At the height of summer, with my garden groaning with the weight of fresh fruit ripening on every bush, I went down to my local supermarket for supplies. I walked past an impressive array of fruit that was on offer from around the world. I could have treated myself to mangos, lychees, or passionfruit. There were grapes, nectarines and apples out of season. All of them flown in from orchards many hundreds of miles away.
What was a lot less easy to find was any of the locally seasonal fruit that was currently growing in Yorkshire with such ease and abundance. Gooseberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants and even raspberries seemed to have become exotic rarities at a time when the bushes were burdened down with them.
Gooseberries in particular have such a fantastic flavour that if you discovered them for the first time you would start raving about a new taste sensation and expect to find them coming out of the kitchen of some top restaurant. Yet many local children will be completely unfamiliar with the taste because they are rarely on sale.
They are, of course, wonderful in simple things like a pie or a crumble but they are also remarkably versatile. They go well with elderflower but also with less likely combinations like green tea. Lemon can also be surprisingly effective in bringing out the flavour – provided of course that you add extra sugar. Even better is to not bother with sugar at all but to use locally sourced honey. This year’s supplies from my hives are particularly light and fragrant and are an astonishingly refreshing way of cutting against the sharpness of the fruit. Vinegar is similarly effective as a contrast. Try making gooseberry chutney and you won’t be disappointed.
I suspect that what prevents them from being on sale locally is the cost of picking them. They aren’t particularly easy to pick because of the sharpness of the needle like thorns that protect the fruit. Any beekeeper is used to the idea that you get a bit of pain on occasion if you want some reward. Yet the sharp stab of a gooseberry thorn can be every bit as shocking as the initial impact of a bee sting.
Fortunately, blackcurrants are a good deal less painful to collect and every bit as delicious. There is something immensely calming about the act of picking the fruits. It doesn’t seem to matter how stressed I am when I start filling my bowl. Somehow the primal driver of doing what humans are best designed to do kicks in and I am rapidly at peace with the world. As a species we have evolved to be good at gathering fruit. So, despite the slow and laborious process of picking a blackcurrant crop that is free of tiny bits of stalk, it doesn’t seem to take long to fall into an easy rhythm and for the heart beat to slow down and attune to the pleasure of the activity.
Even more pleasurable is eating the results. My personal favourite is hot blackcurrants accompanied by simple cold vanilla ice cream. The same combination works almost as well with yoghurt if you want to be a touch healthier or with cheesecake if you need something indulgent for a dinner party.
Redcurrants work equally well in a cheesecake. Or they would if my local blackbird wasn’t quite so fond of them. It can be spotted with juice dribbling from its beak looking very pleased with itself. Until it moves on to take more than its fair share of the cherries.
The good news is that birds are just about the only creature you need to compete with when you are growing fruit that is at ease with the Yorkshire climate. Growing vegetables without chemical sprays requires skill and patience and, being a touch short of both characteristics, I find the results very hit and miss. Growing tasty local fruit in a domestic garden is as easy as digging a hole, putting the bush in and watering it frequently. The most I have ever done is a bit of judicious pruning yet the crops come back each year perfectly free of pests without the need for any spraying.
None of us can know for sure which chemicals will have been sprayed on imported mangos. But recent research from Dave Goulson Professor of Biology at Sussex University revealed that even the average British apple orchard receives thirteen fungicide sprays, five plant growth regulator treatments, five sprays of insecticides, two herbicides and one spray with urea.
How much better would it be if we could persuade more of our supermarkets to sell tasty local Yorkshire produce which has needed nothing less than the abundant local rain to get it ready for market?