Soft summer fruits need nothing but fresh cream and sugar added to make a perfect treat for a golden afternoon in the garden, says Flora Watkins
FOOL, glorious fool. Its name evokes childhood memories of golden afternoons, endless summers and gluts of berries. Like its name, the pudding is simple, almost childlike. However, when the sun is shining and soft fruit is abundantly in season, gooseberries, rhubarb and raspberries ask for nothing more than fresh cream and a little sugar.
‘Soft, pale, creamy, untroubled, the English fruit fool is the most frail and insubstantial of English summer dishes’ was Elizabeth David’s perfect description in An Omelette and a Glass of Wine. Fruit fool is adored by children and older people alike, ‘the kind of thing that women are said to favour, but that men eat more of,’ as Jane Grigson put it in her Fruit Book (1982).
Its charm lies in its simplicity. Recipes in old cookery books describe fools made from all manner of fruits, including apple, fig and mulberry, yet fools and creams— the recipes are often interchangeable—could include eggs and were flavoured with wine, spices and lemon peel.
In The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747), Hannah Glasse gives a recipe for gooseberry fool with eggs and nutmeg and her orange fool contains half-a-dozen eggs, plus cinnamon and nutmeg to taste.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning
