Photos and interview by Stacie Joy
Every summer, there's a brief window — just a few weeks — to make sour-cherry jam.
Because sour cherries are so delicate and their season is so fleeting, many home cooks wait all year for the opportunity. For longtime East Village resident Gab Schueler, it's become an annual ritual.
I first tasted her homemade jam during the pandemic, when she included a jar with one of the llama-print COVID masks she was making for essential workers.
Curious about the labor-intensive process, I recently visited her kitchen to see how it's done.
Can you share what led you to start making sour-cherry jam?
The day before the COVID lockdown, Dan Sweeney at 11th Street Bar had just received a delivery of beautiful citrus that he wasn't going to be able to use, so he gave it away to everyone who'd stopped in for one last drink.
I was inspired to make marmalade (I think I'd had some recently), and it turned out OK. I didn't get botulism.
Around the same time, I was reading chef and author David Lebovitz's blog regularly and came across his recipe for sour-cherry jam. I love cherries and decided to try it when cherry season came around. It also turned out OK! Actually, it was really delicious, not too difficult to make and didn't require any special equipment.
What recipe do you follow, and do you adjust it or tinker with it in any way?
This is the recipe I follow (link).
The main way I've changed it is to omit the almond extract, kirsch or amaretto because the sour-cherry flavor is really good on its own, without any distractions. I also reduce the sugar slightly.
What is the process like, from acquiring the sour cherries to the finished jam?
It's like being on a mission because the sour-cherry season is really short — around three weeks from the end of June into early July. This year I was a little late, so the fruit was a little past its best, but still good.
Because sour cherries are so soft and highly perishable, they can't sit for very long.
I buy them at the Union Square Greenmarket when I know I'll have time to make the jam within two or three days.
Pitting the cherries is the only part of the process that's unique to the fruit. In Germany, everyone seems to have a cherry-pitting tool because cherries are so plentiful and celebrated when the season comes around.
I didn't have a specialized tool, so I looked online and found multiple people using an unbent paperclip. It works surprisingly well.
Standing at the sink and pitting the cherries one at a time becomes almost meditative once you get the hang of it.
The cooking part mostly consists of standing around, stirring, and anticipating the delicious result — nothing too tricky there.
What do you do with your jam?
I usually give jars away to family and friends, spreading the appreciation for sour-cherry jam. I eat it on yogurt or ice cream — or straight from the spoon.
You mentioned making other fruit jams. Can you elaborate?
Once I realized that jam could be made without an elaborate canning process — which sounds so daunting and error-prone — I became much more relaxed about simmering fruit with sugar and a bit of lemon juice, then keeping it in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks until it's used up.
I've made citrus marmalade (the best was with blood oranges), as well as strawberry, raspberry and peach jams. The homemade version tastes much more like the fruit than industrially produced jams.
What would you say to aspiring home cooks about jam-making?
If you're also concerned about accidentally breeding botulism, give this method a try! It doesn't require any special equipment. You can reuse jars from store-bought items. You don't have to make enough to survive the winter. Try it with a few peaches or a pint of berries, and you'll probably end up with a jar or two.
If you like the result, experiment with different fruits. I really hope people will give it a try while summer fruit is in season.
