While my mother has been enjoying the fruits (both literally and figuratively) of her canning labours for over a year now, I have not participated until this summer. It has always seemed very strange and difficult to me, and if I have learned one thing, it is that it is not either of those things. A few days ago we went into our local cottage grocery store and found extraordinarily affordable peaches. We bought a basket of them, and mom spent an hour peeling and cutting them into a bowl, ready to be made into jam. While they were sitting on the counter, a spice jar fell out of the cupboard, landing on the lip of the bowl and showering our lovely peaches with paprika and broken glass. Out went the peaches, and out I went - to the grocery store, to buy more peaches!

Peaches are a wonderful fruit - when they are ripe, their fuzzy skin peels off easily and their juices drip down your face and clothes. Out of season peaches that have been flown from another hemisphere are so hard and tasteless that it is not even worth eating them, even ignoring the environmental issues with getting them her. So, to enjoy peaches all year long, we must preserve them! I will admit that I would never have chosen this recipe myself. I have never really had chutney before, and reading the recipe, I thought I would never will. Raisins? Vinegar in a fruit preserve? This all sounded too strange to me. But I was ready to try it. In the end, this proved to be an extremely easy and astoundingly delicious recipe. A few of our jars didn't seal properly, so we took one and just ate the chutney with a spoon while we played a game of cards. I almost think it's too delicious to waste on meats, as chutneys are meant - this would be good on toast, spooned over ice cream, or (as we proved) eaten straight out of the jar!

We made a few changes to the recipe out of necessity - our grocery store stocked neither golden raisins nor mustard seeds, so we used regular raisins and pickling spice (which is primarily mustard seeds, and had enough cloves in it as well). We also used white vinegar instead of cider, to avoid having to purchase another bottle.

INGREDIENTS