It’s been a hot minute…or rather, it’s been close to two years, but for 2020, we’re bringing back Jelly of the Month Club one more time, in an effort to finally make it through 12 full installments.
To backfill the January edition of this achievement, we chose a jelly we picked up while we were out in California last spring: the dark and chunky the girl & the fig Black Mission Fig Jam.
the girl & the fig is a Sonoma-based restaurant that also has a line of fig-based products, such as the jam we are about to evaluate.
As per usual, our pup Layla Grace got the first taste. The photo is blurry because she was positively tweaking with anticipation.
The jam certainly passed the LG test…now it was our turn to render a verdict.
Since it’s been a minute, a reminder on how we rate jellies. Basically…we let Layla taste them (see above), and then we try the jelly ourselves in a couple different contexts. We have the jelly with peanut butter on Ritz crackers, and also by itself on a bread of some kind.
This year, we’re going with mini-bagels.
And then we evaluate the jelly on a five-metric Jelly-Jam Quality Scale. Here’s how this Black Mission Fig Jam rated:
color: 2.5. The color was kind of muddy, honestly–dark enough that it was actually hard to photograph it in a flattering light.
flavor: 3.5. It was earthy; very earthy. It tasted pretty good plain, but it really didn’t work with peanut butter. We disliked that combo enough that we scrounged around for an alternative pairing, and found that it works decently with a sharp cheddar. This might make it onto our charcuterie board later in the year during a Cheese of the Month Club post.
jelly-ness: 2.5. This was extremely chunky out of the jar. You really had to smash the contents of the jar down yourself to make it spreadable.
jar presentation: 4. We liked the simple, clean art on the jar and the information about the jam as well.
awesomeness: 3. This jelly was very particular, not an all-around team player. It was really good in the right setting, but we didn’t find it to be all that versatile.
So, I think we’re off to a bit of a middling start, but they can’t all be home runs. What’s important is that this feature is back up and running, and we’re pumped to rebound with the February installment!