One of the most expensive jams in the world is made from currants seeded with goose feathers.

The currants are cored by hand with a goose feather to make the jam. Image provided by the company. They call it 'the caviar of jams' for its price, 23 euros per 100 grams, and for its appearance: made with red, white (25 euros) or pink currants (26 euros), a fruit small and round that gives the Maison Dutriez jam an appearance and texture similar to that of the coveted roe. Of the tiny and annoying seeds of the gooseberries, not a trace: Dutriez jam is made by removing the seeds, one by one, using an ancient technique. This gooseberry jam, made in the northeast of France, is one of the most expensive in the world. world, without the need to carry gold leaf or long-aged liquors, as happens in some limited editions. “The currants come from orchards in the Meuse, Bar-le-Duc and surrounding areas, and I buy them from individuals,” explains Anne Dutriez.More informationTo grow currants, explains the confectioner, “the plant must be cut into a cup shape.” . Apart from this detail, not much more is needed: “This shrub is very resistant!” The harvest of currants is done in the months of June and July and «they need to be picked in whole bunches, which requires a lot of patience.»Currant jams, from Maison Dutriez. Image provided by the company.WAMBACH Daniel (DR)The first step revealed in this secret procedure is to seed the currants. “I hand the currants to the ginners—people specialized in this job—and they, in turn, return them to me clean so that I can transform them into jam without wasting a minute,” explains Dutriez. They do it armed with a goose feather, which they insert into the currant with delicacy and skill to extract the small, hard seed of this fruit in which vitamin C and K are abundant. Why do they continue to gin by hand? “I perpetuate a centuries-old tradition and only we are left,” says Dutriez, who explains that this jam has existed since at least 1344. “It was a very precious gift among the nobility of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,” explains Sarah. B. Hood in Jam, Jelly and Marmalade (Reaktion Books, 2021), where he says that royals, such as Queen Mary, were consumers of this jam. Maison Dutriez is the successor to A la Lorraine, founded in 1879. “My father bought it from Mr. Amiable, who in turn had bought the last jam factories after the Second World War.”Anne Dutriez, owner of the family business that makes this jam. Image provided by the company. In the same way that Dutriez describes, the meticulous pitting process is recorded in the brief article that the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts dedicated to him in 1916: “Each fruit is taken between the fingers of one hand and the seeds are removed with the tip of a very sharp goose feather. The work is astonishingly difficult and requires considerable skill acquired after much practice.” Dutriez confirms this: “The apprentice ginners gin 1 kilo of currants in 15 hours, while the experienced ginners do the same amount in an hour and a half or 2 hours. Every season we manufacture 5,000 100-gram jars.” Most of the workers are women, although sometimes one or two men are also in charge of ginning the currants. Out of season, the ginners work as caregivers or are in charge of running their home. “In addition, it is the only way to have the whole fruits to put them in the sugar syrup,” says the confectioner. A syrup that will be, according to the note dedicated to it by the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, “much higher in sugar than in the usual jellies and jams, since the jam boils for a short time in order to avoid softening too much.” currants – this could cause them to lose their attractive appearance, which is a highlight of this specialty, seeing the whole berry through the glass of the jar.”The currants are cored by hand with a goose feather. Image provided by the company. Dutriez jams are only sold in its store in Bar-le-Duc, in other establishments in the city, a store in Nancy and another in Paris. At the moment, they have not yet arrived in Spain, but they can be purchased online. You can follow EL PAÍS Gastro on Instagram and x.