ORIGIN STORIES
Dante’s? Oh, sorry, no, I was just talking about my pepper jam
But I do understand the confusion
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Pizza delivery leads to some interesting coworkers and side gigs.
At one point during the six-year span that my partner was working pizza delivery, one of his coworkers was a drummer in a punk band.
In addition to being a drummer, this coworker was fascinated by hot peppers and on a quest to find the hottest food he possibly could, he obtained some Trinidad Scorpion pepper seeds and managed to grow a pepper “tree” nearly five feet tall.
Unfortunately, the peppers were perhaps even a bit hotter than he anticipated. Other than the occasional “stunt,” the peppers were too hot even to use as a food additive. He found himself with entire gallon Ziploc bags full of peppers that he had no clue what to do with.
It was grown outside during the summer and autumn threatened to spell its doom.
I offered to take it in.
We had a large house at the time, and I had grow lights in the tile floor dining room. Although we had five cats, there was still ample space for a giant flowerpot and pepper tree. A cage around the tree and some netting assured both the pepper and the cats stayed safe.
For the first three months, it seemed I might have years of hot peppers. Sadly, at around two months, I discovered the pepper had brought friends indoors with it. Fluffy white patches, that I had initially mistaken for dust, grew in width and length along the midribs and stems. Scale insects are difficult to treat even under the best of circumstances. A 15-gallon plant pot inside a house in the middle of winter is not the “best of circumstances.”
Harvesting what peppers, I could that remained, I reluctantly resigned the pepper to the frigid outdoors. Seeds were reserved. Most of the peppers went into the deep freezer.
I was still unsure of what to do with them.
I had recently started to get back into making jams and jellies.
I had once been quite interested in canning around the time of my first marriage. I had made a fresh apple jelly with apples that we had picked at a local orchard. The jelly had come out a pale crystalline pink with the slightest bit of cloudiness from apple solids that had not fully been strained.
It was that cloudiness that caused my now ex-husband to say, “I don’t trust it, I think something is wrong with it.”
Not only would he not eat any of it, he was insistent that I couldn’t give any away either. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away as he requested. I moved the jars to the basement of our house. They were still there when I moved out a little over a year later when we divorced.
It was nearly the end of my journey of canning altogether.
My current partner had nearly cried hearing the story of the apple jelly and related that apple is and always has been a favorite.
I resolved to try again but still I struggled to overcome the self-doubt and fear of rejection.
So it was that over a decade after making apple jelly for my first husband, I hesitantly made my first batch of jam in years.
Over the next weeks and months, I would brush off the old skills and delve into making my own recipes.
To the best of my recollection, it was the holiday season. I found a recipe for “Christmas jam.” A quick review of the recipe later, I declared that it was over sweet and single dimensional in flavor. Making a half batch according to the recipe confirmed my suspicion.
A few ingredient changes later, renaming it to Winter (Solstice) jam, making a full batch was the confidence builder I needed.
I returned to canning with a vengeance.
I even invested in a pressure canner and self-taught myself pressure canning.
Online canning groups that had initially seemed like a source of potential community were quickly discovered to be toxic. In the “Safe Canning” groups, I found admins that would ban people for asking questions. I was accused of advocating unsafe practices for asking, “I understand that using cured meats in pressure canned recipes is not recommended, but why is it not recommended?”
Rather than admit they didn’t immediately know the answer, I woke up from making a simple question comment the night before to find I had been banned from the entire “family” of Safe Canning Facebook groups.
Rebel canners are… frankly, scary. While the Safe Canning crew questions nothing, Rebel Canners live by the credo of “Rules only exist as limitations, and we accept no limitations.”
On the one hand I had a place where I could learn nothing that was not already in the books or on websites because I could ask no questions and on the other hand, I had groups that I feared might legitimately get someone killed.
I read and read. I consumed every bit of information I could get my hands on. I delved into studies decades old, in some cases up to 50 years. I learned that part of why there was no new information on canning was the FDA initially funded research into it, decided they knew all there was to be known and did no more.
In water bath canning, I learned the most important factor was acidity and density. I experimented. And while the rules definitely have reasons, there were ways to bend them. Safely.
Ph test strips became my friend. In and through all of this, the Scorpion peppers slowly shifted to the bottom of the deep freezer, temporarily forgotten.
What about a pepper jelly?
Recipes existed for pepper jellies.
The comments on the recipes were all the same.
“The peppers lose heat and flavor. It’s pretty but I wouldn’t bother with it again.”
The only other option was “Confetti jams” made with brightly colored bell peppers and jalapenos “for flavor.”
There has to be another way, another method.
I don’t think it is a well-known fact, but pepper jellies and jams are a hybrid of a pickle and a jelly.
Peppers are a low acid fruit. They are not safe to water bath can. Pressure canning is not recommended for pectin containing jams or jellies because the extended heat and pressure can destroy the pectin, leading to a jam that will never set.
So, all pepper jelly and jam recipes shared having a white vinegar base.
Which begged the question, what goes wrong? Why is the flavor destroyed? What happens to the heat?
In regular pickles, most of your flavor is in your brine. In pepper jellies and jams, the flavor is in what is going into the brine.
There was the problem.
The extended heat of the cooking and preservation process were destroying the desired flavors and heat before they even had a chance to develop.
After weeks of puzzling over the peculiar question, I set out to make something new, something different.
Armed with a blender, rubber gloves, and banishing my partner and child to the far reaches of our rambling ranch style house, I started the process.
I say started because time was the essential element that everyone was missing.
Those early batches were haphazard and, to be honest, a little frightening because the level of capsaicin in the peppers I was using were enough that the tiniest fleck of pepper missed during cleanup could become a painful lesson days or even a week later. I learned that the “hard way.”
Finding out that water added to pans and other utensils brought the oils up in a fine mist and finding myself nearly unable to breathe while cleaning up from that first batch was another lesson hard won.
Later, I had six tiny jars sitting on my counter. I hadn’t yet tasted them.
They practically glowed and every person that saw them remarked on how beautiful the end product was.
The moment of truth had arrived. My partner was still working in pizza delivery, and he took a jar to the original grower of the peppers.
The verdict was in. If anything, it was hotter than the raw peppers.
The appearance of it was an unexpected challenge. In those early days, more than one person mistook the jam for strawberry or peach. There was no other fruit but peppers in the jam.
That original batch of the jam found its way across the United States. One jar found itself in Louisiana where a 4th generation Cajun uttered the “famous last words” (“I can handle anything”) only to regret them. Two jars made their way out to Oregon.
I never could have imagined that just a few years later I would find myself sitting writing the story of the inception of Inferno jam from the Pacific Northwest.
I have had people beg me for the recipe, try to con me into giving them the recipe. I feared that others might try to sell the idea or sell the product and feared it might even harm people.
I’ve never liked the concept of “secret recipes” and acting like simple steps are something special just because you keep them secret. Usually, it turns out to be something quite simple that makes all the difference. I prefer shared ideas and community and always have.
The truth is my recipe is not difficult and the difference in process is a simple change. Time is the only element that differs.
The secret? Grind up the desired peppers (all parts) in a blender, boil the vinegar, add the peppers to the vinegar. Turn off the heat. Let cool.
Put it in the fridge. Leave it. A few days, a week, the longest I have done was thirteen days and that was the batch that caused a few near medical emergencies.
It’s not necessary to use peppers as hot as I have. I have no reason to believe this technique wouldn’t work with any heat level of pepper. From as low a heat level as jalapenos up to the insanity that is the concoctions I have made; a pepper jam can be any heat you want it to be.
After the “steeping” process, make your jam as directed. That’s it. That’s the secret I’ve kept and now you know it. Please create and consume responsibly.