An Italian jam made from a rare varietal that comes as close as one can get to replicating the complex flavors of wild strawberries!
We’ve been big fans of Agrimontana preserves pretty much since our earliest days in business back in the ’80s. Using only the best fruit from their home region of Piedmont, in Italy’s northwest, everything I’ve ever tasted from them has been excellent. As American Spoon Foods does with Michigan fruit, Agrimontana does with the amazing bounty of the Italian Alps. Like American Spoon, all their jams are 60-70% fruit, which means less sugar, less sweet, and more flavor of the actual fruit.
The Mara des Bois is a special varietal that was bred to recreate the delicate aroma and flavor of wild strawberries. It was developed after many years of experimenting by third-generation Loire Valley plant breeder Jacques Marionnet in 1991. It works well—the jam is a jewel! If you like strawberry jam, this is a great one to put on your must-try list! While the yield is low, the flavor is high, which makes the jam especially excellent! Aislinn at the Deli, it turns out, loves it as much as Tammie does. Give it a try—you too might find yourself enchanted with this jar of preserves that might easily be missed on the Deli’s jam-packed shelves.
The Mara de Bois strawberry preserves are obviously excellent on toast, or terrific if you bring home half a dozen of those Roadhouse Buttermilk Biscuits (made all the better a couple of months back when we started making them with the Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter; one guest told me the other evening, “I’m from the South and that’s the best biscuit I’ve ever had!”). The jam is great with the Georgia Grinders Almond Butter or Hazelnut Butter. I love it in a jam omelet with the Creamery’s Cream Cheese, or a Jamwich—a toasted Zinglish muffin, Creamery Cream Cheese, the Mara de Bois jam, and then some sliced fresh local strawberries on top of that! Spoon some into one of those crazy good Butter Croissants from the Bakehouse or on top of their Rhubarb Cheesecake. Or serve it alongside slices of the Summer Fling Coffee Cake I wrote about above! To be honest, I think Tammie mostly just sticks a spoon in the jar and eats it as is!
