Not only are raspberries usually available for my birthday dessert in July, but they have played a key role in my life.
When I was about 8 or 9, I had learned in school about “vacations.” I wanted to go on one during our summer months off from school, but Dad could not take time off, and so Mom pacified me by telling me that I could stay at Gra’ma’s house for an over-night, but I would have to make myself useful and help her pick her berries.
Eagerly I agreed. Helping Gra’ma was always a pleasure, but best of all, I’d get to have a real vacation. Maybe not exactly like I read about in books, where whole families would go to stay at a seaside resort for a week, or go camping in tents, but it would do for me.
Gra’ma Kroeker allowed me to chatter and ask questions while we picked, and I was a very good picker when it came to the gooseberries, the currents and the olbassum berries. We picked most of the morning, and then after a light lunch and a little nap, we would sit out on the shady side of the house and sort through the berries, and de-stem them before they were ready for rinsing and turning into preserves.
Gra’ma praised me for being such a good helper. Until we got to the raspberries. I had not cared for the sour berries, but these were delicious and I kept popping every other handful I picked into my mouth. For this, Gra’ma scolded me gently. I tried hard to be good, but every once in a while I had to have another taste!
Skip ahead to my teens, and though we lived in town, Mom often insisted that I help pick the berries, and make the jams and preserves for our own family. It was work. I would rather go off to read.
Skip ahead again some 20 years, and I found myself moved back at home to care for Mom in her poor health and older years. She still had the whole backyard as a garden, and of course, raspberry canes. She would go out to check over the garden and come back huffing with the exertion and say, “Ruth, it’s time to pick the raspberries!”
Obediently I’d put on the insect repellent, dress in a long-sleeved shirt, and head out with a pail to pick the berries. It seemed like work, but once I got among the canes I began to enjoy myself again. Now I was better able to resist snacking on them as I picked, and I found myself remembering Mom’s rules; pick thoroughly, check deeper in the clump of canes, and lift up the lower branches too. At the height of the season I’d have to go inside to exchange my full pail for an empty one.
Immediately Mom got busy at the table with the full pail of berries on her lap, sorting and de-stemming any that needed it.
Of course, there was also the stage where I had to make raspberry jam, but ONLY in her way.
Once the raspberries were rinsed and put into the jam pot (a large dutch oven pot), I would add a bit of water so they wouldn’t burn, and stirred them with a long-handled spoon. It would only take a couple of minutes for the berries to get all mushy.
Then I took them off the element, and ladled them with an enamel cup into a sieve that fit over a tall juice pitcher. With a spoon I stirred the pulp until only the seeds were left in the sieve. I spooned them out into the pot lid to throw away, and put in the next cup full of pulp.
When all done, I rinsed out the pot again, and measured the juice back into the pot to see how many cups full we had. That was the number of cups of sugar I had to put in next.
Now it was important to stand by that pot and NOT go away for a second. With the berry juice and sugar turned up on high, I had to stand there and stir vigorously and rhythmically. Mom would sit nearby watching. She’d ask, “Is it boiling yet?”
As soon as I reported that yes, there were bubbles rolling on the surface, she would look at her watch and start timing. Four minutes later she would ask me to lift the spoon in the air and watch the drips. If they were elongated drips and took a while to drop from the spoon, she knew the jam was made. I could turn off the heat, and skim the foam into a shallow jam dish for the table.
That four minute trick was something she learned from her mother-in-law, my Grandma Friesen, when she was a new bride. It never failed her. Four minutes at a rolling boil guaranteed a jam that would jell and turn quite stiff once cold.
The rest of the jam I had to ladle into clean, sterilized pint jars, and put on the rubber ring and the glass and the tin lids.
Do you realize that when I wrote my novel, I had to insert some kitchen scenes like that? Such canning procedures for cherries, peaches, or whatever, were so ingrained in me from my growing up years, that to make a family appear to be an authentic Mennonite family from the Saskatchewan prairies, I had to add some preserving scenes. Not exactly the raspberry one above, but definitely like that.
In my novel, Ruthe’s Secret Roses, the heroine’s friend June is staying with them when it is such a time in the summer. She had never experienced anything like it. Ruthe had to negotiate as a go-between her mother and June, to keep the peace.
This book isn’t just for teens. If such scenes appeal to you, even if you are a grandmother with memories of your own, I think you ought to read this book. 
To read sample chapters of my first novel online, start at the index
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