Fay is a native of Columbia and Raleigh, NC. She grew up in the Columbia area with parents and grandparents making jams among other home grown fruits and vegetables they grew and canned. She married, travelled and lived in various places while making Raleigh her family home. She was a reading teacher @Raleigh and now retired. She is still trekking to her Mom’s beach area in NC to continue their family tradition of canning with her Mon and sisters and extended family. Always fun to get her family recipes. Hope you enjoy. If you have a special recipe please share!
thedailylily.com 
Thanks for sharing Fay’s recipes, Sara. I really enjoyed reading about her as well as the family’s tradition of growing and canning!
I have a fig tree and on years when it produces, try to can some fig preserves. I use a recipe from a book that I just love that also tells family stories and provides recipes. Sara gave it to me a few years ago. It is called, “Preserving Our Roots – My Journey to Save Seeds and Stories” by John Coykendall with Christina Melton. It is similar to Fay’s recipe (uses a sliced lemon like her grandmother) but calls for 4 cups of sugar to 10 pounds of figs which means I always have to weigh the figs. So, I am going to try Fay’s recipe next time I make them because then I can use the proportions/ratio she provides and just measure in cups. I also picked up a good tip in her recipe that I recall my grandmother doing…prepping the jars in a warm oven (rather than me filling them with boiling water and letting them sit until ready to fill). Thanks, Fay!
Fay’s strawberry preserve recipe sounded good, also. That brought back some memories of my grandmother making strawberry preserves when I would go visit her as a child. I remember she would put hot wax on the top of the jar that would seal them and help them keep. I have some strawberry plants but never seem to get enough at one time to make preserves!
Thanks again, for the ‘fun’ of seeing these family recipes and the stories that go with them.
Reading about the blog here brought about the memories in my mind of my grandmother Furlough. She seemed to always have canned preserves, jams and jellies and vegetables. 🥰
As we think about those warm comfortable days when we would visit from home to home in our communities and jams and preserves were served with homemake hot biscuits. It seemed each home had homemade hot biscuits yet they were all different. So few ingredients yet they all came out of the oven just a little different. One could always id the biscuits by the touch of the baker’s hand. Biscuits and jam by Tammy’s Grand was a treat never to be forgotten.
I heard an ad recently about a 6 week program to air soon, “breaking Bread” together. The author tells how from culture to culture as he visited it made the difference when the bread was served. The art of breaking bread together. When Fay shared her recipes I thought about how the title of the series captured my imagination. Homemade jam and biscuits took me back to the beauty of shared bread and prayers for one another.
When we study the life of Jesus it seemed he often broke bread and enjoyed figs with others.
Maybe we would understand one another better and love of neighbor would be the result.
“And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.””
I Peter 4:8 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/1pe.4.8.NKJV
“And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Matthew 22:39 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/mat.22.39.NKJV
There is even more to think about sharing our biscuits and jam.
Sara wrote above, “When we study the life of Jesus it seemed he often broke bread and enjoyed figs with others.” And then… “There is even more to think about sharing our biscuits and jam.”
Sara put sharing into action and shared some of Faye’s fig preserves that she received with me. Sampling them, I found them sweeter than I am used to (at least to my taste buds). And they were a different texture (more fine) as well. Now, for background, the only figs I grew up on were Fig Newtons! Fresh figs and fig preserves were not something my family grew, bought, served or canned to my best recollection. So, I am not a fig connoisseur by any means!
About 20 years ago I was doing a landscape consultation for someone in my county. While on his property he showed me a large fig tree. I was pretty amazed as I did not know they grew in my area… I thought it was too cold. He said someone gifted him with cuttings from their fig and he grew them and planted his ‘tree’ on a protected side of his house and has been getting figs ever since. In winter when the tree was dormant, he brought a big bundle of fig cuttings to the school where I taught and had a greenhouse for students. He suggested we try to root and grow them. We were able to successfully grow them and sell most at our Spring Plant Sale. I brought a small plant home and planted it in a protected location beside my house. It grew well and has produced figs for many years. As it grew larger and produced more figs, we could not eat them all, so I started making fig preserves and canning them. Some years they were sweeter than others (which could contribute also for my preserves being less sweet than Fay’s). One year the winter was so bad I thought it died, so I chain sawed it down! It is a survivor, though, and came back to produce figs 2 years later. Last year was a rough winter for it and so was the dry summer…not many good figs to be had and no preserves.
So, I was quite happy to be able to sample Fay’s! And Sara even shared some Mexican Table Cream to pour over it which Faye had told her about. That combo lessened the sweetness for me. I have also tried it mixed in with plain yogurt and it definitely improves that yogurt taste!
I think why it may seem too sweet to me is because I have always made mine with lemons…so that probably adds a tartness which I grew accustomed to.
The recipe I have used the last couple of years, has a different sugar to fig ratio from Fay’s. Hers is a 2 part sugar to 1 part fig. Mine is not a simple ratio as it calls for 10 pounds figs to 4 cups sugar (and I read online that 1 pound generally equals 2 cups). I’m not good at math, but it looks like hers calls for more sugar than mine.
Here’s the recipe I use.
10 # fresh figs, stems removed
4 cups sugar
1 medium lemon sliced
In a large container, pour sugar over figs and let sit overnight in the refrigerator.
The next day, sterilize 10 pint-sized glass jars and lids. Transfer fig mixture and lemon slices to a large pot and cook over low heat until fruit syrup is thick, about 3 hours. Stir every once in a while.
Pour hot preserves into sterilized jars and seal according to manufacturer’s directions.
(if I don’t have 10# of figs at one time, I reduce the proportions accordingly)
Recipe from “Preserving Our Roots – My Journey to Save Seeds and Stories” by John Coykendall with Christina Melton.
I do like trying new foods and tastes so I was grateful for Fay’s fig preserves. Now, if I can get enough strawberries from my little strawberry patch next year, I will try making her strawberry preserve recipe (if I don’t get enough, maybe I will just have to buy some!).
I live in the same area as Debi and I have a fig bush. This year I only got what might be called a handful of figs. They were terrible. They had no taste snd seem like they were watery.
I have had in past years very sweet tasting figs from this same bush. So, I believe each year figs can taste different. That must make fig jam taste different. Just my thoughts from experience.
I didn’t think the jam too sweet at all. I, love sweet figs. I should also add that I had fresh figs from Costco twice this year and they, too were tasteless.
It has been an interesting year for figs for me. My thoughts eastern NC still grows those sweet figs from my childhood memories.