Time: about 90 minutes, but this included lots of walking around
Place: Southwark Park, Bermondsey
Gathered: 10 lingering Saskatoon berries. About 1.5kg of cherries, not counting the ones that ended up in my tummy as I was picking.
Southwark Park has more in it than I had suspected, and I will be returning there. The cherries are excellent – juicy and sweet. When I pick cherries, I always taste a few from each tree, because there are so many different varieties and some of them taste better than others. One tree had large, dark, juicy cherries on it, but on tasting they were so bitter I decided not to gather those ones after all.
There are several Turkish Hazel (Corylus colurna) trees; I will be going back for their nuts later in the year. I also look forward to sampling some of the plums around. There is a walnut tree – I think it is the Black Walnut (Juglans nigra), also known as the “No, you won’t get this open without a sledgehammer” walnut. I may stick to the easier-to-open Persian (aka English) walnuts that I know of, instead, but if I miss them it’s nice to know there will be a source that the squirrels haven’t been able to decimate. Although I don’t much like them I’m quite pleased to have found blackcurrants. They aren’t in very good condition, I think the lack of rain in April and the abundance of it in June has confused them a bit.
Cherries! What to do with 1.5kg of them? Some were mixed with ground almonds and a bit of golden syrup, and used as a filling for sweet croissants. I stewed the rest and have been eating them with yoghurt, with ice cream, just on their own… I may well try cooking them some more to remove moisture and making a fruit spread. I’d really like to have a dehydrator to dry some with – I’m sure if I go back in the next few days there will be more – but that is not part of my current equipment stock. I might try doing some of them in a low oven, though, when it looks like I’ll be home long enough.
