Edible wild fruit
One of the pleasures of country walks is picking and eating
the wild fruit from woods and hedgerows.
The search starts towards the end of June for bilberries and
wild raspberries. The blue berries of the bilberry are quite familiar and can
be found mainly in fir or oak woods. They can be eaten straight from the bush
or collected to make delicious jam or pie fillings.
Wild raspberries are harder to come by. Their fragrance is
so delicious that it is a pity to make jam from them; they are best eaten with
a little sugar and cream. Equally delicious are the small wild strawberries,
again with a far superior flavor to the cultivated varieties.
A common fruit with many uses is the elderberry; the clumps
of small berries are used to make elderberry wine, or jam. An unusual recipe
uses not the berries but the clumps of flat white flowers; dipped in batter and
deep fried they are served hot with icing or caster sugar.
The end of the summer brings blackberry time. Abundant and
easy to spot this is everybody's fruit. Pick them only when they are large and
juicy and have turned black or they will be sour. Very good on their own with
sugar and cream, they also make wonderful jam and jelly, and good pie fillings
on their own or with the traditional accompaniment of apple. Stewed and mixed
with double cream they turn into blackberry fool; freeze the fool in your
refrigerator and you have ice cream. Or for a lighter pudding makes blackberry
water ice, for which we give you the recipe below. Blackberries have the
advantage of freezing well, so you can store them for several months in the
freezer
Sloes, rather like very small wild damsons, make the most
delicious of liqueurs, sloe gin. We give you the recipe for this below.
Rosehips from the wild rose bushes in the hedgerows can be made into rosehip
syrup, a soothing drink for young babies. Then there is the harvest of the nuts
in autumn. Beech and hazel nuts are found plentifully in the woods; roast them
in the oven or eat them as they are. Only sweet chestnuts are edible but the
horse chestnuts provide the well-known glossy conkers which children love to
collect and play with.
Sloe gin To make sloe gin, half fill an empty gin bottle with the
sloes — each one must be pricked all over to make sure that the juice flows out
when you add the gin. Fill the rest of the bottle with small lump sugar — the
ordinary lumps will be hard to push through the mouth of the bottle, doubling
your work, and if you use granulated sugar you will use more than with lumps
and the sloe gin will be too sweet. Add two or three almonds and a small
handful of raisins for extra flavor and then fill the bottle with as much gin
as it will take. Put the stopper on the bottle, or a cork, making sure it is a
tight fit or the alcohol will evaporate. Shake the bottle well every day and
keep it for at least six months. If you want a stronger drink, omit the sugar,
fill the whole bottle with the pricked sloes and top up with gin — but in this
case keep your sloe gin for at least a year.
Blackberry water ice This is lighter than ice cream and it is deliriously fresh
tasting. Make syrup by boiling together 10 tablespoons of water with 120g
(about 4oz) of sugar for about 5 minutes. Leave to cool. Wash and sieve 450g
(lib) of berries, add them to the cooled syrup, and freeze in the freezing
compartment of your refrigerator, covered with foil.
Blackberry jelly Stir the blackberries gently until they are quite soft (it
should not be necessary to add water, but if they are not exuding a lot of juice
adds two or three tablespoons of water.) Put them through a sieve so that you
get the pulp but not the pips. For each pint of pulp add a pound of sugar and
boil until the mixture jells. Pot at once.
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