September means it is time for some serious preserve making. A variety of reasons prompt this urge: economy - six jars of jam for the price of a 1kg bag of sugar; quality - no artificial rubbish included in the recipes and the flavour of fruit rushes through; maybe a deep desire to protect and provide for one's family for the coming winter; and curiosity - there are things I can make that are hard or impossible to buy.
It was curiosity that pushed me to make cheese. Not milk cheese, but fruit cheese. I occasionally buy membrillo, the Spanish quince preserve that is served with cold meats or 'proper' cheese. It costs a fortune. So with a magnificent crop of quinces to use up I decided to make my own. Both of the quinces (magnificent is overstating things, but the tree is young so maybe next year...) were chopped small and simmered with about a kg of apples until really soft, then put through a jelly bag for several hours. The resulting liquid was just over half a pint, so a 1/2 lb of sugar was added to the reheated juice and stirred and stirred, spluttering gobbets of red-hot jam, until it was the consistency of hot tar.
I ended up with two ramekins of apple and quince cheese. The smell is great. One ramekin for eating now, one in the freezer to be used later as a treat.
There is something addictive about making preserves. It's easy to get carried away and make so much that you never use it. But tiny batches like that are a way to pass a dullish Sunday evening, and if they are something special all the better. And atheist that I am there is a certain appeal to the ancestral Puritan in me of making the best of what we are given. I have, however, decided against closing all the theatres in Britain, cancelling Christmas and banning Morris dancing, though I agonised over that last one.
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