People frustrated after trying to work out key word in written recipe for ‘mystery jam’

Before we could simply pull up our Notes app with the click of a button, people actually used to put pen to paper.

Whether it's on the back of a shopping list or scrawled on a page torn from a notebook, recipes are an immortal family heirloom that get passed down by generations.

The only trouble is, trying to decipher a person's distinctive handwriting can be quite a challenge.

This Reddit user knows the pain of trying to translate a scribble all too well - as they have been stumped by one ingredient when trying to follow the method to make their late grandma's 'mystery jam'.

Basically, the whole family had a look at the handwritten recipe and couldn't work out what the main component of the condiment was.

And it was pretty important too - seen as though grandma said they need one gallon of the stuff to perfect 23 half-pint jars of her jam.

The social media user explained their relative was an 'amazing cook' who was hard of hearing, so she 'would sound out words she couldn't spell'. Hence why they suspected she may have jumbled up the letters of the word.

The post said: "My parents and myself have been looking at this recipe on and off during the day, but can't make out what's she was trying to spell in the title...but it calls for a gallon of it apparently."

The family were able to reel off the rest of the ingredients fairly easily - such as 46 oz of unsweetened pineapple juice, three cups of sugar - you get the gist.

But after being left baffled by the scrawl, they decided to turn to Reddit in the hopes of gaining some answers - or in case a calligraphy expert happened to be browsing the thread.

People obviously pulled out all the stops to decrypt the baffling word, with some even turning to ChatGPT in frustration.

But others managed to crack the case fairly quickly and rushed to give the Redditor their answer.

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One wrote: "I think she wrote zucchini as "suggini". The recipe matches pretty closely one I found."

Another joked: "You’re gonna ruin the magic of the recipe if they find out she got it off a website."

A third added: "Zucchini for sure. Here's a link to a similar zucchini pineapple jam."

A fourth chimed in: "I thought I could read cursive too but for some reason at first glance thought the 3rd line said 'human juice' lol."

The original poster later revealed that the mystery ingredient is 'almost certainly' zucchini, or as Brits better know it, a good old courgette.

They replied: "Holy cow. It just wasn't clicking for all of us today. You saved us more hours of puzzling."

So if you're now craving a bit of zucchini pineapple jam, make sure you've got a gallon of the green fruit on standby.

Topics: Reddit, Food And Drink, Social Media

Olivia Burke

Olivia is a journalist at LADbible Group with more than five years of experience and has worked for a number of top publishers, including News UK. She also enjoys writing food reviews (as well as the eating part). She is a stereotypical reality TV addict, but still finds time for a serious documentary.

@livburke_