Honey and Jams

Honey first, because this is where the shop quietly over-delivers. Breitsamer raw acacia honey stays liquid for years and is mild enough for people who think they dislike honey; the raw forest honey beside it is the opposite — dark, resinous, closer to malt than to flowers. IKA'S Garden raw pine honey is not made from blossom at all, and tastes of woodsmoke and salt. Maison Pébeyre truffle honey belongs on a cheeseboard rather than on toast, and Famille Perronneau sells theirs with the comb still sitting in the jar.

The jams run from the everyday to the frankly ornamental. Clément Faugier crème de marrons, sweet chestnut purée from the Ardèche. Felix lingonberries and Gut & Günstig wild lingonberry preserve, tart enough to cut through meatballs and potato pancakes. Mühlhauser blackberry, Lowell rhubarb-strawberry, apricot and elderberry, and a multifruit marmalade in a 1.1 kg jar.

Then the ones people buy as gifts and keep for themselves: L'Épicurien confit of rose petals, Don Gastronom violet petal spread, and Grafschafter Goldsaft, the German sugar-beet syrup that is not a jam at all but lives on bread all the same.

European Food Store has imported preserves to Santa Rosa since 2011, and every jar here is shelf-stable and ships anywhere in the United States.