Currant Events

It's time for the big currant harvest at the Mrs. de-I latifundia and that requires mustering all the resources of the estate to the task. On Friday Wife stated that the red currants, black currants, and gooseberries had all achieved the proper ripeness to be harvested.

With as big an agricultural operation as Mrs. de-I has here, this called for assembling and organizing the appropriate staff. The head of berry and fruit (Wife) was given the marching orders. The field supervisor (Wife) and day laborers (Wife) were set to work picking the fruit from the field. The fruit is then quickly transferred to the Production area where the production supervisor (Wife) assembled the production staff (Wife) and production of the estates private label jams was begun. Getting the produce from fruit to jam in the shortest amount of time possible is essential for top flavor and sweetness. When all is done the kitchen cleaning staff (de-I) makes sure all is ready for the next production operations.

A Review of This Year's Production

All of the jams this year have a wonderful combination of intense fruit flavor, acidity and sweetness. The intensity of the fruit is far superior to just about anything I've had on the open market. The black currants only are starting to really produce. Therefore, the total amount of production was pretty small. The red currants are much further along and produced much more. The gooseberries were the revelation of the harvest with a totally wonderful flavor.

I took a red currant jam and peanut butter sandwich on my hike today and it was totally yummy.

May need to invest into packaging next year.