Jane v Elizabeth
Why Jane Grigson still rules; plus three gooseberry recipes, where fairies like to hide, and a gooseberry interlude for paid subscribers.
Last month, Anne Dolamore of Grub Street Publishing very kindly sent me a new edition of Jane Grigsons’ classic, Good Things. Grub Street have reissued it because Jane Grigson highlighted and celebrated seasonal food, and seasonality, as Grub Street note, is ‘top priority of all those who take their eating and cooking seriously.’
First published in 1971, Jane says in the introduction to the original edition:
‘‘…I feel that delight lies in the seasons and what they bring us…the strawberries that come in May and June straight from the fields, the asparagus of a special occasion, kippers from Craster in July and August, the first lamb of the year from Wales. This is good food.’
She goes on:
‘The encouragement of fine food is not greed or gourmendise; it can be seen as an aspect of the anti-pollution movement in that it indicates concern for the quality of environment. This is not the limited concern of a few cranks.’
Anyone who’s had an email from me knows how much I revere Jane Grigson; I share a quote from her that remains my mantra;
‘We have more than enough masterpieces
What we need is a better standard of ordinariness.’
If you’ve read my stories you’ll see that I often quote from her extensive knowledge of food history and varieties.
Fifty four years ago she was highlighting that good food is for everyone. It’s still an uphill struggle.
Last November I wrote a guest post for
called Never Trust The Brownie Cookbook. I mentioned that in the 1970’s Jane Grigson wrote her guide to Food from Britain for The Observer newspaper. I’ve still got some of the pull outs. It was the first time that local food entered into the lexicon as something to be proud of, preserved and cherished.
At the other end of the scale; At my grandparents house, I’d sit in the kitchen for hours, copying out recipes from Grandma’s Elizabeth Davids’ Italian Food. I don’t think I ever made it, but I loved the sound of apricot ice. The book took me on a journey to Italy, long before I’d travelled there.
I loved reading books by Elizabeth and Jane but it’s Jane I most often turn to, and Jane who feels like a warm aga on a cold day, whilst Elisabeth feels like her own work; Harvest of the Cold Months. Jane is as welcoming and down to earth as a glass of damson gin. Elizabeth, like a glass of chilled fino. Jane introduced me to wonderful words like bloater and kickshaw, and her curiosity and in-depth knowledge about food stories, fed and fired my own love for food history.
Elizabeth David came from a wealthy family and was sent to Paris and then Munich for her education.
She spent the 2nd world war in Italy, Greece and Egypt. Writing as a cookery journalist, her articles appearing in Harper’s Bazaar from spring 1949, evoking the memories of the foods she’d appreciated, in contrast to the austerity of post war Britain, still in the grips of food rationing.
Jane came from a working class North-East family. She spent the 2nd world war in Cumbria, and from there, went to Cambridge University. She worked in art galleries and publishing houses, and spent three months in Italy. She met poet Geoffrey Grigson whilst working at Thames and Hudson. After the birth of their daughter Sophie, Geoffrey and Jane bought a tiny cave house in Trôo in the Loir-et-Cher region of France. It was from here that her interest in food developed.
Her first book Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery (1967) was the fruit of four years’ research. The following year, Elizabeth David recommended Jane as cookery writer for the new colour magazine of the Observer newspaper.
Good Things is a collection of some of her articles. She said;
“This is not a manual of cookery, but a book about enjoying food.”
‘Being always grateful for the background of an unfailing larder, I feel that delight lies in the seasons and what they bring us’
Jane became a crusader for the foods of the British Isles, writing at a time when food from abroad was glamorous and adored, and UK food maligned and old fashioned. She championed natural and high welfare farming practices.
As Geraldine Holt says in her article about Jane;
‘Jane was particularly interested in English food and its past. She lamented that we had lost so much due to modernisation and industrial practices when, for almost all of man’s time on earth, he grew food naturally in a way that we now label as organic. Enlightened gardeners rarely waver from this traditional approach, and an increasing number of of farmers and horticulturists have recently adopted these methods. In her work Jane helped pioneer this campaign for unadulterated food which now has legions of supporters.’
In Good Food you’ll find chapters on meat and game, fish, vegetables, edible woodland mushrooms, fruit, dessert and fruit liqueurs. The book opens with a recipe for kippers for breakfast and paragraphs about smoked fish. In the vegetable chapter is her famous curried parsnip soup recipe. She writes about quince, gooseberries, prunes and walnuts. In the desserts section are recipes for coffee granita and Camembert ice cream.
Elizabeth and Jane were friends and admired each other’s work. In the introduction to Good Food, Jane recommends Elizabeth’s book, French Provincial cooking and I love that of the gooseberry sauces I mention below, one she gives is by Elizabeth David.
Although they both wrote beautifully, Elizabeth, I feel would pounce on you for using the wrong type of anchovy.
It’s Jane’s generosity, and down to earth character, her foibles, the feeling that she’s besides you at the kitchen table, encouraging you that wins me over. Although some of her instructions can be strict and to the point, I can still hear her saying, ‘it’s just a bit burnt, no-one will notice, it will still taste good.’
And whilst Elizabeth David brought the sunshine of the Mediterranean to the gloom of war starved Britain still on rations, it was Jane Grigson who brought us back our dignity and pride in the food that is still being championed here today.
If I had the choice of whose table to sit at, it would be Jane every time.
‘Anyone who likes to eat, can soon learn to cook well…. There’s no reason for not eating deliciously - and simply- all the time. So why don’t we? After all, in the eighteenth century our food was the envy of Europe. Why isn’t it now?’
Below, for paid subscribers, why gooseberries aren’t grapes, what a gooseberry bush really means, gooseberry history, where fairies favour to shelter, plus Jane Grigon’s gooseberry sauce to eat with fresh mackerel, and two delectable sweet gooseberry recipes.
Gooseberries have dagger like thorns, and aren’t afraid to use them, as I discovered to my cost last week. It’s as if this season has been curated by Disney. Spring was more springier than I’ve seen it for many years. Now Summer is here, the seasons seem to be apologising for last years appalling behaviour, making up for it with a tumbling abundance. After last years dismal showing, it’s going to be a good year for gooseberries. Sadly, they' are not easy to find commercially, unless you visit a farmers market, or farm shop. I tried at five supermarkets and three greengrocers recently, out of curiosity, and none stocked them. There’s still time as gooseberries are in season for a few months
I often explained to customers at farmers markets that a punnet of gooseberries weren’t grapes. How to introduce gooseberries? Many had never seen the berries before. They’d try one if offered, and I’d see their faces pucker if the fruit was less than ripe. I’d explain that unripe gooseberries are perfect for cooking; for making sauces, jam, chutney and crumbles. That a gooseberry will ripen perfectly if left in a warm spot, turning from an acid green to a pale yellow, their interior shining through the skin. They will be a mellow, sweet, jelly like mouthful, a pleasure to eat raw, just as good baked into a pie or tart, to be savoured with thick yellow cream. And if you’re lucky, the gooseberry season will hold a fleeting hand out to the passing elderflower blossom; a marriage of perfect fragrance. If not, elderflower cordial is an acceptable substitute if a less prosaic one.
Gooseberries are part of the currant family, ribes. Nothing to do with Chinese gooseberries, or Cape gooseberries. If you’re very lucky, you’ll come across green, red, white and yellow varieties.
Their name derives from the Old Norman/Middle English groses or grosier, the old word for grosielle, the French for redcurrant. In turn, these words come from the Frankish root krûsil which means ‘crisp berry’.
Gooseberries are called ‘le groseillier à maquereau’, in France, ‘mackerel currant’ which is a good reminder that they were often paired with oily fish like mackerel and herrings and fatty meats such as duck. The berries had many colloquial names including; ‘Carberry’, ‘Dayberry’, ‘Dewberry’, ‘Fabes’, ‘Feaps’, ‘Goggle’, ‘Golfob’, ‘Goosegog’, ‘Goosegob’, ‘Groser’, ‘Groset’, ‘Grizzle’ ‘Honey-blob’, ‘Thapes’ and ‘Wineberry’.
They are, as Jane Grigson says, are a northern fruit and ‘condescend to grow, up to the Arctic Circle.’ The flavour is supposed to improve ‘with increased latitude.’
Gooseberries are our first summer fruit, the first berries, the first sign that the weather is changing, and other berries are fast on their heels.
Because they’re the first fruit to appear, their cultivation has in the past been very important. The earliest record of their use in Britain dates from a list of trees and shrubs supplied from France to King Edward I in 1275 for planting in the garden at the Tower of London1 although the OED says that the earliest known use of the noun gooseberry is in the mid 1500s. It was not until the sixteenth century that gooseberry bushes were grown in an increasing number of gardens.
Gooseberry growing declined sharply in the early twentieth century due to the spread of American gooseberry mildew fungus.
Competitive gooseberry growing, and gooseberry shows were once popular all over the North of England, dating from the late 18th century, but declined after the First World War. The number of varieties has also decreased. In 1831 there were 171 berry names listed, mostly unknown today.
Of 171 shows listed in 1845, there are only two of these original societies left in the UK, one in Cheshire and the Egton Bridge Show where official records go back to 1800.
The phrase “to play gooseberry” comes from the time when the fruit was a euphemism for the devil. Old Gooseberry for "the Devil" is recorded from 1796.
Gooseberry as "a chaperon" dates from 1837.
Gooseberries were sometimes known as fayberries, dating from a belief that fairies would shelter from danger in the prickly bushes.
The phrase "gooseberry bush" was a slang term in Britain for pubic hair. It is generally believed that phrase gave rise to the common saying that "Babies were born under a gooseberry bush." 2 Gooseberries (they are hairy) was "testicles," and gooseberry pudding "a woman."
Jane Grigson writes of Edmund Bunyard who in the 1920’s described gooseberries as the fruit ‘par excellence for abundant consumption.’
She says that early gooseberries; the smaller, ‘greener, primitive’ make the best sauce for mackerel and the best pies, jellies and fools.
I top and tail gooseberries with my fingers, pinching off the ends. It’s quicker than a knife or scissors but use whatever is comfortable for you. If I’m pureeing them I don’t bother to top and tail; why would you if they’re going into a sieve?
If you’re making jam, as I did last year, you’ll see that the puree turns a beautiful pink colour.
There is something very satisfying in making use of gooseberries; keeping to a tradition, reviving them and hopefully encouraging more growers to make them more widely available. They freeze beautifully; if I don’t have a glut, I’ll top and tail, start off a bag of them and add as I have more.
All the words, and directions below are from Jane in Good Things. She’s writing from a time when cream was seen as a luxury ingredient. Measurements are in the old Imperial form.
Jane Grigson’s Gooseberry sauce for Mackerel
She says; make use of the early, small green fruit; the later, mellow gooseberries will not do at all.
Top and tail 1 1b of gooseberries. Cover with cold water and bring gently to a boil. Once a gooseberry taken from the pan will give a little if you squeeze it without collapsing to a mush, drain them well.
Put 2 tablespoons of water and 4oz of sugar into a frying pan and bring to a spanking boil. Turn the gooseberries into the syrup, shaking the pan gently. Pour over your meat or fish as a garnish.
This recipe which depends solely on the sharpness of the gooseberries and the sweetness of the sugar was very popular with Germans in the beginning of the 19th Century.
Gooseberry salad
1 1/2 1b large sweet gooseberries
4 oz sugar
1/2 pint Muscat de Frontignan
Three hours before the meal, top and tail the gooseberries. Put them into a deep bowl with sugar and wine and leave in a cool place (but not the fridge, which is too cold.) Serve in individual glasses.
Gooseberry Fool (for 4-6)
Everybody knows that gooseberry fool, like steak and kidney pudding, or junket is a truly national dish.
Too often gooseberries are over cooked then sieved or liquidised to a smooth slop. Ideally they should be very lightly cooked, then crushed with a fork before being folded into whipped cream. Egg custard is an honourable and ancient alternative to cream. Commercial powder is not. Don’t spoil this springtime luxury. It’s better to halve the quantities than to serve a great floury bowlful.
3/4 lb young gooseberries, topped and tailed
2 oz butter
1/2 pint double cream, whipped
OR
1/4 pint each double and single cream
OR
1/2 pint single cream and 3 egg yolks
Stew the gooseberries slowly in a covered pan with the butter until they are yellow and just cooked. Crush with a fork, sweeten to taste, and mix them carefully and lightly into the whipped cream.
To make the custard, bring single cream to the boil and pour onto the egg yolks, whisking all the time. Set the bowl on top of a pan of hot water and stir steadily until the custard has thickened to double cream consistency. Strain into a bowl and leave to cool before folding through the gooseberries.
Serve in custard glasses or plain white cups, with some homemade almond biscuits or macaroons.
It’s said that the young folk of Northamptonshire ‘after eating as much as they possibly can of this gooseberry fool’ used to frequently roll down a hill and begin eating again. Cream must have been cheaper in those days.
Gooseberry fool can be frozen and served as a cream ice. In this case, sieve the fruit as the pieces of gooseberry would spoil the texture of the ice.
