Posted by Peter Willis on February 29, 2004 at 20:58:22 from 195.92.168.169 user PeterWillis.
In Reply to: Re: Jelly references - jam session posted by Peter H on February 29, 2004 at 14:17:27:
I'm pretty sure I remember jam, and marmalade, in tins in my youth ('50s). Not common but it was there.
Possible explanations:
Useful for explorers and the like, since the containers were sealed, unbreakable and lighter than glass. Might this be why Capt Flint had so much?
People in the 30s were much more used to decanting things into other containers. No right-thinking middle-class household would have dreamed of putting jam on the table still in its commercial jar. That being the case, supplying it in tins, with an assumption of transferring it to some other container once opened, might not have been uncommon.
Incidentally I've certainly come across the posher types of strawberry and blackcurrant jams where whole fruits can be discerned.