Production will begin shortly of a limited edition of six bottles of Vin de Mûres, made from specially selected blackberries ripened on west facing bushes along The Gateway to the Egg. The fruits have been hand picked and the fermentation process is imminent for this new wine, from La Maison d’Oeuf.
Seamus Heaney’s poem called Blackberry Picking was sent to me just a couple of days ago in response to my ongoing fascination with this bountiful plant, but without mention of his death at the end of August (news of which just penetrated my thin cedar walls). I walked out tonight as the sun set along my abundant avenue of fruit laden bushes, whose every stem seemed home to the green, to the ripe and to the gone to seed. Nothing’s lasts forever, except perhaps its memory.
Marshmallow rises up through the tall grass within twenty metres of the Egg (N 50˚47.142′ W 001˚24.449′). The French began to use pith from the stems of this plant, boiled with sugar, as a chewy sweet in the 19th century. They later tried whipping the pulped roots with egg white and rose water to create the light airy confection that todays purely sugar and gelatine marshmallows are derived from. The plant may be scarce in this environment and need to be left untouched, but if more are found nearby I will make my own confection as an after dinner treat – and as a further reminder of our long cultural relationship with all that is living around us.
Morning ripened berries were selected from an east facing bush on the Egg Gateway. They were thoroughly washed and examined by hand for bits of thorn and other unwelcomeness. They were then lightly crushed in a bowl.
A sachet of pectin with a quarter cup of sugar was added to the berries and brought to the boil for a minute. Seven full cups of sugar were then added and boiled again for a short time, until the nascent jam began to set on a cooled spoon. Froth was skimmed from the top and the mixture carefully poured into two pre-prepared sterilised jars.
nb. It is important not to pick blackberries after Michaelmas on September 29th after which time they increasingly become a home to maggoty creatures. It has been argued that the devil renews a curse on the plant on this day every year, after landing on it when ejected from heaven by archangel Michael.
Media
Eight cups of berries (crushed to fill six cups)
Seven and 1/4 cups of sugar
One sachet of pectin
Two clean glass jars
Two labels (to be applied)
The red of the sea beet is in a fight for light with surrounding grasses and the pale yellow of the more plentiful sea purslane is an easily dismissed fuzz of brownish yellow. Relatively dull to the naked eye, they have a haunting and memorable presence under my microscope’s lens.
Many caterpillars of the small tortoiseshell butterfly were feasting on a nettle and leaving tracks of their own black droppings of processed green leaf. Another much smaller critter of similar colour, was only noticed when I examined the photos on screen.
Other creatures dwell around my abode in the Egg and the labyrinth spider is just one of my many parishioners. Its web inspired me to cut a new route to the Egg through bramble and blackthorn, that is both more sheltered and less disturbing to the birds. It was slow work negotiating the sharp spines of the blackthorn.
To the west side, the story is about marsh samphire whose tips are ready to be picked. A few succulent stems made breakfast today, cooked for a few minutes with a small amount of butter, pepper and lemon juice. It stands like a miniature forest of fresh, succulent and bright green cacti (without the prickles).
I have also got a small patch of sea beet beside the pontoon to the Egg, and my thicket of blackthorn could well result in a few bottles of Exbury Egg Sloe Gin or maybe jam…
For some amazing sounding recipes for samphire take a look at the following link:-
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2007/jun/30/features.weekend
There are around seventy Canada Geese summering on the marsh and surrounding fields, and today I found a large goose feather on the foreshore which I made into a pen by shaping the hollow end with a sharp knife. Goose feathers were the scribes weapon of choice until the advent of steel nibs in the nineteenth century. Whilst penning these brief notes on a mac book pro, this writer still likes the feel of scratching over the surface of real paper and using an ink made in the traditional way from the surrounding Oaks. Whilst enjoying the best of the new, I would hate to forget, or lose, what endures in the traditional.
The Exbury Egg 