Friday 14 September 2007

Anyone got a recipe for Eve's pudding?



Don’t let on but I’ve been scrumping again, or should I say Autumn foraging. I’m tempted every year and one end of my workshop is now stacked with wonderful bramleys and some old fashioned little red apples that I can’t identify.

Let me explain. Lampwork cottage supports only one apple tree. Stately it may be, with a beautiful canopy, it’s a tree for climbing and resting under, but it doesn’t justify its space in the garden by providing me with apples. It promised six green marbles earlier in the summer, but three dropped off in the first strong wind and the starlings did for the rest. I’ve managed a few pies from next door’s windfalls dropping over the fence but each year I’m lured on by the lustier trees down the allotment.



Now my allotment isn’t posh, with paths, sheds and running water. There are no written rules and anarchy does reign at times. It’s privately owned and I pay £5 a year to join other stalwart gardeners fighting a never ending battle with mares tail, bindweed and other invasive terrors. But for my £5 a year I have the most beautiful spot looking onto fields and woodland. A place of peace and tranquillity, where I can watch birds and wildlife when tired with digging. The soil’s quite good too.



But my little patch of earth is constantly threatened by brambles. They creep towards me with a muscular stealth that can be quite unnerving. and, in the middle of these brambles, grow some of the most prolific apple trees I have ever seen. They are so fertile that each year branches break under the crushing weight of the fruit. No wonder I’m tempted.



When I took over the allotment the old timers told me they were Mr A’s trees. It was a couple of years, and several metres of steadily encroaching brambles, before I realised Mr A had been dead for some time. So now I quietly thank Mr A as I slash and trample my way through his brambles to scrump the apples. I do have a naughty guilty feeling as I pick, but I guess women have always been tempted by apples and I’ve had to find something to go with all those blackberries the brambles so helpfully provide.

(The pictures are just recent snaps of my garden)

I've just found this rather sweet little fairy poem. Very appropriate!

Song of the Fairies Robbing an Orchard

We are the fairies, blithe and antic

Of dimensions not gigantic

Though the moonshine mostly keep us,

Oft in orchards frisk and peep us.

Stolen sweets are always sweeter,

Stolen kisses much completer;

Stolen looks are nice in chapels,

Stolen, stolen be your apples!

When to bed the world are bobbing,

Then it’s time for orchard robbing;

Yet the fruit were scarce worth peeling

Were it not for stealing, stealing

Leigh Hunt (1794-1859)

24 comments:

Sally Townsend said...

What a wonderful sounding haven, and all for five pounds ! I'll book a week there please.

laurie said...

"women have always been tempted by apples."

how wise you are.

i would retrieve those apples, too. and then i would make my mom's apple crisp recipe, with the wonderful crunchy brown-sugar top. yum....

don't get scratched in the bramble bushes.

Maggie Christie said...

Illicit apples always taste better don't they? Enjoy!

Posie said...

Mr A lives on through his apples, what a lovely thought, I bet he'd be chuffed to bits....loads of brambles here, but no apples, happy farmer is hoping to plant a few trees though....

Hannah Velten said...

I think Mr A would be quite happy that someone is making use of his apples - perhaps give him a thought when you are tucking into a home-made apple crumble - ohh, yummy!

Mootia x

Westerwitch/Headmistress said...

Apple and blackberry pie, or crumble with custard . . that should keep you out of the naughty corner . . .

Suffolkmum said...

I loved the bit about all women being tempted by apples too! Your allotment sounds like such a refuge - I want one! Carry on scrumping!

Elizabethd said...

Apple chutney, Eve's pudding, baked apples.....Oh I could go on and on with the apple worship!

LITTLE BROWN DOG said...

Oooh, scrumping - that takes me back! Hope there weren't any serpents hiding in the tree. Oooh, apple & blackberry crumble with custard. Just given me an idea...

toady said...

I too think that Mr A would be delighted. How about inventing a 'Mr A's Memorial Chutney'
Toady

Anonymous said...

I can just see Mr A watching you with a cheeky grin. I love apple pie, minus the pie bit because I live on gaviscon - due to severe heartburn!

Crystal xx

Exmoorjane said...

Scrump away! When I was little I used to squeeze through the fence into next-door;s garden and scrump the apples (but, being an honest girl, I would replace them with our own rock-hard pears - stuck on the tree with sticky glue!!!).... our neighbour, bless her, never said a word.

Casdok said...

Sounds idylic.
Love the poem

Westerwitch/Headmistress said...

Love the poem . . . .

Also wanted to say I think you are doing an amazing job with the book club . . .

Chris Stovell said...

That's not fair! I'm still full from breakfast but i still fancy a piece of blackberry and apple pie!

Anonymous said...

your allotment sounds exactly like mine. My bit is £2.50 a year, not water or anything. It's very peaceful though.

DJ Kirkby said...

Cute little poem, I am not above scrumping myself.

snailbeachshepherdess said...

....from a fellow scrumper...done it for years...there are some old miners cottages up on the hill, the greengages and damsons have to be seen to be believed. As kids we used to climb an old couple's apple tree at night and strip it bare....we thought they didn't know! huh! the policeman knew where to come!!

Pondside said...

Filched fruit - always the best! I loved that little poem. When you say brambles, do you mean blackberries, or another kind of vine?

Norma Murray said...

Brambles are the plants. Huge, thorny, creeping things that sneak up on the unwary gardener when her back is turned. Blackberries grow on the brambles. They are the tasty fruit that manage to be just out of reach.

Suffolkmum said...

Lovely poem!

Milla said...

what I find interesting is how everyone is saying, yeah, go on, scrump and yet everyone got just as yeah, go on, tell her off when Tattie's blackberries were nicked! Feel dead guilty if I were to nick anything but love the idea of getting away with it!

Cait O'Connor said...

Love the poem. Love cooked apples in any dish. Yummy!

Anonymous said...

Mouthwatering - and love the poem!