River Cottage Fruit Every Day - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

There are many I things I have a weakness for - chocolate eclairs, pearls, tweed, gin (the list goes on and on...) but somewhere near the top of it lie River Cottage cook books. Each time I see one in the offing I think about resisting (resistance is futile) partly because it seems inevitable that eventually there will be a duff one and every time I give in within moments of seeing the thing buying it from whatever retailer I happen to be in at the time (luckily for me it was WH Smiths this time who have some terrific bargains when it comes to cookbooks). The timing with 'Fruit' was particularly fortuitous because my damson contacts had come good with a vengeance and in the end I had something like 14 kilos of them to do something with before they went off. I made as much jam as I could find sugar and jars for, there are another 5 kilos in the freezer which will probably be jelly when I can get more jars and sugar, a liqueur is brewing (a rag tag mix of gin and vodka dregs which hopefully will be pleasingly mellow and not annoyingly bland and sweet), and finally some damson puree to make Hugh's damson ice-cream from the new book.

I've only had 'Fruit' for a day or two so I've not really had a proper look at it yet but have already managed to tag a number of recipes. there is a terrific looking apple and marmalade cake which I can't wait to make. It promises a slightly lighter take on a traditional fruit cake and boasts whisky soaked sultanas along with marmalade and chunky slices of apple and lots of brown sugar (more things I have a weakness for). I also like the sound of a blackberry syrup cake where a magnificently purple blackberry syrup stains the sponge in a pleasingly dramatic sort of a way. Sloe syrup looks good too - I've only ever used sloes for gin but syrup sounds like a much more versatile option, apparently it's good on pancakes and can be used for mixing in drinks, I think it'll be well worth experimenting with. There are also plenty of salads, savory dishes, and unexpected things to do with strawberries (pizza) which look to be very much my cup of tea.

Given that this 'Fruit' has more than a bit in common with Jane Grigson's 'Fruit Book' (which I consider to be one of the best cookbooks ever to cross my path and quite likely one of the best ever without any sort of qualification) it's no surprise I'm taken with it. In fact the only quibble I have with the River Cottage 'Fruit' is one of lay out. One of the things I really like about Grigson's fruit and veg books is that she arranged them by fruit (or vegetable) alphabetically so when you have a glut of anything it's a very simple matter to flip to the relevant section and find a whole host of suggestions, here the fruits are divided into categories (stone fruits, summer berries and currants, pears and quinces etc) which for damsons (yes it's an obsession) I spent a lot of time consulting the index because however they're classified the recipes do not fall especially close together. However that's a small quibble for what's clearly destined to be a useful and inspiring cookbook.

The damson ice cream is custard based so I cheated a bit and bought ready made custard from M&S (you need the extra thick luxury stuff and a spoon, and that's another thing to add to my list of weaknesses). This is partly because I've never been a huge fan of custard based ice-creams, I like custard but have always found the eggy flavour gets in the way of whatever else is in the ice-cream and that's never been what I wanted, also custard is a little bit of a hassle to make in that you can't take your eye off it - not something to be combined with jam making, a tub seemed much more practical. The damson bit was a puree of 500g of fruit simmered with a couple of tablespoons of water and 50g of sugar until it's all soft and ready to be pushed through a sieve. After that it needs to be chilled before churning. Eventually mix with cold custard and churn in an ice cream maker (or freeze and stir every half hour or so until it's suitably soft set) and then finish off in the freezer. It's quite a grown up flavour (and you can taste the custard in it) with a definite tang of tannin (which manifests itself as a slightly smokey tea like flavour) and quite rich with a lovely velvety texture, a little goes a long way.      

 

      

Summer Pudding

Inspired by my sister and the river cottage ‘Fruit’ book in almost equal measure (but sister’s summer pudding was quite remarkable so she’s just got the edge on inspiration). Along with Bread and Butter pudding (first tried when I was about 5 and then shunned for the next 20 years until an eventual rediscovery lead to an ongoing love affair) Summer Pudding was one of the huge disappointments of child hood. How could something that looked so invitingly pink and gorgeous turn out to be bread (bread mark you and not cake – which is just wrong when you’re 5) and fruit, tart fruit. It took me a long time to get over that first experience, but now, some 30 years later I’m ready to move on.

 In my mind (and I’m sharing this thought at the risk of sounding odd) Summer Pudding is a decidedly upper class sort of dessert. I was subjected to it in a distinctly county setting, and if you don’t happen to work somewhere that gives you cheap access to fruit (me) or have a lovely big garden awash with redcurrants and raspberries (other lucky people) the ingredients aren’t always cheap.  Also although I’ve come to love things with a tart fruity edge there’s something of the pleasure/pain principle about summer pudding that puts me in mind of game (I’ve not yet learnt to like it ‘high’ and am not terribly keen to cultivate the taste) and living in cold draughty houses with inadequate supplies of hot water, and scratchy woollen blankets on the beds (also leaky hot water bottles). I’ve known rich people and posh people, but sadly for the latter the two have never really coincided.

The final thing about Summer Pudding is that you have to think ahead to make it – it wants to hang around in the fridge for 24 hours and I rarely plan like that, make in the morning eat in the evening is fine, but a day or two ahead; I really had to think about it. On the plus side the fruit compote is brilliant, takes minutes to throw together and would be great with any number of things.

Anyway gather together about 850g of mixed red and black fruit (blackberries, raspberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, maybe a blueberry or a strawberry ...) 200g of caster sugar, and enough white bread with the crusts chopped off to line a pudding bowl (that will hold roughly 850ml of liquid) leaving no gaps. Line the bowl with clingfilm – using enough to have plenty hanging over the sides of the bowl to cover the base, and line with the bread. No gaps. Gently heat the fruit and sugar until the sugar dissolves and the juices start to run, but not until it’s all one mushy mess. Drain off a cup of the juice to serve with the pudding, and put the rest of the fruit in the bowl. Cover up with clingfilm and a plate and stick it in the fridge with a heavy weight on top to keep everything in place. The next day it’ll be ready and delicious. Some people use cassis which is something I need to investigate.      

Fruit – Mark Diacono

I briefly flirted with the idea of joining up for all August all Virago – heaven knows I’ve got enough Virago books waiting patiently to be read but just now there are far too many other things I’m keen to read (Stella Gibbons, Angela Thirkell, Trollope) and even more things I want to plan (cooking projects, garden projects, reading projects). It perhaps doesn’t help that August always feels like the beginning of autumn to me – possibly because in Shetland it often is, or the end of summer anyway. The nights are drawing in, everything looks dusty and sunburnt, at work our first Christmas line has turned up in the warehouse (everything from now on in will be about the C word). So there you have it – August, not the best time for setting limitations, making promises, or taking on extra new commitments.

‘Fruit’ happily combines a lot of my potential projects in one attractive pocket sized volume. I really do love these River Cottage handbooks, they look good, feel good, are eminently practical, and chatty enough to make for excellent reading (more than a text book). I did wonder if after ‘A Taste of The Unexpected’ ‘Fruit’ (and ‘Veg Patch’) would really be necessary but there’s enough difference to keep me happy. ‘A Taste of the Unexpected’ concentrates on the exotic ‘Fruit’ gives page space to apples, plums and pears (as well as Japanese Wine Berries, mulberries, medlars, and quinces which appear in both, but hey – they deserve all the promotion they can get).

My wish list of plants is growing faster than weeds at the moment, and without a garden that’s strictly speaking my own I suppose most of them will stay on a list – though I am determined to get a Quince (and possibly a Damson, and maybe a Mulberry) onto the Scottish ones grounds. Quince because although it’s probably my least favourite fruit of the three seems to be especially decorative (lovely flowers), it would be a nice thing to leave behind for someone else to enjoy should that dream of moving back North materialise (leaving a Mulberry just as it came to fruiting age would surely be heartbreaking). 

After a divine gooseberry crumble (a highlight of Orkney was Jan’s cooking at the B&B) a week or two back, I would love to have some gooseberries too and have been reading to see if they would make suitable reinforcements to a hedge. Sadly I think the answer is no and to fit one in a patch it would like would mean losing some other cherished plant now. Ridiculously that crumble was the first time I’ve ever eaten a gooseberry – and this is rather the point of books like this – because it’s rare to find them in supermarkets or in grocers you have to grow them yourself. Farmers markets may have them but I don’t have a farmers market that works with Work – I can understand this with something like a Mulberry but given that gooseberries appear in so many other things (Waitrose has them in pate, yoghurt, jam, and fool) it’s a bit frustrating that you can’t buy the fruit itself.

In a long winded way this is bringing me back to the recipes at the end of the book, most of them can be made using bought fruit (although obviously home grown would be more satisfying). As Diacono points out if you add cream and meringue to most fruits your onto a winner anyway so I wouldn’t say there’s anything groundbreaking here but lots of nice things. The Apricots on toast (with honey, vanilla, and cardamom) sounds like a memorable way to end a meal and should surely suit the less flavourful supermarket fruit. There’s a Summer Pudding recipe that’s a timely reminder both that I meant to make one after an epically delicious version courtesy of my youngest sister last week (the first time I’ve really got the point of it) and that it’s an excellent counterpoint to the richness of game or the fat on a good piece of lamb. A Rhubarb and Strawberry tart sans custard in the filling also looks like a winner, and a colourful Peach salsa... Most of the recipes are a sort of template into which a whole variety of fruits can be fitted – which I find very satisfactory too.

So there you have it, a book that’s useful whether you can grow much of your own fruit or not and which stirs the imagination to no mean effect. The River Cottage handbooks continue to make me dream of a better life; one in which we all think a bit more about what we eat and why, where food has more flavour and a real provenance (and where I perhaps don’t have to work for a living but can instead float around growing things and cooking, possibly with the help of a gardener and a winning lottery ticket). It makes me happy.       

Happy Birthday

Today is Desperate Reader’s one year anniversary, and only slightly coincidentally my 200th post. It’s fair to say that time has flown, but then it has been a reasonably eventful year, or perhaps more accurately it’s been a blessedly uneventful year after two more than interesting ones. I started blogging during a period of effective unemployment, but am now only underpaid which is a definite improvement (I think).

Blogging has turned out to be an unreservedly good thing so far, I’ve read more books, read them with a bit more thought, and met some great people doing this. I started with no idea that there was a community side to it, so that’s been a total bonus. A couple of people have also been very generous with books and a good thank you seems in order – a list would make for dull reading, but on the off chance that anyone who’s sent me a book is reading then consider yourself well and truly appreciated, and whilst I’m about it I should extend that thank you to anyone who’s read this blog, and anyone who’s commented – it’s all been very encouraging and enjoyable for me!

So how have I been celebrating this momentous occasion? There has been cake for one (chocolate brownie with cherries since you ask, very squishy, very chocolaty, any excuse) and I’ve started Michel Faber’s ‘The Crimson Petal and the White’. Actually I picked it up last night around midnight, read till 2am, fell asleep. Woke up at 8am today and the moment I could focus (about 8.20 am) started reading again. I might have gone back to sleep if I hadn’t found a spider in my bed. Quite small, but equally quite large enough to make me behave like it was an angry tarantula (I mean really quite a small spider, but I’m pathetic about these things).

Anyway I got an extra 2 hours reading time in today and slightly surprised my father when he called at 8.30 (en route to Florence the lucky so and so) by being conscious. There are 850 pages of ‘The Crimson Petal and the White’, and I thought that it might be a bit of a chore to read through, but I’m beginning to suspect it might not be half long enough. I’m getting very excited by this book.

I’ve also found myself with a very bookish dilemma courtesy of river cottage handbooks and amazon. Regular readers might have noticed I have a bit of a thing for these handbooks and the next 2, scheduled for the spring, appeared on my recommends list today. ‘Fruit’ (about orchards I gather) which I’m already looking forward to despite not having an orchard (unless a lemon tree in a pot counts, and I really don’t think it does), and ‘Cake’. My love of cake and baking is no secret, as is my love of books but I do wonder if I really need another book about cake, so I’m struggling with this a little – what if when it comes out I don’t need it? What will I do? Can I have an incomplete series? All I’m saying is it’d better be indispensable...