The things we do

The sodden July may have been unpleasant, but it brought with it an exceptional, and early, bounty of fruit. I even had a ripe fig land at my feet the other day, something I have never seen in these parts before.

Fruit, of course, means foraging. It may be deeply fashionable now, but for some of us foraging is a way of life. I have done so since I was a child - when we would set out, industrious as machines, and return with a year's worth of blackberries - and have never found a reason to stop.

So last weekend I set out, with baskets and a brother in tow, to the mysterious wilds of Crouch End, to make the most of this bounty. I know of a secret stand of Damson trees that way, which hang heavy with their dusky little fruit at the best of times. This year they were incredible. Little else would drag my into that zone.

From there we headed to the field for more. Foragers had already beat paths deep into the brambles, but they had ignored the sloes.

The field is strange, and hangs heavy with Crouch End's emotional desolation. A dreary American ran loops around it, stopping only to execute vigorous plyometrics. A listless kid wandered near the bushes, shouting plaintive calls of 'Chester, Chester' to his lacklustre dog. The whole atmosphere was puntuated by the strangled wails of a teenage Thrash band practicing in the nearby school gym. Like I said, strange.

There we passed an elderly Italian couple, with buckets of blackberries and a home-made hoicking stick. We dropped only a scant nod in passing - foragers are always deeply suspicious of other parties - knowing that they may be secreting the location of an even greater crop.
With clothes stained and baskets heavy with blackberries, damsons, sloes and elderberries, we returned (via the pub, of course). Rounding the corner near home, I spotted a vast spatter of purple pigeon droppings on the pavement.

"That pigeon has been gorging itself on elderberries", I observed.
And there, just round the corner, was the heaviest elderberry crop I have seen anywhere. The tree was literally dripping with fruit. I would have pulled a few down - had I brought with me a ladder. The best fruit are inevitably the hardest to reach.

Left to right - elderberry liqueur, blackberry compote, damson gin, damson chutney, sloe gin

Some things are worth the wait.

Especially with food. Waiting is central to the allure of many delicacies. The well hung pheasant. The steak, 28 days later. The 100 year egg - and not to mention the vintage wine. A good chutney needs to mature, as does a pickle.

And this recipe must be the slowest I have done. It started last year, when I mooted the thought of wormwood green chilli sauce. It stuck with me - but I had to wait for the wormwood to grow, and then undergo a painful process of rectification you know only too well.

Even then, the wait was not over. I had to wait for the Chilli Man to visit the Farmer's Market. The Chilli Man only turns up once a month, always smiles, and laughs at everything. It must be the heat. I'm always delighted to while away a minute or two sampling his latest goods and chatting about polytunnels and the Scotch Bonnet crop (early, this season). The first time we met he threw me a handful of the delightful padrons. I first sampled these, unexpectedly, in Madrid, mounded - fried and salted - next to a fine steak. They are fragrant and wonderful, and one out of every ten is explosively hot.

Last weekend I was in luck - he had a bucketload of deep green peppers, which did not disappoint. I didn't even stop to chat about his poly-tubes, but rushed home and supplemented them with a fine array of other ingredients - some bird-eyes, a habanero or two, freshly juiced ginger, garlic, shallots.


Two challenges - keep it green, and avoid losing the wormwood scent. I tried to cook it only briefly, and threw in the strongly alcoholic extract at the last minute so it could boil off.

There is nothing wrong with an alcoholic sauce - it's just not what I was looking for.
As for the rest - I have to keep my secrets, of course. Though I can mention that my nose was nearly destroyed by a sudden burst of chilli fumes, and removing my contacts later in the evening was quite a shock!


So here it is.



Perhaps not as green as I would like - though when I sneaked a peek at a bottle of lurid green sauce in a local shop I couldn't help spotting the colourants in the ingredient list. Something I would not do. Now I just have to wait while it matures. Only then can the sampling begin. It may have worked, it may not. I really can't wait.