Giodà Citron Melon Extra Jam

Giodà’s preserves are often based on the founders’ family recipes and this jam is no exception. The Conforti family have been cultivating and preserving citron melons, or zucca cedrina, for generations. It’s an heirloom melon variety so rare, botanists have reached out to Giodà for a chance to study their plants. Similar to a marmalade, this jam is delicately sweet with notes of melon, cucumber and citrus. Even more impressive, this jam is made of 75% fruit, far exceeding Italy’s “confettura extra” standard of at least 45% fruit.

Making this jam is a labor of love, as each step is done by hand including peeling the citron melon’s extremely thick and tough outer skin. Calabrian oranges and lemons are also hand-peeled and added to the jam where the fruit is cooked down with raw cane sugar and mandarin juice before it’s hand-packed into jars. Two labor-intensive days and 220 pounds of melon only yields about 150 jars of jam.