisserie chickenat the supermarket.
I take all the meat and off.
I throw the bones and skin away.
I get my hands in there and Ismush up that meat and I add in
mayonnaise and more chopped celery.
And a big dollop of this plumb,chutney and a L curri powder.
And nuts.
(25:45):
I had lots of chopped walnuts too.
mark (25:46):
Yeah.
Well, I think that it is reallyinteresting to think about chutneys
as beyond man coke, because mostof us think of major grays, and I
will confess that I'm not a fan ofmajor gray's chutney, so I didn't
know much about chutney until I met.
Bruce and Bruce was a kind ofchutney connoisseur already
when I met him 28 years ago.
(26:07):
So I learned a lot more, and I learnedthat there was a world beyond, beyond
major gras that includes all kinds ofcrazy things like peach chutneys and
apple chutney and tomato chutneys, allkinds of various fruit based chutney
that move off into savory and evenextraordinarily spicy renditions.
(26:27):
Mm-hmm.
To create chutney.
So there's our rundown.
Preserves of marmalades jams, jellies,savory jams, conserves and chutneys.
Those are various sweet things thatyou can preserve and put in jars.
Our book called Canning, which isout this summer, has many recipes
for these, but it's not all the book.
In fact, these only make up about a third.
Of this giant tome, cold, canningmore on what's ahead for that later.
(26:52):
But we wanted to just nail downthe difference between these.
Before we move to the last segment of thispodcast, lemme say that it would be great
if you could rate or like this podcast andeven greater if you could write a review.
Remember, this is an ad free podcast.
Think about that.
How many podcasts do youlisten to that have no ads?
This is an ad free podcast.
We wanna keep it that way, and one ofthe ways you can help us is by either
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(27:14):
Or.
Even better dropping a review, whichkeeps it fresh in the algorithms.
Thanks for doing that.
Okay, onto what's makingus happy in food this week.
Bruce (27:28):
Hot smoked salmon salad, or as my family used to call it, baked
salmon salad, baked salmon salad.
So our local supermarket here in NewEngland has started carrying this smoked
salmon called honey smoked salmon, that'slike the brand name, and it was on sale.
So I bought a couple packagesin Each package is an.
Eight ounce piece of hot smoked salmon.
And it is so smoky that when I openedthe package, it smelled like jerky.
(27:51):
I mean, that's how smoky it is.
Mm.
And I decided yesterday that a piece wassitting in the refrigerator too long, ea.
So I opened the package.
I.
Took the skin off, I threw itin the food processor with more
mayonnaise than you can imagine.
And I word it up.
I put in about a tablespoon of sweetpickle relish and it was homemade
hot smoked salmon salad, and Markdevoured the entire container,
(28:12):
leaving me only a spoonful to taste.
But it is what made me happy.
This
mark (28:16):
week I came home from teaching Flannery O'Connor for two hours.
I ended up eating smokedElla, which was kind of great.
Kind of a nice antidote to FLA O'Connor.
Um,
Bruce (28:25):
I bet she never had smoked salmon salad.
I bet she
mark (28:27):
didn't either.
Uh, so, so it goes, uh, I guess what'smaking me happy in food this week is
something from a chain of restaurantsthat has actually blown across the
country and they're growing exponentially,and that's MEChA Noodle Bars.
So shout out to MEChA,M-E-C-H-A, MEChA at Noodle Bar.
They may be in a city where you live, andI have to say their kale salad is, mm-hmm.
(28:48):
Just spectacular.
It's, it's made with a miso vinegarette.
It has golden uh, raisins in it.
It Bruce and I go to MEChA Noodle Barjust to order the Kale Caesars so well.
I've never had
Bruce (29:00):
a salad like that.
There go.
'cause it is half fresh kaleand half deep fried kale.
Yeah.
So you have these super, super,super crunchy bits and these
super fresh but still crunchybits and the beautiful dressing.
They always
mark (29:12):
top it with the avocados.
They stop.
Mm-hmm.
It's
Bruce (29:14):
worth the drive for us.
To go where they are, which isabout an hour and 20 minutes away.
mark (29:18):
So we love MEChA Noodle Bars.
Kale, salad.
Okay, that's the podcast for this week.
Thanks for joining us, and thanksfor being a part of this journey.
We appreciate your time inthis vast podcast landscape.
Thanks for being with us.
A long to talk about food and cooking
Bruce (29:33):
and while TikTok is still available, and let's hope while you're
listening to this, it is still available.
Please.
Go to TikTok, even if you never havebefore, download the app because there you
will find our channel cooking with Bruceand Mark and we post some fabulous videos,
and also go to, go to Instagram whereyou'll see cooking with Bruce and Mark
as well there with lots of great videosand photos of our life and food and you
(29:56):
get to share more of what's going onwith us at cooking with Bruce and Mark.
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