Jam sessions

Emily Myers and Gina Bodell, the women who make Emily G’s Jam of Love, are debating the merits of muscadines over scuppernongs while they work in their tiny leased commercial kitchen.

“Muscadines are high in polyphenols, an anti-cancer agent,” Myers says. It’s routine kitchen banter as the stay-at-home moms-turned-jam entrepreneurs work whenever their children are in preschool, with their dads or in bed. Myers and Bodell spend a good amount of time here, experimenting with flavors, fine-tuning jam-based recipes and cooking to order their homemade condiments, which are sold online, at summer farmers markets and at a few Atlanta retailers. The jams come in seasonal flavors as familiar as strawberry and as way-out as garlic and thyme, cabernet sauvignon, and fig and pine nut.

Other topics that come up while they work include the slow food movement, why it’s more important to buy local than organic and how to talk to tech support people about calibrating a pH meter.

For anyone who didn’t have a grandmother who “put up,” the old-timey way to can and preserve the garden’s bounty by slow-cooking fruits and vegetables and sealing them in jars with paraffin, you probably know jam from the bright purple Smucker’s on a PB&J. But this is a whole other universe.

The jams are made from local produce, and flavors are created based on season and supply. Myers and Bodell have visited the farms where most of the ingredients are grown. Each jam is minimally cooked to bring out the most flavor from the fruits and vegetables. They’re poured by hand, jar by jar, then processed in a low-heat water bath.

The jams are all-natural, fresh and conscientiously packaged, right down to the cornstarch packing peanuts the jars are shipped in —- just dump them on your lawn and wait for the rain.

One might have certain preconceptions about people who produce food as precious as this. But when the topic of feeding preschoolers comes up, the culinary high-mindedness takes a detour: “My daughter won’t eat a chicken nugget unless it’s shaped like a dinosaur,” Myers admits without a trace of guilt.

Myers and Bodell are building a business out of a personal philosophy that seems to be sticking: Create a product where you will not compromise your standards. Market it as a treat and a time-saver, especially to other foodie moms looking for high-quality staples to feed their families. Then, don’t lose sleep, money, your sense of humor or time you could be spending with your kids over the small stuff.

“I have a real issue with people who make food pretentious,” Myers says. “I don’t think anyone needs to stand up and say we shouldn’t be eating this or we shouldn’t be eating that. But I do think there’s an argument to be made over spending more on smaller amounts of higher-quality items.”

And as with a rare record album or out-of-print book, part of the allure is keeping the jams in a regional niche. “We don’t want to be picked up by Whole Foods,” Bodell says. “If someone picks up a jar of jam in California and sees that it’s made with Georgia peaches, they probably won’t care as much as they would if they bought it here.”

One local retailer sees it the same way. Westside Garden Market, at 1954 Howell Mill Road, put samples out for customers before deciding to sell the jams in-store. Now it sells 60 jars per month.

“Our customers want to know where products are made and what they’re made with,” says manager Majid Elmaliki. “Anything that’s made locally, that’s what really sells.”

Emily G’s started with a play date when the two Dunwoody neighborhood acquaintances took their children to Washington Farms in Loganville to go strawberry picking.

“We picked until we looked like we were dyed red,” Myers recalls. And with all those berries, they made jam, giving it away to friends and neighbors to rave reviews and requests for more. “It was a lark, a fluke, a hobby that grew into a job,” Bodell says.

Emily G’s officially began last May, and since then, the women say, the business has amassed a following, especially among fans of the popular Jalapeno Raspberry, Tomato and Triple Berry flavors. Their original recipe, Strawberry, continues to sell out, too.

To keep up with repeat customers, Myers and Bodell can churn out about 200 jars of jam in a day, made in small batches.

“We thought we would be selling 20 jars a week,” Myers says. “Since May, we’ve sold 5,000.”

Attribute part of their success to rethinking the purpose of jam. Bodell, who has a professional background in finance, developed most of Emily G’s recipes, which were recently compiled in a cookbook; some are available online.

The jams are used as recipe concentrates that easily yield dishes like pork chops with fig glaze, salmon with wine and mustard, pot roast with carrot marmalade, champagne-poached pears with honey, and creamed spinach with garlic and thyme. They take minutes to prep, and ingredient lists are generally kept to less than 10 items.

Sometimes “thinking outside the jar,” as Emily G’s motto goes, is as easy as smearing cranberry jam over chicken and baking it. “When I think of making a jam, I have to come up with at least three things you can do with it,” Bodell says, which generally includes using the spreads as marinades, salad dressings or sauces or considering how they’d taste over brie, cream cheese or Gorgonzola.

“All these recipes make you look like a rock star, and they’re so easy,” she says.

Developing flavors may be the biggest challenge. Cucumber, for example, may have not been destined to be in a jam, but when the chemistry is right, the result is so far beyond store-bought that it’s almost supernatural.

Making jam is “half science, half art,” Myers says, holding up a rose-gold jar of Champagne Currant to the light.

Where to buy:

Market on Main Street, 2343 Main St., Tucker; Westside Garden Market, 1954 Howell Mill Road, Atlanta; Broadwell Cottage, 765 Mid-Broadwell Road, Crabapple; Shear Salon, 3580 Pierce St., Suite 140, Chamblee. Order online at www.emilygs.com and have jam shipped or pick up orders Wednesday mornings at Spruill Art Gallery, 4681 Ashford-Dunwoody Road.

Available flavors:

Triple Berry, Blueberry, Carrot Marmalade, Jalapeno Raspberry, Apple Pie, Cranberry, Garlic and Thyme, Cabernet Sauvignon, Champagne Currant, Pear Honey, Roasted Red Pepper, Rhubarb Marmalade. Taking preorders for Chocolate Cherry, available in February only. Look for a full Valentine’s Day menu of recipes on the Web site.

Look forward to:

Strawberry, Watermelon, Mango Tango, Tomato, Fig Pine Nut, Red Zinfandel, Pinot Grigio, Peach Blackberry, Yellow Pepper, Scuppernong and Santa Jam (plus Pomegranate Orange Jam, available at Christmas only).

Cost:

$5.50-$8 per 8-ounce jar