Jam occurs as nature and severity of fruit preserve made by boiling fruit with sugar to make an unfiltered jelly. Jam is typically spread in bread and also as a culinary sweetener, for instance inside yogurt.

A have of cane sugar to make jam & jelly may be traced back to the 16th century when the Spanish came to the West Indies, where it preserved fruit, however a Greek technique of preseving quinces by boiling them inside honey was included in the Roman cookery book associated with a title Apicius.

A proportion of sugar & fruit varies based on datthe from a nature and severity of fruit and its ripeness, however a rough in starting point is equal weights of each. While the mixture reaches a temperature of 104 °C, the acid and the pectin in a fruit react with a sugar, & the jam may assail cooling. But, virtually all cooks function by trial and error, bringing the mixture to the "fast rolling boil", watching to see whenever a upstairs mass changes texture, and dropping midget samples in the shell to view in case it start.

How else well the jam sets depends on the pectin content of the fruit. A few fruits, like gooseberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, citrus fruits, apples and raspberries, set super easily; others, like strawberries and ripe blackberries, need to use at times pectin added. There are proprietary pectin products on the market, & virtually all industrially-produced blocks utilise the two. Front yard jam-makers periodically depend on adding a pectin-rich fruit to the unfortunate setter; hence the popular old favorite blackberry & apple. More tricks include extracting fluids from either redcurrants or even gooseberries. Making jam home utilized to exist as commons, however a practice is declining, & a accessories, particularly a cellophane covers for jam jars, are becoming additional hard to locate inside a select few locations.

In the United States, jam which has been filtered to remove pulp and make it clear is known as jelly. Jam which has completely pieces of fruit is known as preserves, or conserves if it has nuts as well. Jam using fruit peel is known as marmalade.

In the European Union, the jam directive (Council Directive 79/693/EEC, 24 July 1979) set minimal standards for the total of "fruit" within jam, however a definition of fruit was expanded to require account of many unusual rather jam manufactured in the EU. For this purpose, "fruit" is considered to include numerous items that are non normally classified when fruits: "tomatoes, the edible parts of rhubarb stalks, carrots, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, melons and water-melons". This definition continues to use in the fresh directive, Council Directive 2001/113/EC (20 December 2001).

Joan Miró used blackberry jam as an art medium.