70 years of jam making tradition: a solid base to guarantee the taste and quality of our jams!

The tradition is very often a respected value, in all the fields and all the countries. Inheritance, guarantee of know-how or on the contrary a solid base for innovation, in France the tradition remains a guarantee of gustative quality, of competences on the choice of the ingredients and recipes, of confidence in the work of the craftsmen and producers.
It is for all these reasons that we value seniority in a profession.

So what are 70 years of making artisanal jams worth?
What have we learned and kept from the tradition to cook today your excellent jams?
How does this benefit the satisfaction of your customers?

We invite you to explore with us 70 years of tradition of cooking artisanal jams the French way!

Why choose traditional know-how to make your jams ? 

It is not uncommon to mention Nostradamus when talking about jam tradition! He would be the first jam maker to have left a written trace of jam recipes… That’s how far back the jam tradition goes!

At Maison Andrésy we respect tradition. We are recognized for that by the French State and the Ministry of Agriculture thanks to the distinction Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant.
We practice a conscious tradition thanks to 70 years of jam making: traditional practices that are justified and relevant.

• A selection of fruits adapted to the cooking in jam: during our 70 years of jam making, we learned which varieties and which fruit soils were the best to make jams. According to the thickness of their skin, their gustatory notes, their resistance to the heat of the jamming, etc.
• A selection of quality orchards and arboriculturists: trusted partners who produce good ingredients, it is invaluable to make good jams!
• The maintenance of the copper basin for all our cooking: an essential tradition of jams, whose relevance has been verified at each cooking since 1952. And we have made thousands of them!
• The basis of traditional recipes: because the traditions of our grandmothers’ artisanal jam recipes have taught us solid qualitative bases to innovate and always adapt to the needs of the consumers

Which essential profession was born from 70 years of making artisanal jams the French way? The “cooker” of course! 

Making jams for 70 years, it allows to acquire expertise and know-how!
We wanted to professionalize this experience and to perpetuate it in a trade: the trade of preparation of fruit and cooking.

Today, it is a demanding and qualified job at Maison Andrésy that requires 6 months to 1 year of continuous training, with the quality department or in tutoring with a professional baker.

Working as a fruit preparation and cooking specialist at Maison Andrésy means :

• Knowing what preparation each fruit requires in order to successfully cook it into jam
• Knowing a book of more than 500 different regular recipes of artisanal jams
• Knowing how to respect standard quality criteria for our brands or personalized to each customer brand
• To know how to react with relevance and autonomy: when to alert the quality department if a fruit or a recipe reacts in a particular way!

In short, a job as demanding as your customers!

A traditional and necessary tool in jam making: the copper basin

The copper basin to cook jams: a relevant tradition or a legend?

At the beginning of the 1950s, when our jam factory in the Yvelines (78), France, was born, the question of whether or not to use a copper basin to cook jams did not even arise!
With the advent of modern materials in the kitchen, resistant, hygienic, less expensive, multiple alternatives for jam making have emerged: stainless steel cauldrons, Teflon-coated utensils, closed cooking balls, etc.

However, at Maison Andrésy, your artisanal jam manufacturer, we firmly believe in the tradition of cooking jams in copper basins. Why do we do this?
Because this tradition makes sense!
It is relevant to guarantee the taste of artisanal jams thanks to a successful and respectful jamming of the fruits.

And if we were to play a game of TRUE or FALSE on this essential tool for the cooking of artisanal jams that is the copper basin?

• The copper basin can be replaced by a modern material without loss of quality: stainless steel, a utensil covered with non-stick material like Teflon, etc.
  FALSE! Copper is a material full of natural properties that are essential for optimal cooking of jams. The most important one is that it distributes the heat evenly, for a homogeneous cooking that respects the taste properties of the fruit. The use of copper also guarantees the right cooking time: perfectly adapted to each fruit jam, neither too little nor too long.
• It doesn’t matter what shape or size, as long as the pan is made of copper
  FALSE! The round shape and the right size of the copper pan are important for the quality of the jam recipes. For example, a square pan forces you to scrape the fruit sideways, from front to back, to mix it and damage it, reducing it to a puree. A bowl that is too large also reduces the quality of the jams: the fruits in too large quantities are crushed by each other, and the jam is less homogeneous.
• Copper is a material with antiseptic properties, useful for the conservation of artisanal jams.
  TRUE! But not sufficient: if it is true that copper has antiseptic properties, which can support the good conservation of food cooked in copper utensils, the only use of copper does not guarantee the integrity of the receipts in time. Serious and professional pasteurization is required, along with the creation of a vacuum between the lid and the jam (which makes a “plop” as it disappears when you open a jam jar to guarantee that your jam will keep for years!

To learn more about how our teams use the copper pan, check out this article.

Maison Andrésy’s copper basins through 70 years of artisanal jam making!

Did you know that Maison Andrésy’s copper basins have evolved a lot?

Always made of copper, they have had different sizes and uses over the 70 years of our existence. 
It must be said that the needs of our customers and the safety constraints for the cookers as well as for the consumers (food safety) have evolved a lot from 1952 to nowadays!

Back to the copper basin at Maison Andrésy in archive photos!

Today, and for several years now, our copper basins have evolved. At Maison Andrésy, we are always innovating with the aim of maintaining the tradition necessary for the quality of our artisanal jams and also to guarantee the safety of the people working on your recipes!
Before, cooking in copper basins was an exciting job but also physically tiring and dangerous! Many kilos of fruit and sugar to carry, recipes to handle at over 90 degrees!
We have created copper pans that are more adapted to the demands of today’s work: of a size adapted to the respect of the fruit, based on gentle steam cooking, with integrated mixers that reproduce the human gesture, handled safely thanks to the technology by each cooker responsible for her pan! 

CONTACT US TO KNOW MORE