The Idler

A Country Diary 87

USING A VERY SIMPLE recipe from Jocasta Innes’s excellent The Country Kitchen, I made eight pots of hedgerow jam. The first step was to collect the hedgerow fruits. Arthur and I went out with a basket and filled it with sloes, elderberries and blackberries. At home we got out a huge pan and threw the berries into it with a few apple quarters and covered it in water. After an hour or so of gentle simmering in order to soften the fruit and extract the juices, we strained the fruit through a sieve and collected the juice. We weighed the beautiful dark purple juice and then added the same weight of caster sugar to the pan. Victoria came in and told us off for staining a freshly laundered napkin with jam juice. We stirred the sugar into the liquid until it melted. Then we blasted the mixture with heat until it boiled. Now for the tricky bit: the setting. The books give various tests which are supposed to tell you when the jam is ready to pour into jars. These don’t work. With batch one, I first poured the liquid into six warm jam jars, but it soon became clear that the jam was not going to set and wouod stay in liquid form. So I returned the whole lot to the pan and boiled it up for a bit longer. After a few tests, I poured the jam into the jars and this time it set. The result was perhaps a little too thick. But it was, let me say, absolutely delicious and clearly packed with nutrition. The following week we made a second batch, this time including some rosehips and haws from the hawthorn bushes, making this a six fruit jam. The book says that you should include a goodly dose of under-ripe fruit, by the way, as this contains more pectin, the setting agent. This time we tested and tested, following the crinkle test in the book, which says that when a blob of jam dropped onto a sauce crinkles upon prodding, then it is ready. The jam never crinkled but was rapidly thickening, so I poured it into the jars. This time I only had enough mixture to fill three jars. The jam set quickly, but when I opened the jar the following morning, I was disappointed to find that the jam was far too thick. Still, we made some excellent jam tarts with it. There is still time to make more of this divine delicious jam, and it’s clearly something that anyone could do at home.

MY CABBAGES have done well. I kill a dozen caterpillars each day and while the leaves now resemble a piece of delicate Breton lacework, the cabbages themselves seem sold enough. Victoria made one into a Russian style stew with bits of chorizo. The kale plants are also blooming, as are the sprouting broccoli, which should be ready for harvesting in the Spring. I only wish I had planted out more brassica plants. I harvested the last of the French and runner beans and cooked them and pickled them. I don’t really know why I did this, as I don’t like runner beans and I don’t like pickle. It would have been far more sensible to make them into a chutney but I couldn’t find a recipe. I think anyway next year I will not waste my time with runner beans but concentrate on the really delicious blauhilde French climbing beans and perhaps some dwarf beans. Also to report: I dug up a few remaining beetroot which were excellent. The pumpkin plants seemed to have died a death. They have wilted. I blame the hens for dust-bathing next to them. I plucked one tiny squash and I think I will now throw the plants away and dig over that particular bed very thoroughly and add a lot of manure. I suspect that the soil was a bit thin, as all the courgette plants I tried there also failed. The raspberry plants, having been slowed down when the pony ate them, are growing back with renewed vigour and I am hoping for a little fruit in a couple of weeks’ time. October is the month for sowing broad beans so I shall do this. I also plan to sow a lot of lettuce and rocket and so on in pots around the front door.

OUR EGG production is down. Most days we collect only two. Neil Scott reminds me of the George Orwell diary entries which read simply: “one egg today.” “Two eggs today.” The two young ones, though, are puffing out nicely and look like they will be much prettier than their plain brown mothers. I am planning to buy a digital camera and so I may in future include one or two pictures with these diaries.

ENDS