It is that time of year again when I spend time in my kitchen cooking jams. While I wash, peal, measure, slow cook various fruit starting in Spring through Fall…I remember my grandmother’s kitchen in Veliskovci, Croatia…. She had young girls come from the vallage who helped with the process of picking the fruit in the orchard, bringing them into the kitchen, washing and preparing them for the big pots she had on the stove to cook the jams and preserves. Mind you….all that on a wood burning stove. Omama…as I called her…always had a spotless kitchen. It was scrubbed and washed every day…even the wooden floor was scrubbed with brushes.
I was a little girl then …about 5 or 6 years old…and I remember seeing the maids on the floor with their big skirts billowing around them.. moving like huge birds on their knees. .I was told not to come into the kitchen while the floor was being cleaned because they used lie diluted in water to bleach the wooden floor….
How times have changed?! In today’s world I do not have to pick the fruit from the trees…I simpy buy them in the grocery store, farmer’s market or from an orchard already picked.
At this time I have made Blueberry, Strawberry, Cherry and Apricot jams… available in Maja’s Viennese Kitchen. …. maria@majaskitchen.com …..
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