Foragers' Diary - Part Six

A few days of windy weather recently brought me an unexpected bounty courtesy of a neighbour’s walnut tree.  I know legally the nuts still belong to the owners of the tree, but it’s a second home and they are only summer visitors to Suffolk.  I felt justified in picking the nuts up from the road where they fell,  since the alternative was to watch them being crushed beneath the wheels of the enormous farm vehicles which pass up and down on this stretch of road.

Walnuts

I was surprised to learn that the so called common or English walnut (Juglans regia) is not a native at all.  It does so well in British conditions I just assumed they had always been here. But apparently the name derives from the Old English wealhhnutu which literally means ‘foreign nut’.  The idea goes that the Anglo-Saxon settlers came to understand from British residents that the walnut was a recent arrival in these shores.  In other words the Romans brought it here in the third or fourth century.  In Latin the name is Nux Gallica (Gallic nuts), these particular Gauls coming from Galatia in the central Anatolian highlands.  The trees it seems are native to central Asia stretching from Turkey to South West China, hence its more common name, the Persian Walnut.

Now walnuts are packed with goodness. They are one of the richest sources of plant protein and are also high in dietary fibre, B vitamins, magnesium and antioxidants.  They do contain large quantities of fat but these are mainly ‘good’ monounsaturates or polyunsaturates.  Like most nuts they contain plant sterols which are believed to reduce cholesterol levels and they are also high in Omega 3 fatty acids such as alpha-linolenic acid (ALA).  In fact walnuts have significantly higher amounts of ALA than other nuts.  ALA is believed to play a part in reducing stress and protecting against coronary heart disease.

I got about 80g shelled nuts
from 200g of whole nuts

My problem is that I don’t really like raw walnuts.  They have a bitter, astringent taste.  Niki Segnit, author of The Flavour Thesaurus, variously describes the flavour as woody, nicotine, butterscotch and like ‘a newly opened can of gloss paint’.  However my mother adored them.  She would sit in front of the fireplace with a pile of walnuts on her lap and crack them simply by crushing two nuts together in her hands.  So I guess it’s a personal preference.

Fortunately the flavour does complement a wide range of other ingredients both sweet and savory.  I will save a few to sprinkle on salads and serve with Stilton cheese, but my favourite use is in a delicious, sticky walnut pie.  Supposedly cooking reduces the nutritional benefits. What’s more I will almost certainly add whipped cream to my pie, so forget all that stuff about warding off heart attacks.  But this a sinfully wonderful treat, full of rich autumn flavours and I love it.

Walnut Pie

Recipe

Preheat the oven to 180°c (350°F)

Grease and line a 8-inch (20cm) flan or pie tin.

(Economy Tip: I use the wrappers from packs of butter to line pie dishes instead of greaseproof paper)

Ingredients

For the pastry

125g (4½ oz) plain flour
75g (2½ oz)butter
25g (1oz) caster sugar
pinch of salt
1 egg yolk

For the filling

230ml (8 Fl oz) maple syrup
3 eggs
100g (4oz) dark brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt
120g (4oz) coarsely chopped walnuts

Method

Beat the flour, butter and sugar and salt together until it resembles breadcrumbs.  Add the egg yolk and 1 tsp cold water and continue beating until it comes together to form a dough.  Wrap in Clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Once chilled, roll the pastry to about 3 mm and line the tin to make a pastry case.

Beat the syrup, eggs, brown sugar, butter, vanilla and salt together until well blended, then stir in the chopped nuts and pour the filling into the unbaked pastry case.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until the centre is firm to the touch.

Serve hot or cold with whipped cream.

Foragers' Diary - Part Five

This is my first summer living in Suffolk and I haven’t yet worked out where the best fruit for foraging is to be found.  Blackberries for instance are quite plentiful everywhere but the size and quality of the berries is very variable.  Some are big and compact, others seem to have no real shape and are impossible to pick, others again are small and mean looking. I put this down to local factors like soil type, or how much sunshine the plants receive, but then I read a very informative piece in the Guardian this week explaining that what we know as the Blackberry (Rubus fruticosus) is actually made up of no fewer than 350 ‘microspecies’ in the UK alone, and perhaps as many as 2,000 world-wide.

Apparently blackberries are apomictic, meaning they reproduce by cloning instead of good old sexual reproduction employed by most flowering plants.  Anyone who has ever tried to uproot a bramble bush from the garden will know that those long, lateral branches it throws out take root whenever they touch the ground.  In this way, over time the plant actually produces genetically identical copies of itself, hence the ‘normal’ hybridization doesn’t occur and each plant becomes its own microspecies.  So when you find a good site the best thing is to keep it in mind for future reference.  So far I have a found an ‘adequate’ supply, and for obvious reasons I won’t say exactly where, though I am still on the lookout for somewhere better..

Anyway, in about half an hour of picking yesterday, before the combined attacks of thorns, nettles and a rather determined wasp persuaded me to call it a day, I collected 2 lbs of delicious fruit.  That was enough to put me into preserving mode and so out came the preserving pan, the muslin cloth and the other paraphernalia of jam making.

When it comes to blackberries I prefer a clear, strained jelly to a traditional jam made with the whole fruit.  This is because the thousands of little pips in blackberries get in between my teeth and annoy me.  Bramble jelly is easy to make and the sweet, unctuous taste seems far too good for it ever be a free food.

Start by washing and picking over the fruit, discarding any stalks, hitchhikers etc.  Put the fruit in a large pan, I use a specialist preserving pan.  For 2lbs of fruit I added about 1 pint of water and the juice of one lemon, the pips fell in too but that is ok. They add more pectin which helps the jelly to set, and they get filtered out later along with the blackberries.

Simmer for about an hour then pass the whole concoction through a muslin cloth or jelly bag if you have one.

Squeeze the cloth carefully to get all of the delicious juice out.  You can discard the strained fruit.

Stir in 1 pound of sugar for each pint of liquid you have, in this case it was one of each, and simmer again in a clean pan until the liquid becomes thick and sticky.  Turn a desert spoon through the liquid until it coats the back of the spoon.

Alternatively put a drop on a clean saucer and watch how it starts to set.   How runny you make the jelly depends largely on taste, but don’t over cook it or you’ll get a black sticky mess.  Make sure your jars are sterile.   When you’re ready carefully pour the jelly into the prepared jars and seal them as soon as the jelly is cool enough and stops steaming.

That’s it!  You have now captured some late summer sunshine to be brought out throughout the winter months whenever you need a luxurious treat!

Foragers' Diary - Part Four

Windfall Apples

Friends who were away on holiday were kind enough to lend me their house in London at the weekend for a late summer break.  Looking out of the kitchen window on their small urban garden, I noticed that the lawn was covered with apples and pears from their neighbours’ fruit trees.  So of course I happily gathered them up and brought them inside.


When I mentioned this to my friend he told me that one of his neighbours had actually come round and specifically given him permission to make use of any windfalls that fell over the wall.  I must confess my first reaction was to laugh.  It wouldn’t have occurred to me to do anything else than to use fruit which had landed on my property.  But then I got to wondering what the legal position actually was.

It seems the neighbour was quite right.  Under English law, specifically the 1968 Theft Act, the trees and any fruit belong to the person who owns the land where the tree is growing. Even if the fruit hangs over your side of the fence, even if it falls off and lands on your ground, it still belongs to the owner of the tree.  If it’s causing a nuisance you are entitled to collect it from your property but then you are required to offer it back to the owner.  Hopefully most people get on better with their neighbours than that, but it is worth bearing in mind the next time you see a tempting little bounty hanging over the hedge.

If you are lucky enough to have some windfall apples or pears, use them quickly.  They invariably get bruised when they land on the grass and this small blemish will rapidly spread to ruin the entire fruit.  Then you know what they say about one rotten apple spoiling the whole barrel?  Well apparently it applies to apples too!

Windfalls spoil quickly

If you have too many to use all at once, stewed apples (or pears) can be easily frozen.  It may seem like a chore now when there is a glut, but you’ll be glad of them in the winter.  Alternatively, if freezer space is limited, apple sauce can be bottled and keeps perfectly well in sealed jars.

Apple Sauce has many uses

Apple sauce is an essential accompaniment to roast pork.  It also makes a healthy and delicious dessert served on its own or with cream or custard. 

It can be added to breakfast cereals or pancakes and a friend of mine likes to eat it on toast.  As a child I remember my mother making something called Apple Snow.  I'm not sure I appreciated it back then, but it may be worth a second chance after forty odd years.

Foragers' Diary - Part Three

I was delighted this week to pick the first blackberries of the year.  Not a huge amount yet but this is only the start.  Blackberries are a staple crop of the country larder.  If you can stand a few scratches and don’t mind risking purple stains on your best T shirt, they will be in season now until October in hedgerows all over the country. Commercially grown varieties are available but for me nothing tastes as good as the wild fruit.

By tradition in Britain, blackberries should not be gathered after Old Michaelmas Day on October 11.  A profusion of legends connect the bushes with the Devil on that day, who is said variously to curse them, spit on them, or even urinate on them.  In reality as the autumn weather becomes damper and cooler the fruit often become contaminated with moulds which look unpleasant and can be mildly toxic.  There's a lot of picking to be done before then though.

Blackberries are delicious in pies or puddings, and since they are normally available in large quantities I'm looking forward to making jam or perhaps a seedless jelly, to store some of that late summer sunshine for the winter.

They are also extremely good for you; they are every bit as nutritious as the much vaunted super food blueberries, which are not native to Europe but just have better PR.  Blackberries, available right outside your back door, are rich in vitamins A, C and K.  They contain significant amounts of folic acid, Omega 3 and Omega 6, and the essential mineral, manganese.  They are a rich source of antioxidants believed by many to be preventatives in cardio vascular disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and even cancer.

Entirely fortuitously, when I returned home with my harvest, a neighbour had very kindly given us a bag of Bramley cooking apples. 

Bramleys are a fine old English variety which are too sour to eat raw but perfect for cooking.  That’s because they have a higher acidity level and lower sugar content than dessert apples.  All apples tend to lose flavour when cooked, so the Bramley retains a stronger, tangier tasting apple after cooking.  Also, while some dessert apples can go a bit rubbery when cooked, Bramleys turn into a characteristic golden fluffiness which melts in the mouth.

I’m sure most people know that blackberry and apple makes a great combination, the tartness of the apple contrasting nicely with the sweetness of the blackberries.  There was nothing to be done but to make another crumble.

Foragers' Diary - Part Two

I mentioned in my last foragers’ diary that foraged ingredients were making their way into top end restaurants.  Well nothing is currently trendier than samphire (Salicornia europea).



Samphire, the name is believed to be a corruption of the French herbe de Saint-Pierre, grows all round the coasts of Northern Europe, and St Peter is the patron saint of fishermen. This succulent native plant has a number of alternative names including sea asparagus and glasswort.  From the middle ages until the nineteenth century it was used in the manufacture of glass and soap as a source of soda (sodium carbonate).

Samphire has been eaten as a vegetable for centuries.  You can harvest samphire all through the summer months from June to September.  It can be eaten raw in salads where the stems have crunch and a pleasantly salty flavour, or steamed, where it resembles young spinach.  It was also commonly pickled in vinegar.  In Britain it is usually served as an accompaniment to fish I imagine because of its maritime association.

Samphire growing on a tidal estuary in Suffolk

The Suffolk coast is serrated by a number of broad tidal estuaries which produce wonderful salt marshes, the ideal habitat for samphire to grow quite naturally.  Fortunately one such estuary lies only about two miles from my home and this quiet spot is a perfect location to pick handfuls of fresh samphire.

The stems which are emerald green, reach about 10cm.  It’s a fairly messy business squelching around on the black mud, but if you’re lucky you can wash it off in the sea somewhere nearby.

Once you get it home you will need to pick it over, discarding any roots and any woody bits. I normally lose about half of the total volume in this process.  After that simply wash it well to get rid of any grit and sand, drop the samphire into a large pan of fresh boiling water, you won’t need to add salt.  Let it cook for three to four minutes. Drain it, season it with pepper, toss in butter or olive oil and lemon juice, and serve at once. 

One claim, to which I cannot personally attest, it is supposed to be a natural carminative!

Foragers' Diary - Part One

Foragers' Diary – Part One

It’s much easier for me to say what I am not than to describe what I am.  I am not some sort of eco-warrior; I am not a professional cook or writer; and I am not an activist.  I am not even very interested in joining things, preferring to plough my own furrow much of the time.  Certainly I am not a hardcore forager.  Foraging has become extremely trendy lately with several books written on the subject, and foraged ingredients now featuring in many high-end restaurants.  More humbly I see articles on the web from people who make salads out of roadside plants or eat snails caught in the garden.  Well, that is definitely not me!

However I am very interested in garnering nature’s bounty where I can.  I do view the countryside as a potential source of food.  It ticks all the right boxes for me being fresh, local, seasonal, traditional and FREE.  Who doesn't like getting something for nothing?  So from time to time I plan to update you on my success in getting a free feed all courtesy of the Suffolk landscape.

When I first settled here back in April it was right in the middle of the "hungry gap".  The hedgerows were a riot of colour and the evidence that summer was just around the corner was everywhere, from hares boxing in the bare fields to busy nesting birds.  But there was hardly anything to eat.

Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum)

OK, there were nettles which are quite versatile, and a plant I had never seen before called Alexanders, which seems to grow abundantly in these parts.  I guess the description in Wikipedia which says it has a flavour between celery and parsley might have put me off. Neither of these are high on my list of favourites. Although I suspect if I am still here next year I won’t be quite so fussy.

In fact I had to wait until July to plunder my first treasure.  I picked two beautiful bowls of wild cherries in Tunstall Forest.  They were smaller than bought cherries but very sweet and delicious and I would have picked more except I couldn’t reach.

Today the hedges and trees are full of promise, and I look forward to gathering blackberries, sloes, elder berries, chestnuts and crab apples in late summer and early autumn.

For right now however the big story is plums.  Wild plums of every hue seem to be growing all over the place.  There are bright green or yellow plums, rosy pink plums and rich purple plums evident down almost every lane or path I take.  I see on the web a fair bit of discussion about whether these are true plums or damsons or bullaces.  I am not qualified to say but it seems likely there has been a great deal of hybridisation over the years so maybe names don't actually mean very much.

Anyway I picked some as an experiment. Again they are smaller than commercial varieties and disappointingly tasteless to my palette.  Additionally many of them seemed to contain a single small grub or maggot, so as I stoned them there was quite a lot of wastage.  But I added plenty of sugar and stewed them up to make a crumble which will serve as tonight’s pudding.