Tomato Jam (Extended Jam)

… in which nothing was pressed.

In 1991, I went to a party in Lexington, VA, a place I was told at the time was the hot spot for inbreeding in the United States. My dad had recently been to Australia, and flying across that countrinent, he read an article in the in-flight magazine about a restaurant in Perth that was hailed as “The Best Restaurant in Australia.” It was near enough to his hotel so he went. “I’ve never been to the best restaurant in a country before,” he told me.

Being in the most inbred, per capita, city in a country is perfectly safe if you observe from a place of safety like an anthropologist in a blind or an oceanographer in a windowed diving bell. I was visiting a friend at Washington & Lee, so it was kind of like that. I don’t remember the party details. We went to a concert in a small columned structure and my friend was a first semester freshman, so I doubt it was Greek sponsored. It was private. I’m sure of that because there were only three or four hundred people in the hall and the headliner was a Robbie Robertson-less The Band. My friend was cute so she could get into any party. No idea why I was allowed in.

I’d never heard of the opening band. They were good, but fifteen minutes into their set I was pretty sure that they were still on their first song. I’d seen jam bands before. I saw The Grateful Dead when it was still jarring to see Bruce Hornsby out of his “and The Range” role. I laid in the grass at Oak Mountain Amphitheater twice while the Allman Brother played “Whipping Post” for two hours with brief side trips to other songs. It was just weird to hear an unknown band assume people liked a song they didn’t know and wanted to hear it riffed, dissected, and reassembled.

I know it was a small venue, but if the band asked me to play with them, I’d take the opportunity to showcase the breadth of what I can do; cast a wide net. These guys played one song – I’m pretty sure – for forty-five minutes. It was unexpected, but great.

I asked about them later. They were some guys from Georgia who were starting to get national attention: Widespread Panic.

A few years later and a different friend followed their tour around the country for a summer and came back with this fun fact: Eastern U.S. fans called them Widespread. Western, The Panic. Now you know.

I had a version of this Tomato Jam recently at a boule court and mason jar glasses bistro in Idaho. It was great served as part of a spread triumvirate with chevre and garlic puree. I found a few recipes online, ran them through my proclivity filter, and came up with what’s below.

All of the online recipes said to let the jam simmer for at least an hour.  What I got after an hour was very good, but too bright. I kept simmering. After four hours, I wanted to go to bed. This isn’t active cooking, mind you. I stirred it every thirty minutes or so while watching a movie, reading a bit, etc.

I packed it up in Tupperware, put it in the fridge, and got it out the next afternoon. Back on the stove at a low simmer. After the second hour, sixth total with the night before, I got hints of what I was after. A shortcut would be to char the tomato skins and I may try that soon, but this long slow heat brought out a caramel depth.

I was happy with the one-hour version and recommend it highly. Do that and you’ll be happy, but the six-hour cook blew me away.

If you had told me that The Band’s opening band was going to play one song I’d never heard before for forty-five minutes, I’d have skipped the opening act and shown up fashionably drunk. If I had known it would take six hours to get the flavor I wanted I would have never bothered going to the store much less cutting tomatoes for this recipe. I’m glad I didn’t know in both cases. The jams were worth it.

Indulged Tomato Jam

• 2 lbs. tomatoes, your choice
• 6-8 cloves garlic, minced
• ¾ cups brown sugar
• ginger, a piece about as big as the last two knuckles of an adult pointer finger, minced
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• heaping tsp. ground cumin
• red pepper flakes, to taste (I used a rough tsp.)
• salt to taste

I say “your choice” about which tomatoes to use. Roma is the obvious choice. I used the ones that come on the vine. No idea what they’re called. They just say “Tomatoes” at Publix. Cherry tomatoes would be interesting, though I don’t know what they’d add that a little extra brown sugar wouldn’t.

Whatever you choose, cut them up and toss them in a pot; skins and seeds too.

Smash and cut the garlic.

Squeeze the lemons.

And cut the ginger.

Put everything in the pot – cumin and red pepper flakes as well but hold off on salt for now – and turn the heat to medium-high. The tomatoes should soften and release liquid. When that liquid and the lemon juice start to bubble, reduce heat, stir, and go away, returning every thirty or so minutes to stir.

I added thyme in hopes that the flavor would survive the cumin, and ginger. It didn’t, so don’t bother.

But I learned that Wheat Thins are versatile.

After an hour or so you have a very serviceable jam. It’s on the sweet and acidic side at this point, but really good. If this is as far as you are willing to go, you’ll be happy for the journey. Enjoy.

For the rest of you:

The above picture is still the same day as the first. I switched pans to make room on the stovetop for dinner cooking. It’s getting thicker.

This is after four hours the first night, and two hours the second day. It’s thicker, but more to the point, it’s sweet and concentrated.

Let it cool and refrigerate. Bonus points if you have a cool suburban farmer’s market jar to put it in.

It was fantastic on baguette with chevre. I had it on a focaccia chicken sandwich about an hour ago.

No idea how the focus did that in the above picture. It looks like the counter slopes away. I can attest that it doesn’t.

Enjoy. If you let the jam linger on your stove for six hours, I’m sure you will.

Here’s a chart: