Story time: So I only really like grape jelly for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because it’s seedless. And as a kid, I wanted jam, because jam seemed so much easier to spread on bread. It wasn’t gloppy, it didn’t run down your hands when it slid out of your sandwich. But my mom convinced me that grape jam had parts of the grape (like pulp, skin, seeds) in it. That was the reason I didn’t like strawberry or raspberry jelly/jam. So when I was a teenager, I tried to get jam again, probably because I had forgotten about what she said. Again, my mom was like, “You won’t like it, because it has seeds and skins in it.” So I stayed away from it. Fast forward to this month, when we came home with a jar of seedless raspberry jam from Michigan. I was telling my grandma that this was the first time I was having jam, especially raspberry jam. Being a knowledgeable cook, and a jam connoisseur (ha), she asks why. So I explain that I don’t like anything unless it’s seedless, which is usually just grape jelly, not jam. She looked at me, blinked, and said, “grape jam doesn’t have chunks in it. It’s smoother than jelly.” I looked at my mom (who was sitting next to me). Instead of looking at me, she tells my grandma, “Really? For 26 years I had her convinced. Grape jam is so expensive and she goes through it quick!” This was about 2 weeks ago and I’m still amused that my mom lied to me for years about grape jam. The kicker: today I went to my grandparents’ house and my grandma gave me a jar of grape jam.
