Falling About

 Read more from Gerald

Well, summer was a bit of a waste of time, wasn’t it? It was hardly worth cleaning the barbecue for. Usually at this time of year I am getting tired of summer food and looking forward to the richer and more earthy tastes of autumn but the salads and cold dishes of what should have been the hottest months don’t seem to have been given a chance. I don’t really mind though because autumn has always been my favourite season. It is a soft and sophisticated season, golden and mature, with none of the brashness of summer; it has a richness no other season can boast. It is the time to squirrel away the harvest to brighten the cold and drab days of winter.

In an earlier age now would be the season for the family pig to be fattened on the season’s acorns, then killed and preserved, wasting nothing; the hams salted and dried or smoked, other prime cuts preserved, baconed, lesser cuts turned into sausage or terrines which could be kept for months under thick layers of rendered fat. The head prepared as Bath chaps, brawn or scrapple with the ears to be roasted as crisp treats and the trotters kept to flavour warming casseroles and soups or to be stuffed and grilled. Although preserving pork is not the domestic necessity it once was, I still make pots of pork rillettes with belly of pork, sea salt and lots of garlic to store for winter. Served with hot bread, gherkins and a glass of red wine, they are divine.

Pork Rillettes

1kg boned and skinned belly of pork
500g pork back fat
Sea salt
Bouquet of parsley, thyme and a bay leaf,
Four cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
Freshly ground black pepper
200ml water

Rub the meat well with salt and leave overnight in the fridge. Next day pre-heat the oven to 160˚C. Cut the meat and fat into 2cm chunks and put into a casserole or similar ovenproof and lidded dish. Mix in the garlic then bury the herbs in the centre, add a generous grind of pepper and pour in the water. Cook in the oven for 4 hours. After this time the meat should be very soft and swimming in melted fat. Taste to check the seasoning, adding more salt and pepper if required…it should be well seasoned.

Strain the fat from the meat through a wire sieve over a large bowl. When well-drained, shred the meat using two forks and pack it loosely into glazed pots or glass jars then pour over the melted fat to cover the meat and fill pots or jars. A 2cm covering of fat will preserve the rillettes for almost a year. When cooled and set, cover with foil and tie or use a lid and store in a cool place. If they are stored in a fridge, take them out a couple of hours before serving.

Early autumn is our time to make chutneys, pickles, sauces, jams and the like to brighten our winter table. A bountiful crop of basil will be transformed into pesto and when the chillies ripen I have a West Indian chilli sauce I want to try. Already I have made jars of apricot jam, a job made easier nowadays with Chelsea Jam Sugar which contains all the pectin required. Donna has made peach and date chutney, beetroot and ginger chutney and my favourite, her bread and butter pickle.

Donna's Bread and Butter Pickle

1kg zucchini
2 medium onions
½ cup sea salt
2½ cups white distilled vinegar
½ cup caster sugar
1tsp celery seed
1tsp brown mustard seed
1tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp caraway seeds (optional)
½ tsp dry mustard

Wash and trim the zucchini and peel the onions. Slice both very finely, put them in a bowl, sprinkle them with the salt then cover with cold water. Leave for an hour before draining. Put the vegetables into a clean bowl without rinsing them.

Mix the remaining ingredients and bring them to a boil then pour them over the vegetables and leave them to stand for about an hour.

Bring the mixture to a boil and simmer, covered for 10 minutes, stirring gently now and then. While still hot ladle the pickle into hot, sterilised jars and seal.

This makes 1½ litres more or less. Fabulous with cold meats, pork pies etc. or with cheese, particularly good with Welsh rabbit.

I would like to look forward to other joys of the autumn menu like rabbit and hare, game birds and wild pork but I have to find somebody who shoots, however I can still enjoy the oysters, field mushrooms, walnuts, leeks, figs, turnips, parsnips and swedes, Brussels sprouts, new season’s Braeburns, pumpkins…all of which taste better in their season. It’s even time to enjoy barbecues, maybe at lunchtime or in the evening by a brazier or patio heater; the leafy summer salad now one of barbecued autumn vegetables.

It is no wonder that people all over the world have for centuries celebrated this season; I am so delighted that the mellow richness of what George Eliot called “Delicious autumn!” has only just begun and that we have weeks of this season’s wonderful and opulent food yet to enjoy.