Squirrelling Away

The Squirrel Nutkin Within

Myfanwy Alexander

As the long days of a Montgomeryshire summer compress into autumn, I nd myself coming to terms with my Inner Squirrel. I know stores in plenty will be available in the shops throughout the winter, yet I feel a seasonal urge to preserve. ere are, I think, several reasons for this, the most important being the instinct to not waste a glut of anything, even tiny, rock-hard pears. e green grapes which never ripen on the vine which covers our house make a jewelbright jelly, though I was psychologically scarred for life by watching my mother make jelly when I was a child. It seemed to be a process fraught with technical challenges which only an upturned chair, twine and endless muslin could resolve.

It also becomes a seasonal kindness to relieve your friends of their surplus produce: a rather miserable glut of runner beans with more strings than a symphony orchestra became an exotic treat when slowly cooked in turmeric. I also gather in supplies to lay the bedrock of the edible treats I like to give at Christmas. I derive great satisfaction from the notion that autumn preserves allow me to be somehow ahead of my seasonal game, even though I am still likely to be hastily making last-minute fudge and waiting somewhat desperately for the coloured sugar to set in the stained glass window biscuits. en there is the whole nature’s bounty thing, gathering the hedgerow fruits, though having grown up with the superstition that all blackberries gathered a er St Michael’s Day are cursed by Satan himself has cast a rather Hammer House of Horror vibe over my gleaning.

e real reason, however, for my autumnal preserving spree is that there is no culinary endeavour quite so relaxing or satisfying as making chutney. It is di cult to make bad chutney, though I have managed once or twice, but even then, too much sugar just triggers a rebrand: who could resist a jar of spiced apple jam? All kinds of pickles are the refuge of the slap-dash cook because proportions are not crucial, but this also leads to creativity: a new avour or texture can be introduced at will without spoiling the end result.

Experimentation can lead to a new ‘house style’ emerging: I went through a phase of thinking that star anise was almost compulsory, to such an extent that, following a pre-chutney shopping trip, Croesoswallt (Oswestry) featured in an article in e Guardian about people panic buying spices to ward o bird u. Er, no, I’m just doing a bit of chutney.

If making jam is a science, requiring perfect quantities and exact temperatures, then chutney making is an art, a glorious Jackson Pollock-esque process full of energy and invention. e smell in the kitchen, sweet, spicy and sharp all at once, feels like a compensation for the drawing in of days. Most robust pickles made in the autumn will have mellowed su ciently to feature with the Christmas cold meats but come into their own with next summer’s picnics, inside or outside a savoury pie.

Apples are a chutney staple: I love trading a couple of bags of windfalls for a jar or two of pickle, but sharing apples is taken to another level when a community come together to press their apples. It makes economic sense, of course, for the cost of the hire of the press to be shared, and in the hamlet of Trefnannau they have the perfect location for their gathering; the community orchard they established to be a community focus a er the village school closed. ey chose to make an outdoor hub, planting ancient Welsh apple varieties in a fertile meadow.

We come with our apples in boxes, trailers, dumpy bags or, in my case, a small basket, waiting our turn as the fruit is laid between the heavy plates and crushed, releasing startling quantities of fragrant cloudy juice. e oldest apple-presser is in her eighties, the youngest not yet in school, local farming families sharing knowledge and skills with enthusiastic newcomers. Last year, I took my rather meagre two bottles home and kept them chilled for a couple of weeks. My under-ripe fruit had yielded rather sour juice, needing time to settle, I was told. When I opened it, having added nothing at all, my juice was passable cider: with a few juniper berries, it made a delicious sauce for pork.

In Dolanog, where many houses retained their cider apple trees, the communal pressing is a rather more functional event: they wait until the summer to gather in a large shed to share and compare the cider, then play Human Skittles, a game whose details I dare not reveal.

that autumn preserves allow me to be somehow ahead to be hastily making last-minute fudge and waiting somewhat desperately for the coloured sugar to set in whole nature’s bounty thing, gathering the hedgerow fruits, though having grown up with the superstition that all blackberries gathered a er St Michael’s Day are cursed by Satan himself has cast a rather Hammer House of Horror vibe over my gleaning. e real reason, however, for my autumnal preserving spree is that there is no culinary endeavour quite so relaxing or satisfying as making chutney. It is di cult to make bad chutney, though I have managed once or twice, but even then, too much sugar just triggers a rebrand: who could resist a jar of spiced apple jam? All kinds of pickles are the refuge of the slap-dash cook because proportions are not crucial, but this also leads to creativity: a new avour or texture can be introduced at will without spoiling the end result. Experimentation can lead to a new ‘house style’ emerging: I went through a phase of thinking that star anise was almost compulsory, to such an extent that,

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