A few days ago, Ipolished off my final blackberry and apple crumble of the year, made with the very last pickings from our resident brambles. So it'll be 10 or so months before I taste afreshly picked blackberry again. Am I downhearted? Not really. In fact, I'm quite perky, because the last blackberry is not the end of the wild fruit story for the year. Very far from it. Brambles are actually one of the earlier fruits of the hedgerow crop, delightful, juicy harbingers of the colourful and delicious harvest to come. If you've been out and about picking these lovely fruits, I hope you'll sally forth again and again as the autumn progresses, to gather hips, haws and their wild brethren. They may not have the blackberry's advantage of being immediate ambulant consumption, but take a hatful home and they can be cooked into all kinds of splendid things.
What you'll be able to pick depends very much on your location and the time of year, but even in the middle of a town, over the next four weeks there are likely to be wild fruits worth picking within walking distance of your front door. Rowan is perhaps the first to look out for – this lovely tree, also known as mountain ash, can be found in the wild, but it's also a popular municipal planting in gardens and parks. Its bright orange-red berries make one of my favourite fruit jellies (in the preserved sense, rather than the tea party one), with a deep, woody flavour that's notably good with roast meat.
Hawthorn is another very widely available wild plant, easy to identify because of its distinctive, raggedy-lobed leaves. Its small scarlet berries, or haws, pepper hedgerows up and down the land. If you can gather even a sandwich-boxful, try this week's haw-sin sauce – it's really very good.
Also hugely plentiful, and just as common in urban as rural settings, isthe elder tree. Its wine-dark little berries are right at the end of their season now, but you may still be able to gather a few. Don't worry if they're all gone, though: there's plenty of time for other generous wild crops. Plump, purple sloes will cling to the blackthorns well into November (try them in a sloe version of last month's damson vodka recipe). Sharp little crab apples should be grabbed whenever you can, because they're incredibly useful in the kitchen. And then there are rosehips, with their glowing, crimson skins. These grow wildly, widely and often abundantly in most parts of the UK and, generally, their flavour gets better as the season progresses. You don't eat them raw – their tough carapace conceals a nest of seeds surrounded by tiny fibres that are a nasty irritant – but once cooked, strained and sweetened, rosehips release a gorgeous, deep, honeyed flavour, and make a wonderful syrup and abeautiful hedgerow jelly.
You don't need any special equipment to gather these fruits, except perhaps secateurs for the rosehips. Just wear stout footwear and thick gardening gloves because the hedgerow is a thorny place. Iavoid gathering fruits close to busy roads, though I'm less picky about that these days since my foraging friend John Wright pointed out that pollution from cars is not what it was when we all used leaded petrol. I'm more concerned, in fact, about not foraging in field margins where chemical sprays may have got to the fruit. And, as my mum taught me in my formative blackberrying years, Igenerally forage above the height at which an alsatian co*cks its leg. Beyond that, just make sure you know what you're harvesting (John'sHedgerow Handbook is indispensable, or take a smartphone for instant online identification). Give everything a thorough wash and pick-over when you get home, and you are all set for an autumn of particularly mellow fruitfulness.
Crab apple and sloe sorbet
The sorbet is also good made with ahandful of damsons or blackberries instead of sloes. Serves eight.
About 1kg crab apples (or cooking apples), washed and cut into chunks (no need to peel or core them)
A couple of handfuls of sloes
125g caster sugar
You want 1kg of fruit in total, with the bulk being apples. Put the apples and sloes in a heavy-based pan and add 150ml water (250ml if using cooking apples). Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes, until reduced to a pulp. Tip into a sieve and rub through with a wooden spoon to remove the skins and pips, and create a purée.
Put the sugar in a pan with 150ml water, heat gently and stir to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a boil and boil for five minutes. Stir this into the purée, leave to cool, then chill. Process in an ice-cream machine (you'll need one with a decent capacity – around 1.5 litres) until semi-set, then transfer to the freezer. Alternatively, pour into a plastic container, freeze for anhour, or until the sides start toget solid, then mash together with a fork and freeze for another hour. Repeat twice more at hourly intervals, then let the sorbet set solid.
Hedgerow jelly
Many hedgerow berries make a wonderful preserve that's good for both sweet and savoury applications: try blackberries, rosehips, haws, sloes, elderberries or rowan berries. These wild fruits are low in pectin, so combine them with apples to get a good set. Wild crab apples work well, as do cooking apples such as bramleys. However, cooking apples usually release less liquid than crabs, so your yield may be lower. You don't have to stick to these proportions: Isometimes make a jelly that's one-third apples to two-thirds berries; likewise, a mostly apple jelly with ahandful of berries will still be good. It's not really worth making a jelly with much less than 1.5kg fruit, but work with what you forage. Makes enough to fill four to eight small jars.
1kg crab apples or cooking apples, , washed and cut into chunks (no need to peel or core them)
1kg blackberries, rosehips, haws, sloes, elderberries or rowan berries
Granulated sugar
Put the apples and berries in apreserving pan. (If using rosehips, chop them roughly first, though take care because the fibres inside them are an irritant, so do this in aprocessor, if need be.) Add enough water almost to cover the fruit, bring to a simmer, and leave to cook gently until the fruit is soft and pulpy. Tip into a jelly bag and leave to drip for several hours or overnight.
Prepare your jam jars by washing them in hot soapy water, then put them in a low oven to dry out and heat up. Put a saucer in the fridge.
Measure the juice and transfer to the clean preserving pan. For every 600ml juice, add 450g sugar. Bring slowly to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar, then bring up to a rolling boil and boil hard for eight minutes. Now start testing for setting point. Turn off the heat, use a teaspoon to drip a little jelly on to the cold saucer and return to the fridge for a couple of minutes. Push the jelly with your fingertip: if it has formed a significant skin that wrinkles with the push, it's reached setting point; if not, turn the heat back on and boil for two to three minutes more, then test again. (Err on the side of caution: a lightly set jelly is far nicer than atough, solid one.
Once setting point is reached, pour into the hot, sterilised jars and seal at once. Leave to cool, label and store in a cool, dark place. Use within ayear, and refrigerate after opening.
Haw-sin sauce
Haws are more abundant than blackberries, and just as easy to pick. They're too hard and bitter to eat straight off the bush, but they give alovely fruity flavour to hedgerow jellies and wines, and can be used to make this delicious sweet-sour sauce, which comes from my friend Pam Corbin. Use it like a ketchup, or adipping sauce, or add to a stir-fry. Makes one 330ml bottle.
500g haw berries
300ml cider vinegar
170g granulated sugar
Sea salt and freshly ground blackpepper
Wash a bottle and a vinegar-proof screwtop or stopper in hot, soapy water, then put them in a low oven to dry out and heat up.
Wash the berries and remove any stalks and leaves. Put them in a pan with the vinegar and 300ml water. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes, by which time the berries will have turned adull brown and their skins will have split to reveal their yellow flesh.
Tip into a sieve over a clean pan and rub the fruit through with awooden spoon, leaving the skins and pips behind. Add the sugar to the purée in the pan and heat gently, stirring, until it dissolves. Bring to aboil and simmer for five minutes, stirring often to ensure it doesn't catch. Funnel the hot sauce into the hot, clean bottle and seal straight away. This sauce improves with age, so if you can leave it for a few weeks before opening. Use within a year and refrigerate once open.
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