Adventure 19: þá wergula, þá hagan ond se déorfald

You're probably wondering what on earth my adventure title is about... well, as I mentioned in my last post, I collected a small number of crab apples just outside Molesey yesterday, when we were on our long walk to Shepperton and I was pondering what to do with them. I did some research and amongst other things found a recipe for the 'Nine Herb Charm' written in the tenth century Lacnunga Manuscript and seeks a combination of a number of herbs to form a treatment for poisons and infections, one of which is wergulu or crab apple. I know that one of my old Director of Studies at Cambridge, Debbie Banham, has done some work on it (D. Banham, ‘The Old English Nine Herbs Charm’, in Medieval Christianity in Practice, ed. M. Rubin [Princeton, 2009], pp. 189–93) and when I am back in Exeter I'm going to read up a bit more on it. As a student of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic I never fully appreciated how interesting medieval medicine, food and agriculture could be and certainly never appreciated my Old English lessons enough with Dr. Dance. Sometimes, when I'm feeling nostaligic I watch things like this...

After all, ' Bread, butter and green cheese is good English and good Fries'/'Brea, bûter en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk''

If I ever win the lottery, I would love the opportunity to go back, work hard and look at these things in more detail. Alas, there is no way I can find the other ingredients at this time of year (mugwort, bettony and lamb's cress - and to be honest, would have no idea what I would be looking for!). Nonetheless, I was very taken with the Old English word for crab apples and the chance to reminsisce over my days in the ASNaC Department in Cambridge and hence, decided to have the adventure title in Old English,  þá wergula, þá hagan ond se déorfald translating as crab apples, haws and the deer park which is pretty much what this post is about. For more information on the department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic please see here: http://www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/ 

Anyhow, back to foraging. A couple of days ago I made up the hawthorn jelly from Bushy Park. It took three goes at making it set but finally, it came together and my father had some last night with some cheese and port and declared it 'very tasty'. I still need to persuade the mater to brave it, but she's still very cynical about it ("are you sure there's no cyanide left in it?" "yes, mother, I'm sure..."). You've got to admit it all looks very pretty.

As mentioned above, I was doing some research into what to do with my crab apples. As I decided I was a millenium too late and far too lazy to make the 'nine herb charm' I found this website http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/5-things-to-do-with-crabapples-1.1859353 which had several suggestions. I didn't really have enough crab apples to do much with them so decided to experiment with pickling them. The recipe on the website, seemed to have a billion ingredients I didn't have so I raided the cupboard and decided to improvise. Instead of the fancy vinegars mentioned, I used malt vinegar, and instead of apple juice I used orange juice and sugar. The result was surprisingly pleasing - tart, with a hint of juicy sweetness - I could really imagine this going on top of ice cream or some sugary pastry. Next year, when I get the bigger crab apples from the graveyard in Exeter, I will definately be making some more. 

Then today, it was very cold but sunny and Levi and I went back to Bushy Park with the dog to pick up some more haws (I mentioned, yesterday, that I'd seen a number of promising trees on the way to Hampton Court) and I managed to pick a reasonable amount whilst Levi distracted Roxy (who found a big muddy puddle, two foot deep to sit in). On the way back home, I spied some crab apple trees as well! And the fruit was not completely passed it, so I managed to get a small number of those too. It really is a beautiful park, with all the deer strolling around it - sometimes I wish I had the money to live back around here, but alas, I will add it to my lottery pipe dreams and pray my parents don't sell up any time soon. 

Once home, I cleaned and sorted my stash (with it being December some of the fruit was a bit spoiled by the recent bad weather and now the frost). I decided as I only had a small bit of each and a massive 1.5 l jar that I would adapt this recipe http://www.danish-schnapps-recipes.com/hawthorn.html by combining the two and adding some sugar to combat the sharpness of the crab apples. It looks very pretty and hopefully in six to eight weeks time I will be able to try it! Can't wait!