Food for Free – Hawthorn Fruit Leathers

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while but a near constant stream of things seems to have got in the way including a minor run in with a large bus (funnily enough, the car came off worse) and a couple of days spent down on various farms chatting with pig breeders and turkey farmers, amongst others (full reports to follow shortly, I promise).

As a means of preservation, fruit leathers are an ancient art and were traditionally used as a means of transforming a summer glut into something that could be eaten throughout the year. It is a method that almost certainly goes back to the Palaeolithic and is still used by hunter-gatherer societies today.

Throughout September and into October, the fruit of the Hawthorn tree (haws – no sniggering at the back please) is in wanton abundance throughout the English countryside. I was inspired to have a crack at making a ‘haw leather’ (tee hee) by a wonderful post by Nick Weston on his equally wonderful blog Hunter-Gatherer Cook.

I’d seen the small red fruits burst from the branches of the Hawthorn trees that scatter the open land around our house but was wary of the berries themselves. I knew they were edible but having cautiously nibbled on a few raw ones, I wasn’t overly impressed by their rather dull taste and disproportionately large stone. They were far too much hassle to be of any use, surely?

Turns out, unsurprisingly, that I was wrong.

So, armed with my trusty Thai tote bag and an iPod for company, I went foraging in the chill warmth of an early autumn afternoon. Half an hour’s picking yielded at least a kilo of berries, more than enough for a first attempt at making a haw jelly, or leather.

The first step is to transform these little berries into a gloopy mush. I used a large bowl and pestle (or mortar, I never know which is which) and then proceeded to break the bowl thanks to overly vigorous pounding. Thankfully by that point it was time adopt a more hands on approach and so after transferring the mixture, rolling up my sleeves and adding a little water to the now brown sludge, I squeezed and mashed the thick gloop with my fingers. A little more water and a little more mixing and the required consistency was reached without too much effort or any more broken bowls.

Instead of merely forcing the mashed fruit through a sieve – to separate out the stones and bits of twig et cetera – and leaving it to set, I decided to freestyle a little by adding a little apple juice, sugar and cinnamon and heating it gently in the hope that a softer and sweeter taste would emerge.

Being staggeringly high in pectin, haw ‘jelly’ will set without the addition of any sugar or any form of boiling. Within minutes you will notice the mixture thickening and taking on a far more solid feel. After an hour or so you should be able to slice the resultant cake.

After warming the jelly over a gentle heat and adding the extra ingredients, the colour and texture became increasingly fudge-like and the slight bitterness softened thanks to the addition of sweet apple juice and a little sugar.

Once cool, the jelly was sliced thinly and dried out in a low oven overnight to remove the water and give the leathers a near endless lifespan. Traditionally fruit like this would have been dried out in the sun and then offered essential nutrition throughout the winter months when fresh fruits were in stark supply. Things aren’t quite that bad for us, but small pieces of the haw leather stirred into warm porridge should be a tasty treat come the colder months.

Self Preservation, Part Two

Having raided the hedgerows, stripped the trees, harvested the vegetable patch and bought the necessary extras from the shops, we set down to transforming the vast array of fruit and vegetables in front of us into a selection of, hopefully, delicious preserves.

There’s something homely and warming, almost antiquated, about making chutneys and jellies, jams and alcoholic drinks. Although it was warm outside and only the merest hint of autumn was present, I had images of dark afternoons and crackling fires in the grate. In my head I was already enjoying the fruits of our labour as the snow came down outside in a soft translucent sheet. Sipping on sloe vodka and munching chunks of cheddar topped with tangy pickle whilst listening to the wind race through the gaps in our ancient front door.

But those times are far off and there was work to be done to before we could realise them rather than just visualise them.

Naturally, we started with the vodka. Making sloe gin, or vodka, is a simple process that takes no more than a few minutes once you have gone to the trouble of picking the berries themselves and stabbing each one with a pin three or four times (which is a real pain in the arse). These little round fruits look similar to blueberries but have an astringency that renders them almost inedible on their own. Although they can be made into a jelly, they really come into their own when turned into a sweet alcoholic drink.

Simply add them to a spirit of your choice with a load of sugar, give it a mix and leave it for about six months, giving it an occasional shake. After the allotted time, strain off the berries and bottle the purple liquor. It should taste pretty good by this point, but will get even better if you can hold off for another half a year. This really is sloe food.

Next up were the elderberries. The white flowers of the elder, so redolent of summer, quickly disappear only to be replaced with hundreds of tiny purple berries. These can be harvested and boiled up with a little water and, again, plenty of sugar. Once strained through muslin and heated to the correct temperature (about 110 degrees), a delicious jelly is the result. Hopefully we’ve made enough to see us through to next autumn, a great accompaniment to a multitude of warming winter dinners from roasts to stews.

For the chutney we turned to the many courgettes that our plants have provided us with over the summer. After roasting them, stuffing them, frying them, braising them and turning them into soup we were a little ‘courgetted out’ so decided to preserve the remainder. Even the most diligent gardener will miss a couple of these fast-growing fruits and large marrows are the inevitable end point and we had a few of these overgrown fellas just waiting to be chopped up and gently cooked with onions, tomatoes, sugar, vinegar and plenty of spices.

Our largest pan proved to be a little too small to take the huge quantity of ingredients that we wanted to turn into jars of homemade chutney so we ended up buying a new cauldron sized pan perfect for making preserves and stocks.

Once all the fresh items had been chopped up, in they went to be cooked gently for three or four hours until the whole lot had reduced down and changed colour to a deep dark brown, a rich and sticky chutney, the smell of which warmed the soul and brought to mind those rich images of crackling log fires and cold winter evenings. I couldn’t wait to try it with a chunk of cheese, so I didn’t and spooned a little onto a slice of cheddar whilst it was still warm. Simple pleasures truly are the best.

Self Preservation, Part One

For the rural dwelling wild food fan, early autumn is undoubtedly the pinnacle of the year. With a profoundly disappointing summer (how I despise living up to the stereotype of an Englishman talking about the weather but it is relevant, and, according to anthropologists, performs an important social function but we’ll ignore that for the moment) the leaves have turned earlier and the hedgerows are positively aching under the weight of countless blackberries, the branches of apple trees bow thanks to the sheer number of fruit and the white flowers of the elder have turned into full clusters of tiny, deep purple berries. There is a banquet just waiting to be collected.

And so that’s exactly what we did.

The countryside that surrounds our house is vast and empty with numerous pathways and hedgerows crossing the fields from which to gather this wonderful bounty free of charge. We went out a couple of weeks ago armed with no more than a couple of bags and a keen eye and came back laden with tasty goodies.

Even though it was early and many of the blackberries on the brambles were little more than tightly packed red nuggets, there were a good number that were fully ripe, deep in colour and delightfully sweet. By the time we’d half filled a bag, my fingers (and lips) were stained with a familiar purple that beautifully illustrates the season.

The fruit of the blackthorn, also known as sloes, was also ripe and ready to be picked over to make a batch of sloe vodka. The hidden thorns can be a pain and I regretted not packing any gloves but the haul was worth getting scratched for, certainly enough to make a litre, or so, of sweet and leg-wobblyingly strong vodka that should be ready by this time next year.

We also came across two walnut trees whose fruit, the same colour as the leaves, was hidden within the thick canopy above us. It was hard work and involved a great deal of jumping and grabbing of branches but we ended up with two or three kilos of unripe walnuts (that bare no resemblance to the wrinkled little brains that they become once they’ve been cracked) to pickle, providing the shells haven’t begun to form.

Finally, we couldn’t pass up the thousands of elderberries that seemed to be covering every other tree along our route. By the time we returned home we had an entire bag full of bunches of these tiny little berries.

The plan was to transform this haul of fresh, seasonal produce, along with the glut of courgettes from the garden, into a series of jams, pickles, jellies, alcoholic drinks and chutneys, so after a trip to the supermarket to buy the necessary items we set to work…

Cutting costs – free food

To be perfectly honest, it would be a lie for me to say that we are feeling the pinch. This is the first time either of us have had to worry properly about things like bills, food shopping, mortgage payments and the price of oil so we have no point of reference. Having just bought a house and under no illusions as to the amount of money I could make from writing, we were prepared for some serious belt tightening, credit crunch or no credit crunch. For all we know it would have been this way even if the world’s economy were still sitting prettily atop the crest of a tempestuous wave of credit.

In addition to this, neither of us has ever been particularly extravagant. Aside from having to curb an enthusiastic album buying habit which took hold with a disturbing voracity towards the end of last year, I’ve not really noticed any major upheavals.

In fact, there have been a few of unexpected bonuses – we eat healthier food (less meat, for a start), we drink less alcohol, we can read the hundreds of books that sit as yet unread on our bookshelf and we can power through a series of great DVD box sets that were bought frivolously some months ago and remain unwatched.

On the food front, things got even more interesting with the arrival of a pocket-sized book called ‘Food for Free’ by Richard Mabey. This wonderful little tome, originally published in 1972 offers a wealth of information on over 100 edible plants, berries, fungi, seaweed and shellfish that can be found in the British Isles.

Eager to try out our new guide, improve our foraging skills and attempt to eat for nothing we headed out last night for a walk; gloves, scissors and bags in hand ready to be filled with nature’s finest bounty. Or at least that was the plan.

Things began well when we came across an abundance of low-lying nettles, still a long way off flowering therefore still perfectly viable eating. I gathered half a bagful with the intention to make a nettle soup. We moved on and almost immediately saw a long line of elders complete with bunches and bunches of their recognisable tiny white flowers. I turned to page 66 in my little pocket book.

‘Elderflowers can be munched straight off the branch on a hot summer’s day, and taste as frothy as a glass of ice cream soda.’

Woah, this was good news. I love ice cream soda and I was starting to get a little parched from all that walking. What better way to slake my thirst than with some fresh elderflower? I snipped off a small cluster, took a tentative sniff and bit off a sizeable clump.

After a brief chew my mouth was awash with a bitterly unpleasant taste. I realised that I had been drastically mis-informed as to the deliciousness of raw elderflowers and my girlfriend failed to stifle a hearty giggle as I spat and attempted to clean my tongue with the back of my hand. After a few moments there was a mildly discernable hint of the taste I recognise as elderflower, but it certainly didn’t have the frothiness of a glass of ice cream soda. This Mabey chap should have his tongue looked at.

There was a flurry of excitement further down the track as we identified what we thought was chamomile and then sorrel. Sadly our woodland powers aren’t quite strong enough yet and a little nibble suggested that neither was what we thought.

Still, we had gathered enough nettles for a hearty and healthy soup and a bagful of flowers – enough to make a decent quantity of elderflower cordial or maybe even wine. And none of it had cost us a penny. Satisfaction indeed.

A Pheasant Experience, Part One: A Bird In The Hand

Any ethnography will contain a substantial section on ‘rites of passage’. The study of anthropology places much attention on these transitionary periods because they appear to be something of a universal, common, in some respect, to all human societies. They mark the transition from one phase of life into another, often involving some sort of test to prove that one is worthy of inclusion. A rite of passage combines three distinct phases: separation, when the subject is ‘removed’ either physically or metaphorically, from their previous existence, a ‘liminal’ period where they are effectively in limbo – neither one thing or another, often incorporating some sort of ‘test’, and an ‘inclusion’ where they are welcomed back from their exile and begin enjoying the trappings that come with their new status.

If all this sounds a little exotic and foreign think again. Baptisms, weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, drinking society initiations, 21st birthdays, graduation – these all contain the three basic elements common to all rites of passage. This may all seem a little off topic for a food related blog but I like to educate as well as inform and record the myriad of culinary adventures that make up a vast proportion of my existence. Plus it is related in a rather circuitous fashion as I underwent a personal rite of passage, of sorts, last week.

Contrary to what many of the larger supermarkets would have us believe, meat doesn’t grow in neat little packages ready to wrap in plastic and place into a chilled cabinet. It actually comes from living, breathing fur and feather covered animals which need killing, skinning, gutting and chopping up before they arrive in those neat little packages. They have heads and eyes and hearts and guts (lots of guts) and a whole body full of less than pleasant bits which have got to be removed before those sanitised pieces of flesh can be put in the oven or frying pan and chewed down in a spirit of gentle innocence and slight ignorance as to where they came from. Meat can now be enjoyed without even considering the consequences or chain of events that led to it being arranged on a plate with some tasty veg and gravy.

This really wasn’t intended as a standing on soapbox style rant, honestly. More a precursor to explaining my little initiation ceremony into the warm embrace of life in the country which involved the dubious privilege of transforming a full creature, squidgy bits and all, into something worth eating.

It started with a pheasant in a field. A dead pheasant in a field that was easily accessible without breaking too many laws regarding trespassing or poaching. I vaulted the fence with the gentle grace of a heavily pregnant sow and picked up the dead bird to give it a once over and a good sniff, just to make sure that it hadn’t been mauled by a passing predator or been dead long enough for the smell to make me dry heave. Thankfully it looked, and smelt, fresh, a small hole in the breast suggesting a glancing shot had caused its death. After meeting the approval of my incredibly understanding and equally intrepid girlfriend we took the bird home and hung it up the garage for three days which we were informed was an optimum length of time for those who don’t like their game to be too ‘high’.

There was something strangely macabre and slightly medieval about seeing a dead pheasant swinging from one of the beams in the garage, as if some horrific lynching had just been carried out by a feathered mob and the image stayed with me for some time even after the garage door had been shut. And there it hung for three days until the time came for me to make my first foray into plucking and gutting.

To be continued…

NB – there is a photographic record of the entire event. If there is enough interest, it shall be included.

A sting in the tale

A while back I went an entire year without having my hair cut. It wasn’t a concerted effort to release the inner hippy or have an instant ‘Neanderthal man’ costume should I be invited to any fancy dress parties, more a result of circumstances – those circumstances being a product of having more important things to spend my money on, like rent, bills and food. It crept up on me and went through a rather wild phase that required a significant amount of hair stuff and even an alice band to prevent it from springing out into a large bouffant before it could finally be tamed into pony tail and eventually loose curls that hung down rather than out.

I was content with my general look but it was a comment from my grandmother that finally convinced me that I should probably pay a visit to the hairdresser: ‘ooh, you look just like that Hugh Fearnley chap’, she said on seeing me for the first time in a couple of months. I glanced into the mirror that adorns her lounge wall and could see that it was an uncomfortably accurate observation. I duly trudged off to the barber before she could say ‘Whittingstall’.

Aside from the aforementioned similarly unruly hair, dark rimmed glasses and a fondness for cooking and writing I’d not thought of myself as bearing any other similarities to HFW, I didn’t go to public school for a start, but I’m gradually realising that this situation is changing. At a slightly unnerving pace. For the last 24 years I’ve viewed nettles as a pain in the arse, or arm or wherever they happen to sting you. Between the ages of about four and twelve I reckon the average child is stung approximately ten thousand times by nettles lurking furtively in bushes, ready to attack as soon as a hand moves in to retrieve a lost tennis ball and every child knows someone who knows someone whose cousin ‘fell into a whole bunch of them and ended up having to go to hospital. Honestly, I’m not lying, you can ask my mum’. They are like the tabloid paedophile of the plant world. But now that I am a paid up, card-carrying, straw-chewing, welly-wearing resident of the countryside, nettles are no longer a menace, they are a bountiful, tasty and free foodstuff residing in large colonies around every corner just waiting to be transformed into something delicious and full of vitamins.

With this in mind my girlfriend and I embarked on our first foraging mission armed with scissors, gloves, a plastic bag and visions of a vivid green nettle risotto as a reward. Neither of us had ever tasted nettles and my decision to wear jeans with gaping holes in the knees proved to be a little foolish, but good intentions are important as are the valuable lessons learned from experience. And, apart from forgetting that I was wearing wholly (holey?) unsuitable jeans and kneeling into a healthy pile of the vindictive weeds, it was an excellent experience. There is something gloriously gratifying about gathering your own food, especially with someone as wildly and unashamedly enthusiastic about it as I am. After no more than ten minutes picking we’d gathered a generous half bag of young leaves from the top of the nettles lining the country road and were on way back home to attempt an almost alchemic transformation. Granted, there are few foodstuffs that cannot be improved with the addition of a generous amount of butter and cheese but nevertheless, nettle risotto is a triumph.

After a thorough wash and wilting in a pan, the nettles were sautéed over a high heat in a little butter, just enough so that the edges were tinged with a gentle brown colour and taking on a slightly caramelised quality. The smell was fresh, deeply redolent of the countryside with a jumpy vibrancy and grassy softness and stirring them into a rich risotto at the last minute was a great way to make the most of them.

Since then we’ve been foraging again – with more substantial trousers – and made skate with wilted nettles and cinnamon and, of course, nettle soup although I haven’t yet been able to pluck up the courage to munch down a nettle salad, as recommended by a number of ‘raw food’ websites.

Seen as the recipe for nettle risotto is virtually complete above, I thought I’d include my recipe for making nettle soup. If you want to attempt this, be quick – nettles aren’t good eating after they begin to flower, usually sometime in June.

Nettle Soup (approximate ingredients)
One small onion, finely chopped
Two cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Four or five generous handfuls of washed nettles (don’t forget to use gloves)
Two medium sized potatoes, peeled and diced
One vegetable stock cube
One litre of water
Olive Oil
Salt and pepper

Gently fry off the onion and garlic in a generous glug of olive oil in the bottom of a saucepan large enough to take all the ingredients. After ten minutes over a gentle heat, add the nettles and wilt slightly. Pour in the water, add the potatoes and stock cube and leave to simmer for about twenty minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked. Blitz it up then return it to the pan. Check for seasoning and serve with crème fraiche or natural yoghurt stirred through. And plenty of warm bread, of course.