This is a Public Service Announcement

Yes, like Bob Marley, we're jamming. And I also want to jam it with you... but perhaps not in the sense that Mr Marley meant. Nothing gives the housewife a sense of business-like, no nonsense competency than being able to make her own jam. Men are amazed, small children are in awe, other women wonder at her culinary skill and bravery (boiling sugar is so very hot!). Making jam is like the homemaking equivalent of having A' level Maths...it's a special and unusual accomplishment you can casually mention during dinner parties...it's also a very good way of preserving fruit.

So if you, like me, regularly go a bit mental at the local pick-your-own farm and end up with seven pounds of raspberries (or whatever) slowly festering on your kitchen counter then jam them, gentle reader, jam them. For the past few years I have been using my copy of the The Practical Home Handywoman to help me jam my fruit, and I have found their table for jam making absolutely indispensable. If you're into old household management books you could easily find a copy of the book on Abe or eBay, but if you're just interested in jamming - and how could you not be having read my inspirational sermon on the subject - then here is the Home Handywoman's table reproduced by yours truly.

Apple and blackberry
4 lb berries 2 lb apples peeled and cored - 1 pint water - 5 lb sugar
Apricot
4 lb fruit juice of 1 lemon - 3/4 pint water - 4 lb sugar
Blackberry
4 lb fruit - 4 lb sugar
Blackcurrant
4 lb fruit - 3 pints water - 5 lb sugar
Cherry
4 lb fruit - 1 pint red currant juice - 3 1/2 lb sugar
Damson
3 lb fruit - 1/2 pint water - 2 1/2 lb sugar
Elderberry
3 lb fruit (or 3 pints juice), juice of 3 lemons - 3 lb sugar
Gooseberry
3 lb fruit - 1 pint water - 3 lb sugar
Gooseberry & redcurrant
3 lb berries 1 lb currants - 1/2 pint water - 4 lb sugar
Greengage
3 lb fruit - 1/2 pint water - 3 lb sugar
Loganberry
3 lb berries - 3 lb sugar
Plum
3 lb fruit - 1/2 pint water - 3 lb sugar
Quince
2 lb fruit - 2 pints water - 2 lb sugar
Quince and apple
1 lb quince 1 lb apple - 1 1/2 pints water - 2 lb sugar
Raspberry
3 lb raspberry - 3 lb sugar
Redcurrant
3 lb fruit (or 3 pints juice) - 3 lb sugar
Redcurrant & raspberry
1 lb raspberries 1 lb currants - 2 lb sugar
Strawberry
4 lb strawberries juice of 4 lemons - 3 1/2 lb sugar
Strawberry & gooseberry
2 lb strawberries 2 lb gooseberries - 1/2 pint water - 4 lb sugar
Strawberry & redcurrant
2 lb strawberries 1 1/2 lb currants - 3 lb sugar

This is the table from the book with only the vegetable marrow jams removed. If you want a recipe for marrow jam, do email and I'll find one forthwith. For more jam information and tips please go here.

Oh and a little bird tells me that American women can their jam. Is this true? American jammers please put me out of my misery.

Well, that's enough for today, even I can have enough of jam! Anon, good huswives, anon!

Ruthless Inroads on the Butter

One of my favourite books of all time is A Calender of Country Receipts, by Nell Heaton. It was first published in May of 1950 and is full of a post-war optimism and love of simple delights. Heaton takes the idea of a woman working in her "still room" and modernises the gardener and preserver's calender. The book is charming, idiosyncratic and useful. Here's an extract from the foreword.

As the modern housewife spends her leisure far away from the kitchen, there is no virtue in looking for labour for its own sake; she needs a pleasant, workable, well-fitted kitchen-storeroom, or kitchen with storeroom annexe, as beautifully supplied with chattels as her income will allow, and the ability to combine age-old lore with modern practice and thus to take advantage of every season's plenty. Needless to say, such accomplishments as these are an enrichment to herself and all her family.

The book takes you through the gardener's month - what to plant and when to plant it - and then the cook's calender. Each week of the year is prefaced with an appropriate poem and illustration. Her writing style and choice of poetry is charming and idiosyncratic: I can imagine the Provincial Lady or Miss Buncle using, laughing at, and loving this book. I have always been charmed by her instructions for the housewife in in the first week of July. Here they are.

We have mentioned "classic" jams and perhaps, with lemon meringue pie, this may be termed a "classic" sweet:
STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE
Make a good shortcake with ruthless inroads on the butter. Take fresh ripe strawberries and mash in a bowl with castor sugar. Fill the shortcake with a good thick layer, place a similar shortcake on top, and cover with cream, the best you can get. Use next day, as strawberry juice must seep into the shortcake.

The book presupposes that one knows automatically how to make a shortcake, and Heaton assumes that a post-war housewife would stinge on the butter, she is right to instruct "ruthless inroads", I made a strawberry shortcake the other day and it was absolutely, wonderfully buttery and good. However, because dear old Nell's receipts are rather scanty on the the old weights and measures front I resorted to the internet and found this lovely recipe.

Other recipes for July include Agrimony Wine, Stoned Cherry Cheese, and Lemon Fig Jam. In the third week of July she quotes this poem:

The lark's long rapture and the yellowing corn,
The household fires and make that circles free
Around the tree-tops; cities, human stress -
The dear familiar thins of earthliness."
ARTHUR L. SALMON

...and then suggests that the reader make Cherry Brandy. I've done this and it was very, very nice and knocked the socks off my sloe gin. I shall make some more when I come back from Cornwall. Here's the recipe if you want to give it a go. I shall quote Nell verbatim so you get the full force of her personality.

The majority of recipes prescribe Morello cherries, but any not-over-sweet ones will serve. Wipe and de-stalk them except for the last 1/2 inch of stalk. Weigh them, then put into wide-necked bottles. Do not cram them in, you'll need room for the brandy. Prick each cherry and drop castor sugar evenly in the jars (3 oz to 1 lb of cherries). Fill up with good brandy, cork tightly, seal with wax. Keep for 2 to 3 months.

There's a sense of joyous gratitude of home and hearth which the book exudes, and I suppose this comes from the fact that the war was over and those husbands, fathers, brothers and sons who have come back fit and well, deserve happy homes and a better future. And, importantly, if you have been through the mill and had tough times it's the simple pleasures of good food and lavender scented sheets which make life sweet and pleasurable.

Well, I must be off and pack for my holidays. I shall see you next week, until then, Anon!

PS. Lest you think me a culinary genious I should admit that the photo of the strawberry shortcake above is not mine own. The Domum shortcake was far more messy!

Dorset Apple Cake and Sloe Gin

Is it me or has it been a really good year for apples? We seem to have tons in our garden, as does my father-in-law, in fact I have so many apples I think I may officially have a glut. I suppose the beauty of apples is that if they are stored properly they will keep for a long time, but if you're like me, and a bit short of suitable storage space (full shed and no garage) it is probably best to think of dealing with them in the kitchen. So soon I will be jelly-ing and chutney-ing and plain old pulping until I have used every morsel of apple-y loveliness.

But before I go full throttle into preserving mania I thought I'd have a go at baking a Dorset Apple Cake. Now, I searched through all of my vintage and regional cookbooks looking for a good apple cake recipes and quite frankly it did my head in. Some recipes used the rubbing in method, some used the creaming method, some were resoundingly anti-spice, and others were very pro-spice. Some added raisins, some added cider, but all of them stated that you should use Bramley apples, which was a complete pain in the rear because my apples are eaters and not cookers. It seems to me that despite the Bramley proviso the Dorset Apple Cake, like most country food, is a movable feast, changing in ingredients and dependent on what a particular housewife had in her pantry from one September to the next. Therefore, gentle reader, I did the sensible and frugal thing and found a recipe which conformed to the contents of my baking cupboard.

The result was the above symphony in brown. I am obviously having a bit of a 1970s kick. Brown plate, brown cake, brown table runner, but you get the idea. You can find the recipe I used here. Yes, I rejected the old (books) in favour of the new (Internet) and I think the result was pretty good. Oh, and you're meant to serve it with clotted cream, which is always my favourite serving suggestion. Also, I did not buy Bramleys but stuck with my windfall eaters and the cake was still moist even though the apples retained their shape. For another good windfall apple recipe please visit Monix.

What could be more wholesome and innocent than a home grown apple? I don't know the answer to that one but I do know that it ain't sloe gin. Sloe gin is wicked, wicked stuff...but I like it. It's a little early to go picking sloes, but I think it may be a good idea to post a recipe now so that anyone who fancies a bit of foraging can get their eye in now a scope out a good bush or two.

Sloes are the fruit of the Blackthorn and are small purple fruits that look like tiny damsons. They're too bitter to eat but are great in cordials, jams and, more traditionally, in gin. The Blackthorn is a thorny old brute and it seems to me that the sloes like to nestle right amongst its inner branches so that foraging for them is always a bit of a painful affair, all in all you need to be dedicated to do it. There are all sorts of bits of advice out there on the best time to pick sloes and how to make the gin, in fact there's forum dedicated to sloe gin! Some say that you must pick them after the first frost, some say that November is the best month, some say October, some say you can pick them slightly unripe in late September and put them in the freezer for 24 hours to mimic a November frost: controversy reigns when it comes to the humble and prickly sloe. I prefer to find a bush and every now and then from late September onwards just have a quick feel of the sloes if they give a little then they're ready. Yes, I'm a secret sloe fondler.

Once you're home you can settle down at the kitchen table, pop the radio on, break out the gin and make the liqueur. Here's how.

If you're lucky enough to find two pounds of sloes, wash and then prick the fruit with a cocktail stick. Pop them in a large glass container - a couple of big kilner jars would do it - and sweeten them with a pound of sugar. Top up the kilner jars with 1 1/2 - 2 bottles of cheap gin. Decant after six months into bottles (I use old pasata jars, but you can get posh gin bottles from Lakeland) and drink. It's nicer the older it gets, but if you make it in October and want a little bit the following Christmas-time then have a fore-taste, it just won't be quite at it's optimum until the following Christmas.

Tips and Alternatives

• I buy Oliver Cromwell gin from Aldi for my sloe gin. It's cheap and cheerful and I like its ironic name. Don't buy good stuff as it makes little difference to the overall taste.
• That being said, some people buy cheap Vodka rather than gin as it tastes of little and doesn't interfere with the overall taste of the liqueur. I can see the sense in this, but I'm just too much of a traditionalist to try it.
• If you can't bear foraging for sloes then try damson gin. You could make it now very cheaply and it tastes incredibly good.
• My friend Zillah makes Bramble Vodka - just crush brambles and add them to a jar with some sugar and top up with vodka. Sounds yummy!
• Finally, proceed with caution! Sloe gin is pokey old stuff!
  

Time of Plenty

Then came the autumne all in yellow clad,

As though he joyed in him plenteous store,

Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad

That he had banisht hunger, which to-fore

Had by the belly oft him pinched sore:

Upon his head a wreath, that was enrold

With ears of corne of every sort, he bore;

And in his hand a sickle he did holde,

To reape the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold.

SPENSER

I do love this time of year. I like the sunshine of the days and the crisp chill of the mornings and I like that all the fruits of the hedgerow (bar the sloes) are ready for the picking. This year has been so good for fruit. My strawberries did very well and one or two plants are still fruiting, my apple tree was so well laden that a small branch broke under the weight of the fruit before they were fully ripe, I'll have to jelly them. But my first love has always been the wild fruits of our countryside: the elderberries, now just going over; the blackberries, to be picked before Michaelmas (lest the devil gets in 'em!); crab apples on the canalside* near where we live; and damsons and bullaces, old fashioned fruit so good for jamming and preserving.

Of course you can make a good gin with damsons**, just as you can with sloes. I've done it and the taste is just a tad fruitier that that of sloe gin. You can also make a great, easy setting, jam*** which is my personal favourite as it's nice and sharp and really good on generously buttered toast, preferably eaten whilst watching Sherlock Holmes on the telly on a rainy Saturday tea-time. However, this year we made chutney from our damsons. It was a bit of a family affair, the girls helped by squidging the damsons to remove the stones and stirring the chutney whilst it was simmering and I hope they'll remember that they made it when we sit down to cold cuts and chutney this Boxing Day. You'll find the recipe I used here, it's Delia Smith recipe so you just can't go wrong.

I'll be doing a lot more preserving this month, as a friend of ours from church always gives away free marrows from his allotment, so I'll make this chutney too, also I'll have to jelly my poor, fallen apples, perhaps with the last of the elderberries, and I may even go blackberry picking this weekend with the girls, if we get enough of them I'll jam them and if not I'll just stew them and make a pie on Michaelmas.

Now, I've been doing a lot of knitting over the summer and I think the knitting phase will continue throughout the autumn. I'm just finishing off my final bolero, just like the one above, but in petrol blue, and with a picot edging rather than a cable edge. These boleros have been fun to knit, particularly for my little one as they take on two and a bit balls of Wendy Mode Aran, which is cheap as chips in the shops at the moment and a good yarn for knitting kid's clothes (NOT HAND WASH! Hurrah!). However, the bolero fad has faded and my eldest has requested that I knit her some new gloves, I'm sorely tempted to use a vintage 1950s pattern I have for some fairisle ones, but I think she wants the gloves before summer starts so I may find a less ambitious pattern! I will post on them if they turn out to be exciting.

Well, I must be off now as I have to tidy up Dulcie's room. It's a pig sty (or, as my youngest says, a pig sigh - know this, gentle reader, the state of the room would indeed make a pig sigh) and I'm letting her off tidying it up because it is her first week of secondary school and she's feeling a bit overwhelmed. Oh, but before I go, did you know that the brilliant Tales from the Green Valley is being repeated on BBC4 on Tuesday evenings, 7:30? Well, you do now! Anon goode huswives, anon!

*You find crab apples on the canalside becasue the bargees would throw their apple cores onto the grass verges by the canal.

**If you want to know more about making sloe or damson gin I could post about it in October, but just let me know if it interests you.

***This is a great jam to make for the beginner. If you want the recipe email me.

Jobs for February, Both Seasonal and Vintage

Well, in my copy of The Happy Home, A Universal Guide to Household Management, published by The Good Housekeeping Institute sometime in the early 1950s, jobs to do in January are given thus.

January

Check annual accounts and draw up budget. Extra entertaining. Marmalade making. Turn out linen cupboard, and make a list of necessary replacements; buy these if possible at White Sales.

You'll be glad to know that on the 31st January (last minute Domum strikes again!) I submitted my self-assessment tax return to the Inland Revenue (this, in my view, substitutes "check annual accounts" on the Good Housekeeping list) and made marmalade. My linen cupboard is sadly non-existent so I pickled some beetroot instead.

Now, if you fancy having a go at marmalade making, I urge you to try whilst the Seville oranges are still in the shops. It's not nearly so much of a faff as you'd think and the results are delicious. You need roughly two pounds of oranges and six pounds of sugar to make ten large jars, so it works out as an exercise in frugality, but only if you and yours like the stuff! Here's the 1950s recipe I used, again from Good Housekeeping's The Happy Home.

Seville Orange Marmalade

2 lb bitter oranges

1 lemon

6 pints water

6 lb sugar.

Wipe the fruit, cut in half, and remove the pips, tying them in a muslin bag. Slice the fruit and put it together with the water and bag of pips into a preserving pan or large saucepan. Boil until the rind is tender and the contents of the pan reduced by about one-half (1- 1/2 hours). Remove the bag of pips. Add the sugar, stir until dissolved and boil briskly until the marmalade jells when tested on a cold saucer. Pot and cover immediately.

Now, for marmalade novices, remember to slice your fruit as thinly as you can without going mental through boredom. Also, de-pith your lemon and put this pith in the muslin bag with your orange pips, oh and talking of muslin bags, a clean, child's sock will do for this venture if muslin eludes you. When your rind is tender, wait for the mixture to cool a little because it is best to squeeze out all the pectin gathered from the pips in your muslin bag/sock (a joyously messy business). Make sure you dissolve all the sugar over a low heat before you even begin to think about boiling the marmalade. Email me if you need any further help.

You will be glad to know that in February I shall be turning over a new leaf and do any seasonal household jobs throughout the month rather than in my usual last minute rush. I have perused my vintage household management books, in order to find said seasonal inspiration, and here's what I've found.

From The Happy Home.

February

Prepare for spring-cleaning by turning out cupboards, drawers, shelves, book-cases etc. Make plans for any interior decorations. Arrange for chimney sweep.

Hmm, not too sure if I approve of this "turning out" business. I like my cupboards crammed full of useful and important junk. Let's have a look at what Aunt Kate's The Housewife's Calender, from 1930s, has in store for this month. Oh, there's such a lot of reading to do! Aunt Kate is so verbose (now there's the pot calling the kettle black) I shall paraphrase.

February

Buy a melon, tackle your cupboards (oh no, not you too Aunt Kate), brush up on your pancake recipes, sow hardy annuals, make new kitchen curtains (okay then), have a leap year party and invite single people (what larks!).

Aunt Kate is always such a joy. I feel I can fulfill my housewifely duty by buying a melon and having a jolly good knees up (is it a leap year btw?). I am formally ignoring all advice vis a vis cupboards, just so you know. Now let us examine my much beloved A Calender of Country Receipts, by the blessed and much under-appreciated Nell Heaton, again I shall paraphrase, but if you want a recipe mentioned in the list, please email me.

February

Make beetroot wine, orange curd, lemon wine, honey beer, chilli and onion sauce and remember to waterproof your garden boots.

With your larder stocked with such goodies you could have a mighty fine February knees up. Oh, I think I shall be making the Chilli and Onion Sauce (in fact a chutney) over the next month or so, I'll let you know how it works out.

So to leave you, I give you the view from my front door this morning. Warwickshire schools are still open, and such news my children took as a cruel blow. Anon goode huswives, anon!

A Silk Purse Out of a Sow's Ear

Yes, you can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear! That is to say if your sow's ear is the humble gooseberry, and your silk purse is Gooseberry and Elderflower Jelly. The poor old gooseberry is the ugly sister of the soft fruit garden...sour and hairy, but all she needs is a bit of sweetening and dressing up with a few wild flowers and hey presto, she can be all interesting and sophisticated and well worth spreading on your morning croissant. But seriously, if you have a glut of gooseberries and are interested in using elderflowers in your cooking, but are a bit timid, then try this jam, it's lovely! I'll give the recipe verbatim from The Scottish Women's Rural Institutes Cookery Book (their motto is "For Home and Country" ), but this is an old book and therefore vague about the techniques of jelly making, so I'll give you a few tips later on, if you fancy trying this but are a beginner. Green Gooseberry and Elderflower Jelly

Put green gooseberries in a preserving pan with just enough water to cover them and let them get very hot but not boiling. Strain next day and boil with 1 lb of sugar to 1 pint of juice and allow 4 heads or so of elder-flower to a pint of juice. Tie the bunch to the handle of the pan, and if the petals are inclined to come off, put the elder-flower in a muslin bag. Boil them all the time with the jelly for about 1 hour, then put into pots. It is best to taste the jelly while boiling, and remove elder-flowers if their flavour is considered strong enough.

Now for some tips.

• You don't need a jelly bag to strain the gooseberry liquid, just use a fine sieve.
• Sterilize your jars by washing them thoroughly in warm, soapy water and putting them in a hot oven for 10 minutes.
• Make sure that the jelly is poured into the jars whilst they are still hot, if the jars are cold they are liable to break.
• Don't boil the liquid straight away, simmer gently until all of the grains of sugar are dissolved, this stops the jelly from "splitting".
• Then boil vigorously for an hour...remember your pan will need to accommodate this, but you don't really need a preserving pan, I use a large stew pan.
• After an hour test for a set. Simply put a tea plate into the freezer for a minute. Then take the jelly off the heat, pour a spoonful of jelly onto the tea plate and put into the fridge for two minutes. If the jelly looks like jelly, and if you can run your finger through the middle of the jelly and the two sides not come together then you're ready to pot your jam. If the jelly is still quite liquid boil again to ten minutes and test for a set until you have one. Today it took me 1 hour and 30 minutes to make a well set jelly.
• A jam funnel is a great tool, but if you don't have one you can use a ladle, just be careful of your finger!
• Put lids on the jars when the jam is still hot, but handleable. If you use lids with a plastic inner coating then you don't need to faff around with wax discs!
• Wipe away any spills whilst the jam is warm, it's easier that way.

The resulting jelly is this lovely ruby colour and makes a nice gift if you're inclined to jazz up the jars a little. Oh, and I meant to say if you're interested in the Women's Institute tea tray cloth, it comes from a time when preserving gluts was a patriotic duty. In pre-war Britain we ate an awful lot of imported food (70% I think??), so when war broke out we had to change our ways or starve. Women preserved and canned like crazy, and the Women's Institute did it on a vast scale. I like to look at the names on the tray cloth and think about what it must have been like for the women who lived through those times...anyway, enough of my ponderings! Enjoy your jelly making!