Page 6 - Thrapston Life August 2024

QA
In the Autumn of last year Vicki Holton decided to take her love of preserves to the next level, and established The Jam Queen.
Tell us more... Luxury jams and preserves, lovingly made in small batches using homegrown and locally foraged produce as much as possible.
of some figs if anyone has any going spare?
What’s the difference between a jam and a preserve? It is all to do with sugar quantities. To be called a jam, it must be made up of at least 60% sugar. A preserve can have lower amounts of sugar and therefore higher fruit quantities
Where do you source your ingredients? I try to grow as much of the fruit and veg as I can. Extra ingredients are sourced locally as much as possible, from Lutton Farm and Adam’s Apple in Raunds. I love to forage in local hedgerows for blackberries, sloes, damsons and elderflowers.
I love to forage in local hedgerows for sloes, blackberries, damsons and elderflowers
than a jam. ‘Preserve’ is often used as an umbrella term to cover jellies, chutneys and marmalades!
Where did your love of preserving come from? My mum was a home economics teacher and my dad had
a large vegetable garden on the farm where I grew up, so preserving and pickling was just something that happened in our house every year with the seasons. Spring for sowing
Any fruit you’d like to source
locally? I am lucky enough to have lots
of generous friends and neighbours who are happy to share their excess plums, apples, pears, rhubarb and quince. But would love to get hold
and planting, summer for soft fruit picking and jam making, autumn for blackberry and apple picking and chutney making, and winter for
6
AND
THE JAM
QUEEN
Luxury preserves