Maison Andrésy portrait: Jean Collette – fruit preparation workshop manager

Want to know all about our jam-making expertise?
A crucial step is the correct preparation of our fruit: the one that respects them and prepares them for artisanal cooking in copper basins.

How do we prepare the fruit in the Maison Andrésy workshop?
Do some require special preparation?
What if we were to make you want to come and join us at the workshop?

Jean Collette, head of the fruit preparation workshop, answers your questions in an exclusive interview today!

In these portraits, Maison Andrésy wishes to highlight its talents, and today we present Jean Collette, Workshop Manager.

Jean Collette joined Maison Andrésy in 2009, and has worked his way up through the family business. He has worked with 2 generations of jam makers, and has seen thousands of jams made.

Interview with Jean Collette, Workshop Manager for Maison Andrésy

Maison Andrésy: What are your duties as head of the fruit preparation workshop? 

Jean: “I draw up weekly schedules to organize the cooking of the different jams.

The jams that are easiest to cook go first. Then the jams that require the most attention and preparation time come in the middle of the week. So you can take good care of them!

For example: Strawberry jam is easier to prepare than fig or orange jam. Because figs and oranges need to be prepared in a specific way to respect them and get the best results! They are fragile fruits.
Recipes with a lot of fruit to mix together also require more preparation before cooking. Each fruit in the recipe has its own dosage. Each has its own preparation conditions.

When I talk about fruit preparation, I’m essentially talking about 3 stages:

• IQF freezing: all the fruit for our House is harvested when ripe, then cleaned, and finally frozen one by one on the day of harvest. In this way, they are stopped at full ripeness, at the height of their excellence.
• Fruit sorting: whenever necessary, our fruit is inspected before cooking and sorted: this is where we remove the tails from strawberries, for example!
• The fruit is then placed in each stainless steel tub (a food material commonly used in pastry-making!) and taken to the vat, where all we have to do is add the sugar and cook it all!”

Maison Andrésy: How important is your workshop in making Maison Andrésy jams? 

Jean: “Essential!
No prepared fruit, no jams.
No cooking schedules, no jams sent on time!

And what I really enjoy is making food for everyone!
Every day, people eat our jams for breakfast or in yoghurt at the end of a meal.
It is nice to know that we’ve participated in their little pleasure of the day!”

• What’s your childhood jam?

Jean : “Certainly the Pomme Tatin recipe, or blueberry jam on toast.”

• How do you enjoy your jam?

Jean: « With crêpes !”

• Spoon or knife to serve yourself?

Jean: “Spoon, you always get more with a spoon!

• What do you remember about jam?

Jean: “My mom’s redcurrant jelly: we had 5 redcurrant bushes and a blackcurrant bush, and when we were kids on vacation, we had to pick the redcurrants for my mom’s jelly. Great memories!”

• With whom do you dream of sharing a tartine?

Jean: “My wife!

Maison Andrésy: How did you get into this job?

Jean: “I started out in the kitchen of a restaurant, where I discovered pastry-making. I wanted to move into this sector. I did an apprenticeship in bakery before taking a job in pastry-making.

My arrival in the Paris region was difficult: I did one temp job after another. Until I joined Maison Andrésy in 2009 as a forklift operator in the reception workshop.
I then progressed to preparation manager. When the new workshops were created at Andrésy, I was promoted to my current position: fruit preparation workshop manager.

I remember well how far I have come!” 

Maison Andrésy: Do you have an anecdote about a particular jam recipe?

Jean: “I’ve actually got several!

All for different reasons:

• An pomme reinette Tatin-style jam: excellent taste!
• The 4 Fruits Rouges jam is the most complex preparation. Each batch of this recipe requires a great deal of attention: you have to use the right proportions of the 4 fruits to achieve excellent results in every bowl!
• Recipes with unusual ingredients: for example, one with sweet potato, another with red cabbage and Granny apple, one with Roscoff onions: a real taste adventure…!
• And the recipes for the festive season are very special to prepare! Bottles are opened and emptied, sometimes all morning, for confits with Champagne, cider or Porto…”