Autumn has arrived in earnest, with all its colours and fruits. The mix of weather conditions we have had this year has made it a bumper season for fruits of all kinds. The ground underneath most oak trees is littered with acorns and on many hedgerow shrubs and trees the fruits are far more abundant than we have seen in recent years. The hedges around Reg's Meadow also have their share of this abundance, so this month we are looking at the variety of edible fruits which our meadow has to offer and some of the ways in which these fruits have been used in ancient and modern times.

Beech Mast

Under the Beech trees at the entrance to the meadow the path is covered with Beech Mast, a very good indication that it has been a good fruiting year. Through history these small nuts have sometimes been used as a foodstuff, especially during periods of famine. In France they were roasted and ground up to be used as a substitute for coffee. They can also be pressed to give an oil which has been used in oil lamps as well as for cooking. Culinary uses include salad oil and beechnut butter, which was sold commercially in the 18th century.

Haws

The Hawthorn bushes have been heavy with Haws, which ripen around the end of September, changing colour gradually from scarlet red to a darker crimson. These can often be picked as late as November. They were not greatly prized in the more distant past, considered worthless except in times of need - according to one saying, "when all fruit falls, welcome haws", indicating that they would do if you couldn't get anything better! They were eaten more regularly in the Scottish Highlands and in India the tree is actually cultivated for its fruit. Nowadays haws are used for making wine, Hawthorn jelly and a liqueur made by steeping the berries in brandy.

Rose Hips

Rose Hips are found from late August until November or even later, sometimes remaining on the bushes throughout the winter, gradually turning from red to black. The fruits are not really usable until there has been a frost to soften the skins and because their seeds are covered with many tiny hairs they have to be strained very thoroughly through muslin or a fine mesh bag when cooking. Hips have been used as food in Europe since ancient times, especially when other fruit was scarce. One use was as a dessert, the cooked pulp strained and mixed with wine and sugar. In Russia and Sweden they were fermented to make wine and also cooked as a sweet soup, while in Norway they are still used today to make jam. Rose hips contain a large amount of vitamin C and have traditionally been made into syrup, used either as a healthy tonic or simply a delicious sauce.

Blackberry

Blackberries, or Brambles, are one of the best loved and most often collected hedgerow fruits, and have been especially big and juicy this year. Ripe berries can be found from August till November, though after the beginning of October these can become wet and mouldy, especially if the nights have turned frosty. It was said in folklore that they should not be picked after October 10th, the night on which the Devil would spit on all the fruit. This is an ancient plant, eaten since Neolithic times - blackberry pips were found in the stomach of a Stone Age man found in an Essex bog. There are many delicious ways in which the berries can be used. They can be made into wine, alone or mixed with other fruits, combined with hops and malt to make a form of ale, cooked in pies and syrups, mixed with vinegar to form a piquant sauce, made into deep purple bramble jellies and jams and used as flavouring for ice creams or sorbets - a truly versatile fruit.

Hazel Nuts

There has been a bumper crop of Hazel Nuts in the hedgerow along the left-hand, southern side of the meadow this season. The branches were heavy with nuts by July and although most of them have already fallen, there are still a few on the trees in early October. Hazel was a staple food of prehistoric people, especially the Celts, and was often mentioned in Gaelic literature and poetry. It was also cultivated by the Romans, suggesting that it was an important food source. In more recent times many schools used to close on September 14th, Holy Cross Day, and most people would go nutting - unless the day fell on a Sunday, when it was dangerous, as you might meet the Devil in disguise. Hazel nuts are fun to collect in the wild - if you can get to them before the squirrels! The nuts are used in many recipes, including cakes and biscuits, or just eaten raw, especially at Christmas.

Elderberries

Most of the Elderberries have now been eaten by birds, but there are still a few to be found in the hedgerow at the bottom of the meadow. The berries make a rich, deep red wine and whole orchards were once planted in Kent to sell fruit for winemaking. In the 18th century, cheap port was sometimes doctored with elderberry juice to improve colour and flavour - claims were made that drinking port could cure rheumatism, but investigations found that the port had no anti-neuralgic properties, while the faked port did, due to the elderberry content! Elderberries are also made into syrup, used to ward off coughs and colds, or mixed with apples to make jelly or jam.

Guelder Rose Berries

The Guelder Rose is a less familiar plant to have food uses, but in Norway and Sweden the berries were used to flavour a paste made from honey and flour. In Siberia they are fermented with flour and distilled to make a spirit. Canadians use them as a substitute for cranberries, to make a piquant jelly and in Maine, USA, they are cooked with molasses.

Wildings

We have several apple trees in the meadow hedgerows. These are sometimes called "wildings" and are descended from cultivated apple trees which have reverted to a wild form. Their fruits are larger than the tiny, wild Crab Apples that are the original native British apple.

Crab Apples

We do not have Crab Apples in the meadow - the photograph shown above was taken in a farm lane in Surrey. Apples have been an important food source since prehistoric times, Crabs being the origin of all the cultivated species and still used as rootstock today. One of the oldest culinary uses was for verjuice, made in Medieval times from fermented crab apples and used much as we use lemon juice today. Verjuice is still used in France and is often preferred to lemon. Various forms of cider have been made from apples for many hundreds of years and the traditional Wassail Bowl of the Middle Ages contained strong ale, sugar, spices and roasted crab apples. Apple wine, crab apple jelly and crab apple cheese, a thick, sweetened puree served with meats or as a dessert course, are just a few of the ways in which wild apples are used today.

Sloes

Sloes have done particularly well in Reg's Meadow this year, the branches of the Blackthorn bending under the weight of the small blue-black fruits. Sloes are the ancestors of our cultivated plums and have been eaten for many hundreds of years. The fruits ripen in September and October but should not be picked until after the first frosts, which soften the skins and make them useable. Medieval monks in Ireland used sloes to brew an alcoholic drink and, as with Elderberries, it is said that fraudulent wine merchants would mix sloe wine with cheap port to make it taste like the better quality version. In modern times Sloes are best known for making sloe gin or wine, but they are also used to make sloe and apple cheese, a thick puree used as an accompaniment for cold meats, particularly game. The taste of all sloe recipes, especially wine, will vary depending on the quality of the fruit in a particular year - sometimes the fruit will be extra dry and astringent and need extra sweetening. Sloes taken out of sloe gin when it is ready to drink can be eaten as a dessert and one recipe recommends dipping them in melted chocolate, which is allowed to set...but look out for the stones when eating them!

Even in an area as small as our meadow there is an impressive array of edible fruits to be found in Nature's Larder!

There are several good books available if you want to find out more about what you can safely eat from the countryside. Two of the best are "Food for Free" by Richard Mabey and "Wild Food" by Roger Phillips.

Featured Fruit - Rowan Berries (Sorbus aucuparia)

Rowan

We do not have rowan trees in our hedgerow but they are found in two of the copses on the south side of the meadow. Rowan is a small, deciduous tree, growing to around 20 metres, found on mountains and in woodland and scrub. It has alternate, pinnate leaves, creamy white flowers in May and June and berries from August until November, gradually turning from green to yellow, orange and finally bright red in October.

There are a great many alternative names, including Quickbane, Quickenbeam, Round Wood, Rune Tree, Sorb Apple, Witch-bane, Wiggy, Thor's Helper and Whispering Tree.

Sorbus is the Latin name for the genus, which includes a number of other trees. Aucuparia means "attracting birds" and is believed to refer to the red berries historically being used to lure birds into traps. The common name Rowan comes from the Norse rogn or raun, derived from a Germanic word raudniar, meaning "getting red", and probably referring to the reddening of the foliage and berries in autumn. Rowan is also known as Mountain Ash, a name given because the pinnate leaves look similar to those of the Ash tree, though the two are not actually related.

This attractive tree has a long history in tradition and superstition, much of which relates to the use of the wood as a protection against various forms of evil. Rowan trees were planted beside houses to ward off witches and crosses made from the wood were hung above stables and byres to protect cattle from witchcraft, especially in the Scottish Highlands - these had to be made without using a knife. If butter would not churn it was suspected that a curse had been put on it and the remedy was to stir the milk or cream with a rowan twig while beating the cow with another twig. This would lift the curse and make the butter come together. In Cornwall, pocket charms made from rowan wood were carried to ward off rheumatism and in Yorkshire the thin, whippy branches were used to make dowsing rods.

The bark and fresh or dried fruits have all been used traditionally. Bark was used for tanning and for producing black dyes as well as in a decoction to treat diarrhoea. The fruits have had many medicinal uses, including the treatment of scurvy, as a gargle for sore throat or inflamed tonsils, curing haemorrhoids, as a laxative and to relieve eye irritations.

In Wales the berries were used to brew a type of ale, while in northern Europe they were dried, to be ground into flour, or fermented to brew a strong alcoholic spirit. Wine and a form of perry or cider can also be made from the berries and in Scotland they are most traditionally used to make Rowan jelly, to be eaten with cold game and wild fowl meat.