Five jars, three countries’ worth of fruit

Three PDO jams from Charles Antona in Corsica – fig, quince with rosemary, and peach with apricot and Corsican honey – alongside two Spanish preserves: a block of membrillo and a jar of whole peaches in light syrup. The quince appears twice on purpose. One is a soft jam for toast, the other a firm paste you slice and put next to cheese, and they taste nothing alike.

Why preserves make a good gift

A jar of jam keeps for a year unopened and nobody has ever had to find room in the fridge for one. That makes a preserve hamper one of the few food gifts you can send to someone whose kitchen and whose week you know nothing about. It is eaten slowly, a spoonful at a time, so a good jar is still being enjoyed long after a box of chocolates would have gone. And because none of it is seasonal, it reads just as well in March as it does at Christmas.

Who makes it

Charles Antona have been making jam in Corsica since 1962, from fruit grown on the island, and their jams carry the PDO mark that ties them to that ground – the clementines are Corsican clementines, not clementines that happened to be cheap that week. Conservas Virto work in Navarra, in northern Spain, preserving fruit and vegetables from the Ebro valley in glass rather than tin. Ibendra make the two Spanish fruit pastes, membrillo and a fig and almond wheel, in the traditional way – cooked down, set firm and meant to be sliced rather than spread. We import all three ourselves rather than buying through a wholesaler, which is why a hamper at this price can hold food at this level. You can read how the protected designations work at the European Commission.

Packing and delivery

We pack this by hand in Worcestershire in a small matte-black gift box with a printed ivory-cream sleeve, on the day it leaves us, with every jar wrapped so nothing moves in transit. We deliver across mainland UK and can send it straight to the recipient with a handwritten card and no prices anywhere in the parcel. Everything in the box is ambient – nothing needs refrigerating on arrival and nothing has to be eaten in a hurry – so it is a safe gift to send to an office, or to someone who may not be in when it lands. See the rest of the range on our sweet hampers page.

How to serve it

The Corsican jams belong on toast, on a croissant, or stirred into yoghurt, and the fig one is very good spooned over a baked camembert. The quince paste is not a jam at all – slice it thin and put it beside a hard sheep’s cheese, manchego for preference, which is how it is eaten in Spain. Open a jar of jam and it keeps a month in the fridge; the fruit pastes keep far longer than that, wrapped, and firm up as they go.