Autumn is a top time for food, as almost everything is harvested now. While machinery saves us from the back-breaking work of harvesting everything by hand, it’s fun to do a little ‘free’ harvesting and go blackberrying. As you pop a juicy berry into your mouth, you’re sharing an experience with ancestors running right back to hunter-gatherers in the Stone Age.
Blackberries aren’t the only edible fruits in the hedgerow. Elderberries, sloes, rosehips, rowanberries and haws (fruits of the hawthorn) can also be eaten. Then there are crab apples, wild damsons, and, if you’re lucky, cobnuts. When picking these fruits, remember that the hedgerow is the larder of the birds and animals. Unlike us, wildlife can’t go to the supermarket when the hedgerow is empty, so don’t be greedy, and leave plenty for them.
Hedgerow Jam
Hedgerow Jam
Lots of our native berries are quite sharp to taste, and are best cooked. Jam is an excellent way of both cooking and preserving them, and this hedgerow jam is a good way of using a mixture of small amounts of individual berries. The apples form a bulky base, with plenty of pectin. If you can’t get crabs, you could use cooking apples. Also, if you can’t get many hedgerow berries, you could add plums, or damsons if you can get them.
I used:
1lb (450 g) crab apples
½ lb (225g) mixed haws, rosehips, elderberries and sloes (be wary with sloes: they’re very astringent. A few will add ‘bite’ to your jam – too many will overpower the other fruits and make it sour.)
½ lb (225g) blackberries
½ pint (285ml) water
1 ¾ lb (790g) sugar (check against pulp weight, see method)
Wash the fruit, and roughly chop the apples (no need to peel and core). Put the fruit and water to simmer gently, until all the fruit is soft. This will take quite a while, so stir it from time to time.
When the fruit is soft, rub it through a sieve, to remove the pips and skins.
Weigh the pulp, and add an equal weight of sugar. Boil until setting point is reached – with all the apples, this is quickly reached.
Pour into warm jars, cover and label.