Wanted! Small green spiky fruit. Can be made into jam and fruit fool. Can be sour or sweet depending on the variety. Has a bit of a bad reputation. Last seen by me circa 1997.
All the foraging books talk of the gooseberry which should have been ripening in the last few weeks. We used to have it in the hedge in the back of the garden, which I found to my detriment had thorny branches when trying to pick them for my mum. But that was twenty years ago nearly....
I went this weekend on a gentle hike in the countryside (it was unbearably warm) and I found myself constantly scouring the hedgerows for any sign of gooseberries but to no avail. Nettles, cow parsley, blackthorn, dog rose and hawthorn all there, but of this little green fruit, there was no sign. The books imply it should be fairly abundant, and my memories of being a child are of it not being hard to find. So where are the gooseberries?
Only possible gooseberry bush I found in a hedgreow in the park in Newton Abbot, sans berries
I did a little digging on the internet and found this very interesting article here from the Telegraph entitled 'Where have all our gooseberries gone?' It discusses the decline in popularity of gooseberries and how you cannot really buy them anymore for love nor money as they have been replaced with more trendy 'foreign' species such as blueberries. It doesn't explain though why I can't find it anywhere! As a result - I ask you, my readers, if you would take 2 minutes to fill in the survey below about gooseberries - have you tried one? Can you still buy them? Can you find them in the countryside still? And if so - where? If you have any photos of wild ones I would love to see them and publish them on the blog. Maybe its not all a wild gooseberry chase!
Other than the potential loss of one of our finest medieval fruits, the walk last Saturday was very pleasant. We discovered that Newton Abbot (a mere 18 minutes on the train) is just a couple of roads from breathtaking views over Dartmoor in the distance, and cute country lanes, and old churches.
The grounds of Bradley Hall, a National Trust Property, were really beautiful and the woodland was very cooling with the hot weather. We spotted the first hazelnuts starting to ripen and the sloes are really coming along.
Pub-wise, Newton Abbot is a bit of a disappointment. We managed to get a couple of pints in the Jolly Farmer which seemed the best of the bunch. The landlord was really nice and didn't bat an eyelid when I told him my Exmoor Gold was a bit off, and replaced it with a very nicely kept pint of Otter Amber.
But its no biggy, because I've been busy homebrewing again! I cannot believe its been a year since Elaine introduced me to the joys of homebrewing in Bath.
So - Batch #1 this year has been elderflower wine
I'm not going to lie, this one may still go wrong, particularly seeing as I decided to make it up in a bout of squiffy enthusiasm following a day out celebrating my husband's thirtieth birthday a couple of weeks ago.
In my defence, I totally sterilised all my equipment, all while sticking sugary elderflower syrup all over the kitchen floor (I'm still trying to get it off....) and I did realise half way through I no longer had any raisins to feed the yeast and improvised with banana.... but, it does seem to have brewed and I've done my first racking and I'm due a second one any day now and it doesnt taste like vinegar! Yay!
Levi's birthday turned out to be a wonderful day, with our dear friends Matthias and Ronni over from Cambridge, his lovely colleagues from work, some walking, some good food and beer. I even spotted the walnuts growing again on the tree outside the Double Locks pub.
Something else wonderful came out of the weekend too. Whilst mooching around the Book Cycle shop in Exeter, Levi found this amazing book for my foragey collection and gifted it to me.
I gather its an oldy, but its just brilliant. Every month there are around 5 different recipes to try often based on what is growing at the time - hawthorn, rose hip, elderflower, elderberries, blackberries etc.
I furtively searched the pages of June and found the recipe for nettle beer. I did some research online and found another couple of recipes such as this one here and here and decided to toss my hat in and give homebrewing another shot.
Batch #2 - Nettle Beer
You will need:
450g malt extract
175g brown sugar (I used granulated)
1kg nettles
4l water
Beer Yeast
I gathered my carrier bag of nettles as instructed, boiled them for 30 minutes, strained them and left the mixture to cool.
I mixed the sugar in with the water and added the malt extract to produce a malt wort. I then added the wort to the nettle mixture into a sterilised bucket and topped up to 5l with cold water. I added the yeast, covered it with a clean cloth and left the bucket in the corner of my living room for six days, removing the yeast scum on the second day, so as not to spoil the beer.
Day 2
Day 6
Then this morning - my first day off - hooray - I decided to bottle the beer. I realized that the recipe called for the beer to be siphoned off into another container. I have no other container. So, I improvised, sterilising my measuring cup and a funnel and gently scooped the beer out. I placed half a tea spoon of sugar into the bottom of each sterilized beer bottle and poured the beer in leaving a 2 inch space at the top to allow for secondary fermentation. I then capped the bottles with my new capper from wilkos.
The beers are not finished quite yet, but I did have a try of what I'd already managed to produce. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was 1) not sour 2) a bit tangy 3) quite dry!
As for naming my beer, I chatted with the English Department last night at our end of term drinks and they suggested Nigel. I quite liked the idea and have given each of my seven beers a different 'N' name: Nigel, Norman, Nellie, Nelson, Neville, Nola and Nicodemus.
I will be sampling the final product in a fortnight and I tell you - I can't wait! The process was actually rather easy and need not be expensive.
I was put off by the high costs of professional 'beer' making kits and equipment and found I could cope with the following:
a mop bucket (£2.50)
a cloth (25p)
Beer yeast (£1.50)
Malt Extract (£4.50)
sugar - (in the cupboard)
a measuring jug and funnel (already owned)
baby bottle steriliser (£2.40)
empty beer bottles (from our usual evening consumption)
nettles (free)
I do plan on getting some proper equipment in the autumn when I have a bit more money, but I did invest in one new toy - a wonderful bottle capper from wilkos (£10) and some caps (£1 for 50).
The only thing I can't say enough, is sterilise, sterilise, sterilise!
Anyhow, do let me know about the gooseberries! And I will be posting again this week now that cherries are beginning to come out (and foraging seems so much more fun than rewriting schemes of work and sorting out assessment policies)! School's out for the Summer! Wooooo!
