{"id":820,"date":"2005-08-30T11:17:13","date_gmt":"2005-08-30T18:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/ive_learned_a_new_definition\/"},"modified":"2005-08-30T11:17:13","modified_gmt":"2005-08-30T18:17:13","slug":"ive_learned_a_new_definition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/ive_learned_a_new_definition\/","title":{"rendered":"I’ve Learned a New Definition"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spent the morning cutting up 2.2 pounds of tiny Italian plums. We’re making jam today. The fruit is so tiny that it took me easily two hours to complete the job. Part of that time was devoted to occasional diversions to give my hands a chance to relax.
\nI happened to find Orangette’s<\/a> blog entry on preserving, and decided to follow her instructions for making jam. To the chopped up plums, I’ve added a pound of sugar and the juice from half a lemon. The mixture is to sit for two hours at room temperature to “macerate.”<\/p>\n


\nI generally have a good sense of the definition of words, but now and then I discover that I have totally missed the boat. My mother is the all-time champ in our family for knowing what a word means. We were discussing what “macerate” means, and both of us believed it to mean “chewed” or cut up in some way.
\nWe have the cut up part right, but there is more to the definition. Epicurious.com<\/a> defines it this way:
\n“macerate
\n[MAS-uh-rayt]
\nTo soak a food (usually fruit) in a liquid in order to infuse it with the liquid’s flavor. A spirit such as brandy, rum or a LIQUEUR is usually the macerating liquid. See also MARINATE.”
\nDefinitions from other sites mention softening the fruit, and separating the constituents by soaking, and surely both of those things are necessary to make jam.
\nI suppose we are not technically macerating this fruit. There are no liqueurs involved, and we are not trying to change the flavor of the mixture. But, we are trying to draw the liquid from the plums, so that we can intensify the flavor as we cook the mixture down.
\nSo, I’ve learned a new cooking term, and so have you. I have to go stir the plums, now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spent the morning cutting up 2.2 pounds of tiny Italian plums. We’re making jam today. The fruit is so tiny that it took me easily two hours to complete the job. Part of that time was devoted to occasional … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}