Foodie Fashionista

"Mum you are in fashion!” I laughed down the phone as we planned our blackberry picking fest for the weekend. “Very funny” she says when I tell her that foraging is the fashionable thing to do these days. After returning home from India our second weekend in the UK was to be spent with my family in Arundel. As is often the case, it revolves around food and a fix of country fresh air, and this time was no different. After having a quick rummage in our sprawling and over grown unofficial London garden, I returned to the kitchen triumphant with a bowl of blackberries and a jumper full of pears. Next door has a pear tree groaning with ready to pick fruit (and given it’s a Peckham School reform centre, I don’t think they have grand plans for preserving and baking), so I went scrumping!

Before my Indian adventure, I would have been far too prudish to scale the wall and nick the pears, but feeling the need for adventure I climbed the tree, leaned over the wall and stuffed as many pears into my jumper as it could hold.

So, with my renewed passion for seasonal and free English food, I suggested a little blackberry-ing... Mum’s always up for it. As a child we used to be lured to the park, to be told that we could play with the other kids once only when we had filled up a container with the finger staining bramble fruits from around the edge of the playing field. As much as we groaned, it was “one for me...one for the pot”... and fifteen years later, I am back in the field stretching to reach that perfect plump berry surrounded by thorns that is just out of reach.

Down at mums, her garden hedges were loaded with blackberries. I have never seen so many, so firm and so juicy, to the point where Jack even risked scratches from the thorns for a huge bowl of them. We barely left the front or back doors to pick at least a couple of kilos of blackberries. But now I have to think of more adventurous ways to serve them than as a breakfast of yoghurt and toasted almonds... or popping them like sweets, simply as they are.

Whilst blackberries will never be as good as my daily Indian mangoes, they score pretty highly and are free (unless you’re the mug who buys them in the supermarket... in season?)... So get picking, it is the fashion after all!

Related links:

Mango juice

Mango varieties

All about cherries

Last years bounty from the garden

Picked and Pickled!

One hour, 3 people and 30 kilos of cherries later, the cherry tree that I have rented has been stripped bare. The orchard grows a range of modern cherry varieties such as Kordia, Colney and Sweetheart, and mine being Colney were second in the season to ripen in the middle of July, right on schedule despite the recent pouring rain.

Rain damages these precious soft fruits, so me and my fellow cherry pickers were pleased to see the perfect ripe round fruits. Not that a few splits would have made any impact on the amount that we picked.

The Sussex Cherry Picker - aka my mother was sent home from the orchard with a mere 5kilos with instructions to freeze the ones she was unable to eat. I only have an ice box which is already crammed with garden herbs, so there will be some Sussex cherry treats later in the year to look forward to if we're not sick of them by then.

Worried about my precious fruit spoiling, I prepared in advance for pickling and jam making. On arrival back at the flat, the reality of the situation dawned on me...the random collection of just 8 jars in varying sizes would not be quite enough. Off to the cook shop for some kilner jars - litre ones!

What I thought would be an evening making a few jars of jam and cherries in kirsch, turned into a week of evenings de-strigging and stoning cherries and sterilising jars. What fun though?! Never having preserved before, I quickly got to grips with the essentials such as making sugar syrups, jam making, and most importantly securing a good seal.

Preserving has come back into fashion, thankfully as I scoured the Internet for cherry recipes - spiced cherries for Christmas, cherries in kirsch, cherries in syrup, cherry jam - or rather compote (cherries are a low pectin fruit, which I learnt after making the jam when it didn't set!). So I have stacks of cherries preserved for the rest of the years puddings, breakfast yoghurt toppings - plus the cherry brandy. Not that I like brandy - good job I like cherries though!

Cherries – ripe for the picking…

Literally, the cherries on the tree that I have rented from Michael Dallaway down in East Sussex have had their fill of sunshine and are ready to be devoured! I am off this weekend with boxes ready in the car, to pick from my allocated tree. However, before I can even consider how much fruit we will have, I need to plan my "batterie de cuisine".

What to do with up to 30kg of ready to eat cherries? Eat them? Not all of them!

A large jar of cherries in kirsch – bought in a supermarket January sale was the hook which made the idea of renting a whole cherry tree so enticing, so steeping cherries in kirsch is an obvious use. But what else... ? Fresh cherries from a bowl of iced water through the day? Other recipes in the running are cherry jam, cherry compote, cherry ice cream plus a few desserts classics such as clafoutis, cheesecakes and chocolate puddings. At this rate I may run out of cherries?

Sowing the seedling

My mother is a talented and professional gardener. Considering that I neglected to ever water and eventually kill my first plant – a spider plant which is apparently one of the most indestructible kind - I don’t think I inherited the green finger gene. As a child, being sent out into the pouring rain to dig the potatoes for dinner was perceived as punishment. Today though, I can imagine nothing more pleasant than to dig up and eat my own grown spuds.

I have actually been trying to nurture my green fingered gene since I acquired some of my own outdoor space. My first taste of growing my own was in pots dotted around my back yard. We had new potatoes in bins, cherry tomatoes in hanging baskets, and herbs galore – mint, chocolate mint, chives, bay, basil, oregano and thyme. All supplied by my Mother who grows everything from seed and as a result was drowning under the surplus, which she passed onto her apprentice. Me.

When we moved house, I refused to leave behind the pots of herbs and lavender behind. They now welcome visitors to the front door with their fragrance, since we are without a garden of our own. Actually, we do have an ‘unofficial’ garden that belongs to the property, but is not for our use, although we do use it, but don’t tell anyone. When my Mother saw the potential with this huge plot, we decided we would take the risk and create a little patch on which to grow some veg.

We spent the best part of a sunny spring day digging out the grass and weeds, turning the soil ready to plant a raft of herbs. Part of the plot was left to sow with potatoes, but with the garden a whole 42 steps down from my front door, an no access to water, this plan never materialised. Instead, I managed later into spring to plant French bean seedlings – grown from seed by mum alongside the red chard, rhubarb, fennel, chives, thyme, flat leaf and curly parsley, lemon thyme, marjoram and oregano.

With this summers weather so unsettled, and weekends away I have to admit the regular watering regime has fallen by the wayside. Taking the vegetable scraps down to the compost bin on the opposite side from the plot I took with me an offering of water to see what I could save.




It’s amazing what will grow even when utterly neglected – unlike spider plants I might add.

Healthy flowering French bean plants, tender stemmed red chard, plus chives, mint and oregano growing like mad and begging to be picked. Returning back up at the flat armed with bunches of herbs, fresh red chard I promptly added the freshly picked bounty to the supper I was in the middle of making and inspired to keep watering my little plot.

Who knows what else I might manage not to kill.