Frydmania

Here’s a thing: last weekend we had a food-related party, swapping jams, chutneys and so on.  Yesterday I caught up with some newspapers from a few weeks ago, and found an article relating to people living in the country, with ‘any social occasion’ (including meeting at the school gates) resulting in frenzied jam swapping.

The part of the paper this was in has two regular columns – one is a country perspective (written from someone who seems to have started living in the country more recently, and at times is rather bemused by it), another a very townie perspective (particularly that week’s one, where life anywhere other than in London is treated with a certain suspicion).

Nothing new, eh, but given that most of us swapping jams etc live in or near cities, I wondered if that makes us city bumpkins?  Perhaps there’s a lot of us in that situation – we may have grown up in smaller places, have come to the city to study or work.  Several years on, here we still are, enjoying a lot of the benefits of the larger place but hankering after some of the aspects of smaller places, such as being a bit closer to nature.

Maybe instead those of us who got together are foodies, or environmentalists, or both, responding to this particular economic phase: looking at the recession, natural resources reducing and so on, and having a spot of home production to go with it.  Or it may be a stage in life, if trying to feed growing families.  (Maybe we can get a group grant from Good Housekeeping, or the Guardian, if we feel particularly self-righteous about it…)

Maybe it’s part of (early?) middle age – enjoying the little things in life, simple pleasures like watching the colour of elderberries as they’re cooking away; doing a task that allows you to slow your brain down a bit.  Maybe it’s the belated fun of the pick ‘n mix – swapping things means that I get to try other people’s food that maybe I wouldn’t have thought to make, or to sample something new amid the other familiar items.

For my part, it’s also part of a growing desire to be creative – to make things, have fun doing so, and share a bit of that with others, particularly if they enjoy that too.  Yes, I’m doing it in part to avoid too much Christmas present shopping later, but also because I like the process of making things – particularly food-related things.

All of the above.  But what matters this weekend is that the apple chutney I made in September is now tasing very good with cheese…

The sun has been shining on Edinburgh, shining with all its might, even at the weekend, apologies to Lewis Carroll notwithstanding. Last Saturday, we managed an Outing which I am now thinking of as a bramble ramble.  The fact that I can also now write about it may make it a (short) ramble about brambles, so the title stays.

The cycle path network is where trains used to run in the past through the north of Edinburgh.  Our possible commuting loss is our free time gain, and one of the reasons I like living where we do – easy to get about without always travelling on main roads. 

As well as the brambles, we saw quite a lot of (mostly now empty) raspberry canes too, which led me to think that we need an earlier sortie down there next year.  We were also able to get some rosehips, some elderberries, and some other berries which I enthusiastically hoped were sloes but turned out not to be when I got them home and checked.

There’s clearly a good level of traffic up and down the cycle paths – some cycles, plenty of people out on foot too.  What interested me was the range of responses that our brambling brought out in passersby.

Most positive: two sisters plus dad: “Blackberries! Excellent!” said the younger sister, and they stopped to pick and eat near us.  The elder sister lost no opportunity to tell the younger one what not to do; the younger one lost no opportunity to eat brambles and ignore her sister.

Next response: a dad and a son going by.  They both seemed to know what we were doing, and the dad then proceeded to talk to the boy about large bramble roots as they then walked on.  He had a point – some of the runners coming out from the plants were particularly impressive (or aggressive, depending on your interpretation) this year.

Somewhat worrying response: family and friends party on foot, youngest girl in full princess dress regalia, but still at least four years old, I think.  As they passed, she was heard to ask “What are they doing?” I had to hope that someone would tell her, but they didn’t while we were in earshot.

What saddened me about the last response was that such a simple and easy activity was unknown to the girl, and that she and her family were missing out, not just on treats but free treats, and a family activity too.  When you can get free and exciting sauces for icecream from cooking brambles, as well as the brambles themselves, what price princess dresses?