Glorious Mulberry Jam

Mulberry Jam!  Mulberry Jam!  Mulberry Jam!
I'm super pumped that it's time for mulberries - the ignored and forgotten fruit.
If you want to learn how to identify and locate this fruit, I've already posted about that in my Lakewood Patch blog, Urban Foraging:
http://lakewood-oh.patch.com/groups/urban-foraging/p/marvelous-mulberry

For Spittle and Lawn Grass, I want to talk about some of the health benefits of these lovely berries and about the jam I made!
For starters, they are FULL of antioxidants which are great for lessening the damage caused by free radicals.  These antioxidants come from the anthocyanins, which give fruit (not just the mulberry) it's color.  It is thought that anthocyanins, in addition to helping fight free radicals, are also good for improving eye sight, helping to fight off cancer and to help with overall health improvement.  Sounds good to me!
**while both the fruit and leaves are edible, only the ripe fruit and cooked leaves are used.  Unripe fruit and uncooked leaves are toxic and mildly hallucinogenic.**
Mulberries also contain a significant amount of protein, in addition to vitamin C, iron and potassium.  They make a great pick me up snack for those mid afternoon lulls. 
Mulberries are also great for boosting your immune system, increasing a healthy blood sugar level and in Chinese medicine mulberry is used for inflammation.
One more thing about eating/using mulberries; if you pick them, you'll notice 1. an annoying little green stem that is impossible to remove without destroying the berry and 2. a large amount of seeds.  Both are edible and best left intact.  There is quite a bit of nutrients packed into that little green stem!  I don't even bother with a food mill or cheese cloth when making jam, I leave everything in there.
Mulberries are quite good dried and they make an excellent addition to granola - the seeds will give you a satisfying crunch.

While all the health benefits are well and good (and I certainly appreciate them) my favorite thing about mulberries is making jam! 
The first thing I did was go out and pick my mulberries.  This can be done be either picking them individually off the tree, or placing a tarp down and shaking the branches. 
I then brought the berries home, washed them and began simmering them on the stove with sugar! 
 I brought it to a boil, added some pectin and tada!  Mulberry jam!  I also have plenty of berries in my freezer to make another batch of jam and to add to baked goods later in the year.  I'm thinking a mulberry pie for Thanksgiving.....

This little guy dropped out of the tree when we shook it.  It is a male Clubionid and he was kind enough to stand still so I could get a photograph.  (Clubionids are more commonly known as sac spiders - I'm sure you've seen the yellow sac spider in your house once or twice.  If you look closely, you can see two "boxing gloves" between his front legs.  Those are his pedipalps, which are swollen because they contain sperm.  The females, while they also have pedipalps, they are not swollen.  This is a sure fire way to sex a spider.  Try it next time you see one!)

If you are interested in making your own jam, I used 9 cups of fresh berries to 6 cups of sugar.  I brought it to a rolling boil and added 1 packed (3 oz) of liquid pectin.  I then canned and processed in a hot water bath. 
If you just want to taste and buy the jam already made (pretty please!)  I will be at LEAF Nights 5:30-8pm Thursday nights on the front steps of the main branch of the Lakewood Public Library on Detroit Ave. 
Thanks for reading this!