Lingonberry jam

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Lingonberry jam is a staple of Scandinavian cuisine. Due to the facts that lingonberries are plentiful in the poor forested areas of the inland and that the jam is easy to prepare and has exceptionally good keeping qualities and is a source of vitamine C, it has always been very popular with all kinds of plain food, such as kroppkakor, pitepalt, potato cake, kåldolmar and blood sausage. Today it is served both as jam with cereal or pancakes, and as a relish with meat courses such as Swedish meatballs, beef stew, liver dishes, and regionally even fried herring. It has also been used to sweeten the traditional oatmeal porridge. It is less commonly used as marmalade on toast. It is also delicious on vanilla ice cream.

Fine lingonberry jam is prepared only with berries, sugar and a small amount of water. Cheaper varieties are diluted with apples and/or pectin. The natural benzoic acid of the berries makes artificial preservatives unnecessary. Very fine jam is prepared fresh without cooking by just mixing berries and sugar.