The scent of starfruit in the garden

Starfruit jam has a reddish-brown color. Photo: Dieu Thong

I waited for her to give me errands, busily helping with this and that, and also felt proud that she trusted me enough to let me taste those tiny slices of starfruit jam for the first time.

The starfruit tree in the corner of the garden isn't very tall, its leaves are dark green, and it flowers and bears fruit twice a year. When the rainy season arrives, the clusters of starfruit begin to accumulate water, falling to the ground and attracting swarms of insects that buzz around day and night. Occasionally, I see my grandmother go out into the garden, peering up at the plump, round clusters of starfruit hanging heavily on the branches.

When the incessant rains stop, the air clears, and the garden gradually dries out, she will "get to work" clearing the weeds to prepare for planting crops for the upcoming Tet holiday.

First, she gathered the fallen starfruit, which were giving off a slightly sour smell, and put them all into a bag. Next, she used a machete to clear away the leaves and branches that were weighed down by the prolonged rain. Finally, she carefully picked the clusters of ripe, yellow starfruit, hanging low above her head, and brought them inside to prepare starfruit jam for her grandchildren to enjoy throughout the rainy season.

To make jam, any unripe or overripe starfruit are discarded. She soaks the ripening yellow starfruit in a diluted lime water mixture overnight. The next morning, as the sun casts a pale yellow veil over the courtyard, she sets up a small chair beside a basin of water and meticulously peels the edges, slices the starfruit lengthwise, and then washes them thoroughly.

To squeeze out the sour juice, she wiped the outside of a glass bottle clean and rubbed it back and forth over each starfruit segment. When the juice had seeped out and the starfruit flesh had dried out, she put it in a bowl and mixed it with sugar. She covered the bowl with a thin tulle screen to keep out flies and then took the batch of starfruit out to the yard, placing it again in the sun to wait for the sugar to dissolve.

Starfruit segments are separated and briefly dried in the sun. Photo: Dieu Thong

Simmering the starfruit is perhaps the most important and laborious step. To ensure the jam is evenly absorbed, she patiently stirs the batch of starfruit that has begun to release its fragrant aroma. She maintains a slow, steady pace to avoid damaging the delicate starfruit segments.

She instructed: "To prevent the starfruit from burning and to allow the sugar to fully absorb the flavor, the cook must keep the heat low. If the heat is too high, the sugar will quickly thicken and burn while the starfruit segments haven't yet reached the desired consistency and chewiness."

When the jam turned a reddish-brown color, she added a little finely chopped ginger to enhance the aroma and warmth, helping her grandchildren feel less hungry during the cold winter days.

I've tasted many homemade jams before, but my grandmother's starfruit jam offered a truly unique flavor. While ginger jam is spicy, papaya and carrot jam is intensely sweet, and young coconut jam is chewy and rich, starfruit jam has a mild sweetness mixed with a refreshing sourness. What I enjoyed most was the lingering, chewy aftertaste from the starfruit seeds mixed in with the translucent segments.

This morning, I noticed that her back seemed to have become even more hunched, and the starfruit trees in the garden suddenly appeared taller than she could reach with her arm…

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/huong-khe-trong-vuon-3142985.html