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There could be a cookbook out there with that conceit. But this is not it. This book is actually a guide on how to make jams that will — when you actually enter a jam competition — win a blue ribbon. There are long passages on exhibition rules, tips on how to label your jars, and an exploration of the Danish and American systems of scoring.
But there are also many, many good recipes and a lot of solid information on how to improve your jams. I can recommend this cookbook as a good supplement to the standby, the Ball Book.
An RWB, for those of you unfamiliar with Jamlady’s terminology, is a rolling water bath. It is what many of us would call boiling water. And again: Jamlady, for those of you unfamiliar with Jamlady’s terminology, is Beverly Ellen Schoonmaker Alfeld.
Mes ConfituresThough ordinarily I might hesitate to recommend a cookbook that I cannot pronounce, I enthusiastically recommend Christine Ferber’s Mes Confitures. This is the book from which the strawberry-raspberry preserves with balsamic vinegar and black pepper were taken, and it’s the book that inspired the black raspberry and wild strawberry with chocolate preserves that I made the other day.
