The Cottage Smallholder

Sometimes we both cook when friends come for supper. If Danny is doing the main course he’s not keen on sharing a stove ever since the time I cooked my starters in the top oven and the kitchen filled with black noxious smoke. We’d only used this part of the oven as a grill before. And since.

Now I generally make the starter and the pud in the morning. Jellies are ideal if you are preparing in advance. They are easy, look pretty and are a great way of padding out a small tray of soft fruit.

Even though I’m now Queen of the Fruit Cages I have plans for this fruit – most will star in epics on the drinks tray.

Under the nets this week, happily chatting to a neighbour who was cutting back one of our shrubs that had quietly infiltrated his garden, I realised why soft fruit is so expensive. It takes ages to pick. The temptation to eat as one picks doesn’t help. It’s important to savour some as soft fruit is at its best guzzled immediately but this can be dangerous if one is pressed for time. As I listened to my nieghbour’s stories, from the shade of the raspberry canes, time drifted. Hearing his tales of working on an old English estate had me at the fence in a second, raspberries forgotten.
“When her ladyship died we had two days to get the lowering of the coffin into the grave right.
They said,
‘Smith, dig a deep trench.’
And that done we practiced lowering an old oak gate post into the depths. On ribbons mind you! If the coffin doesn’t go down straight and square it can roll and has been known to open.”
He peered at me steadily, through the brambles.

My neighbour turned down the offer of a handfull of plump raspberries.
“Sorry Fiona, I’m not a soft fruit man but I am keeping the blackberry canes that have scrambled over from yours. The berries were nice and pump last year and made a good blackberry and apple crumble.”

So I moved out of earshot, into the other cage where I’m cosseting loads of other fruit. One hero is a dessert gooseberry bush. These blush when ripe and can be eaten without sugar. They have a similar tartness to a kiwi fruit. A great investment if you ever see a bush for sale. They are definitely worth the extra expense as they are far more useful than the standard gooseberry. They can be cooked but are great raw in fresh fruit salads and they’re perfect for jellies and garnishes. Unfortunately they are not as prolific as an ordinary gooseberry bush. Our bush made six individual jellies and will provide the voompf for a 75mll bottle of dessert gooseberry vodka. So it is treated with respect.

A white currants bush also lurks in this cage. Not as bountiful as redcurrants and miles behind the harvest one can pick from a blackcurrant bush. However, if you have the space a white currant bush is a great investment. Pretty white berries, almost sweet enough to eat straight from the bush. They have a palatable tartness that bursts softy in the mouth. Again perfect for jellies and possibly for white currant vodka. The Cottage Smallholder Fruit Gin and Vodka Research Station is going to try this for the first time this year. It will be secreted in a safe spot in the barn and opened at Christmas.