Walnut oil and pickled elderberries amongst other things.

At dawn in a field, as summer turns to autumn.

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South Devon, August 2024

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It is just before six o’clock in the morning.

Sunrise seems quite early to be stood in the fields if I’m honest, though I want to catch the sunrise.

The sun lights up the sky a soft vivid gold, though it’s still hidden, not yet ready to lift itself from behind the thin clouds that have gathered in the skies above this small little valley, formed between two forested hillsides of tall sculpted Aleppo pines full of cones and old twisted oaks that hide tumbledown stonework from centuries ago, now buried in brambles and blackberries, fat ones that leave their seeds stuck in your teeth for the rest of the day. Walls clad with wild ivy, walls that sheltered those that lived here in past times, centuries ago, lives governed by the seasons and what the land gave.

Far up high, clouds that have built up in the early hours of the dawn; ‘mackerel skies’ as the old men say, soaring off into the realms of the blues and golds that reflect the steel grey and pink that foretells of a sunny day.

It’s cold nowadays at this early hour.

Warm mornings of summer give way to what seems the first signs of autumn signalled by the change in the dawn air.

You can taste it.

Tips of the leaves in the woodland, borne high above on branches now turn to umber, the horse chestnuts are first to reveal their autumnal colours, though still it’s late summer. Leaves that through the warm months slowly have fallen in piles on the ground, spun by the wind.

The smell of woodsmoke from somewhere tells of a fire early in the day, or perhaps still burning from the night before.

Field that lay pale and dry now that the grass has been cut, left in tall bales, though soon to be thick with the clucking and honking of young pheasants.

Damp, fresh and chilled, carpets of dew cover the wet, heavy grasses of the fields and hedgerows, the stubby seed heads of the common plantain covered with the glistening drops that soak my feet as I walk, the low sun bathing the sienna stalks of spiky bracken and curly topped hogweed, the drooping clusters of the nettle heads and tall elegant mullein that stand dotted here and there, pastel green, furry and yellow as they stand tall in the light.

A scene that perhaps Turner would have likely painted way better than I can describe it to you.

Could you imagine?

Rooks caw at the dawn from up high in their rookeries, little Wrens dart about the edge of the field line, looking for grubs under leaves, whilst a Sparrowhawk calls from above, on duty it seems, waiting.

The change in the air now obvious.

Autumn is coming and all that that brings.

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Hedgerow

Elderberries hang ripe, deep and blood red, purple stained drops on the ground where they fall with their cyanide filled stems. Painstakingly picked from these delicate little stalks to prevent a toxin induced headache, stripped through the tines of a fork into a great pile of small round dark beads in a bowl The berries from the heads of white blossom from spring that have turned to fruit over summer.

I’ll pickle jar fulls of these in the next week, so that I might spoon them over a plate of thinly sliced tuna, cold raw and pink, with a little salt or perhaps stirred through a rich glossy sauce for a roasted grouse perhaps, its crop still full of heather from the day it was shot.

The old English walnut tree in the corner of the field more than a dozen feet high, sadly shows signs of a blotch on its leaves, the hulls of the speckled black and green nuts  are beginning to crack as the season leads on. A warning that the nuts might well be useless this year as fungus has taken hold of the tree, though only time will tell. I still have a jar, picked dried and saved from a different summer that will yield me a fine bottle of toasted walnut oil.

I’ll share with you how to make it. It’s very easy.

I missed collecting soft, young green walnuts from earlier this summer through my not paying enough attention to the calendar. A week or two earlier and they would have been mine. Using a long needle to pierce through the green hulls, checking to feel if the shell inside had begun to harden. Resistance inside where the needle’s point met the hard of its interior told me I was too late.

No pickles for me this year.

The change in the air makes me think of the gathered baskets of hard walnuts from last year, stolen from squirrels, shaken from trees as summer meets autumn, tannic nuts that will stain your hands and your table black and yellow for months as you smash off the hulls, washed hard in cold water and dried slowly for a month to be stored for the year ahead.

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Walnut oil

Once the harvest of walnuts has dried, take a bowlful, (or indeed just go out and buy a bag) cracking them open, digging out each little nut from within the crisp, sharp layers of its shell; brain-like with it’s two hemispheres, a handful or so, peeled and placed in a pan of boiling water for a minute or two at the most.

Strain them and lay them out on a cloth to dry, then toast them on a low flame for the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, whilst at the same time stirring them here and there to stop them from catching, one or two quickly taken from the pan and eaten warm, a small crunch of sea salt stirred through the nuts.

As they colour, gently crush them with the back of a wooden spoon so they break down into small pieces, releasing their flavour as they turn golden, then a covering of good olive oil, and then lay a cloth over them leave them to rest for a few days, the infusion of toasted nuts and oils warming each other to create a fine condiment for the table.

No fuss, just as I have said above.

You might use it to dress slices of roast chicken with braised greens, carved at the table with a little sea salt, or to drip with a spoon over bitter garden leaves with little cubes of crispy fried bacon.

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Pickled elderberries

Where you previously found the hedges clustered with the perfumed white heads of elderflower earlier in the year, the flowers that remained after picking for cordials and vinegars have now turned to fruit.

To make something interesting, strip a bowlful or so of the ripe berries, avoiding the green ones and leaving some for the birds.

Over a bowl, using the tines of a fork, flick the berries downwards from the stalks. These stalks will cause you trouble as they contain small amounts of cyanide so should be removed and thrown in the bin.

Just keep the berries.

It’s very easy to miss a few of the stalks, but also important to adhere to the rules of using wild ingredients so you must pay attention.

Wash the berries well in cold water, skimming the bits and pieces that float to the surface away with a small sieve.

Place a couple of handfuls of the berries in a clean glass jar and leave aside. In a small saucepan warm one mugful of cider vinegar, a handful of sugar and a good heavy splash of elderflower cordial.

Warm the mixture so the sugar is dissolved and it tastes sour, sweet and floral all at the same time, then pour it over the berries, sealing the jar and leaving it to cool. Keeping them in the fridge is best with these sort of things, and over the coming months, spoon them over a plate of thinly sliced raw fish or slices of cold meats or cured ham, stir them into stews or spoon over roasted game. They are also very good with goat’s cheese, in fact they will sit happily along side all sorts of things and will keep your larder interesting for the next few months. If you have any left from your forage or are faced with a hedge full that you can’t leave to the birds, then a syrup is traditional; dense thick and dark, and very good indeed when spooned over vanilla ice cream.

Until next time

William