Rhiwbob

Rhiwbob is the Welsh spelling of rhubarb. It is pronounced rhee-you-bob and is a word that always makes me smile when I see it.

This weekend I harvested the last few sticks I wanted from the plants. A few sticks were chopped up and frozen as is for making crumbles later on in the year, but most of it was rendered down in the oven with some sugar and crystallised ginger. This I use as a topping for my breakfast oats. It has been a good year so, with any luck, the tubs of frozen rhubarb will last me until the apples come on stream.

I have no idea what variety of rhubarb it is. All I know is that it is robust, flavoursome and prolific. Very prolific!

R was given the original roots by a work colleague. Chris and his family had a 10-acre farm near the coast, and it was a place we loved to visit whenever we could. I think it was there that R realised that smallholding was something ordinary people like us could do, and I often wonder if we would have found our way to Wales and our little place on the hill if it hadn't been for those visits.

The resulting rhubarb plants certainly love it here, helped along with a generous helping of well-rotted stable manure every winter. The received wisdom about growing rhubarb is that you shouldn't let it flower, as that will weaken the plants. I think that is nonsense. I have been letting these plants go to flower and then seed every year for seven years. The massive flower spikes are so dramatic and exotic-looking that I always look forward to them in the Spring. I have certainly not noticed any fall-off in stalk production, fortified as the plants are with their generous top-dressing of manure.

As the oven was on already for stewing most of the stalks, I decided to make a batch of my favourite rhubarb and walnut muffins. Made with wholemeal flour, freshly-laid egg, rhubarb and nuts, these delightfully moist and sticky buns feel almost healthy. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how to make muffins, but the recipe I use is similar to this one by Nigella, although I use about half the quantity of rhubarb, don't use cinnamon and do add chopped walnut pieces.

They also freeze and defrost beautifully, so I don't have to worry about eating up a dozen muffins in the next 24 hours!

Jammin'

It has taken two and a half years, but last week I finally used up the last of the jam that we made the Autumn before R died. It is probably a good thing that home-produced food doesn't come with a Use by label!

The fact that it has taken so long to use it up is a sign of the way I have almost entirely stopped eating bread. These days I make a few loaves when I have people to stay, and there is normally a bag of rolls in the freezer for defrosting individually to have with soup. But that's it. No toast for breakfast, jam butties or anything like that. A spoonful in my daily yoghurt is a very slow way to use up a shelf full of jam.

A quick examination of the freezer contents found several bags of fruit. I didn't fancy gooseberry or rhubarb, but there were quite a lot of blackcurrants and raspberries, and a single bag of damsons. So mixed-fruit jam it was then!

The raspberries were R's favourite.
The canes were the first thing we put in the new vegetable garden way back in our first winter here. I always intended to set up a system of posts and wires, and to train the canes along them neatly, but like so many things it never quite happened. Yet the raspberries keep coming in abundance, even with competition from the local blackbird population. It pleases my sense of order to line up serried ranks of berries on trays for freezing, but the greater delight is taking out a couple of handfuls in the middle of winter for a smoothie or pavlova, giving a little flash of summer on a dull day.

Then there are the blackcurrant bushes. When we built the fruit bed, I bought a couple of bushes from the garden centre at great expense. Shortly afterwards I was offered some cuttings from a friend's garden - at the time I didn't realise how easily they root. And naturally the nameless freebies are consistently bigger, sweeter and more flavoursome than the bought variety. The blackcurrant harvest is one of my biggest garden pleasures. Rather than picking berries from the bushes, I always combine harvesting with pruning and simply lop off the currant-laden branches, take them to the table beneath the sycamore tree and strip the branches there, usually accompanied by a glass of wine.

And the damson tree deserves a mention too.
When we moved here, it was in such a sorry state. The previous owner's sheep had practically ring-barked the poor thing, and there was a huge foot-long scar in the trunk. It was spindly and top-heavy, and I was all for chopping it down there and then. R persuaded me to give it one year and then decide on its fate. So I gave it a good feed of manure, kept the grass down around it - and it rewarded us with a harvest of damsons that far exceeded all expectations. They aren't very large or particularly attractive, but they are sweet and delicious. The season is all too short as the wasps eat them if they are left on the tree too long, but for a glorious fortnight it is good to gorge on the little purple plums, and to freeze a couple of bags for moments like this.

I can't give a recipe because I didn't really use one. But all three fruits are fairly high in pectin, so setting isn't a problem. You just have to remember to boil them for twenty minutes or so before adding the sugar, otherwise the skins of the blackcurrants and damsons can be a bit tough. It is also a good idea to remove the stones from the damsons unless you like playing Russian roulette with your teeth and breakfast confiture!

My preference in jam is for as little sugar as I can get away with. 1 pound of sugar to 1 pound of fruit is nicest, but often isn't enough to keep the mould at bay, so I normally plump for a ratio of 1.25 : 1 which is still low enough that the flavour of the fruit isn't overpowered by the sugar. Then just dissolve the sugar in the fruit and boil furiously until a blob of jam on your cold plate passes the wrinkle test. It won't take too long because of the high-pectin fruit, remember.

That's it. Ladle into sterilised jars and seal. You can mess around with wax discs or water baths if you like, but none of it is necessary - clean jars and hot jam are all you need, and put the lids on before the mould spores have a chance to get in there too. And once you have opened the jar, always use a clean spoon to remove the jam and not the crumb-covered knife that you have just used to spread butter on your toast. Follow this little rule and your jam will remain pristine from the day you open the jar to the day you sadly scrape out the last dregs for your breakfast.

Currant dilemmas

One of the oddest consequences of finding myself suddenly alone is that the food I eat has changed quite drastically.

In any quantity, simple carbohydrates like jams, or even just too much bread, send my blood sugar levels haywire. A couple of hours after eating a breakfast of toast and marmalade, I often find myself shaky and clammy and feeling altogether unwell. So I rarely eat jam these days, unless it is to stir a spoonful into a bowl of yoghurt or very occasionally to be sociable and eat with guests for breakfast.

So when I did my early summer check of the freezer contents and found about 4 kilos of blackcurrants, I was initially rather at a loss as to what to do with them. Particularly as I can see that this is going to be a bumper year for soft fruit, and the harvest is practically imminent.

If jam is out, there is always cordial. That uses a lot of blackcurrants. I used to make this Ribena substitute for R, as he would drink gallons of it during the Summer. Well I guess I won't be needing that either. I'll keep some for making Summer Fruit Pudding, but that will barely make a dent in the stockpile. So what then?

The answer came during the recent run of hot weather. I went to the freezer again, looking for ice cream, but ice cream found I none. This was an emergency. And the only solution was sorbet!


So I unearthed my little manual ice cream-maker and put the bowl in the freezer to chill for a few hours. Then I dug out a bag of blackcurrants. When I harvest these, I simply open-freeze them on trays and then decant into bags. No topping and tailing required. Into the pan they went with a little water to prevent sticking. I added about 4 oz of sugar for every pound of currants (I like the tartness this leaves, but more sugar can be used if a sweeter end result is required).

Once the sugar had dissolved and the blackcurrants were starting to give up their juice, it was time to start sieving, pressing the pulp through the mesh with a wooden spoon. I advise wearing something old or indeed an apron for this job, as the juice splatters everywhere (or at least it does when I do it) and is very hard to get out of a white T-shirt!


After ten minutes or so of sieving you have a bowl of syrup and a lot of dryish pulp. If you keep chickens, give the pulp to them. This is a good way to show how much you love them - it will disappear in seconds - otherwise the compost heap will appreciate it too.

Put the bowl of syrup in the fridge to chill for a few hours. If you have a posh ice cream-maker that does the freezing for you, this step may not be necessary, but with a little manual jobbie like mine it is essential. If you don't there just isn't enough cold stored in the bowl to freeze properly.

If you happen to have an egg white lying around needing a home, this is a good use for it. Whisk it up to the soft peak stage as though you are making meringue, then fold it into the syrup. Then pour the whole lot into the bowl of the ice cream-maker, put the lid on and start cranking those gears. After about 10 minutes, you should have a bowlful of sorbet that you can decant into a tub and store in the freezer. This is absolutely fabulous on a hot day just on its own. It is also good as a palate-cleanser after a rich meal, perhaps with a couple of buttery biscuits or served with a scoop of good vanilla ice cream.

(If you don't have an ice cream-maker, you can still make sorbet. Pour your syrup into a shallow Tupperware box and put in the freezer. Every couple of hours, take it out and give it a stir around to break up the ice crystals or, alternatively, wait for about 4 hours, then remove from freezer, tip into blender, blend and then return to freezer.)

Now I know a picture of the finished product is traditional here, but I forgot to take one at the time and the weather has turned cold and non-conducive to sorbet-eating. Rest assured, that as soon as the weather perks up again, I shall oblige!