We like to preserve moments. There are photographs, videos even images taken on mobile phones that capture the feel and flavour of a time or place. We buy souvenirs when we go on holiday to remember and relive our stay in places we have enjoyed. In another sense allotment owners and other vegetable growers are also taken up with the idea of preserving. How to capture the freshness and flavour of our produce after it has been harvested so we can enjoy it through the fallow months. I remember reading to my children The Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder stories about life on the American Frontier. How they were intrigued by the description of the slaughtering and preserving of the family pig – the brining, the drying, the sausage making – and at the end of it all Laura and her sister were allowed to keep the bladder to blow up and play with like a balloon. Well for us 21st century people that would be taking homespun that little bit too far – unless your Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall of course. For us busy people, there are freezers – and thank goodness for that - but the old arts of conserving, bottling and jam-making have made a welcome come back.
Now I have always thought that jam and chutney making were the preserve (ha ha – pun intended) of WI members and elderly ladies who owned large farmhouse kitchens. I also thought it was hugely time consuming requiring a battery of equipment – thermometers, enormous pans, vast arrays of pristine jars. But I was so wrong. It’s easy! And it all feels so gloriously cosy – stirring a bubbling pan of molten raspberry or blackcurrant jam while the house fills with hot fruity flavours. I do all this on a small scale around this time of year. In August and September I’m too hot and tired after days toiling in the allotment to spend time cooking up various preserves so I freeze the fruit and wait for the long dark afternoons. Throughout the winter when the mood takes me I ferret out various parcels from the freezer drawers and transform them into a glistening fruity, sticky mess. When I’ve filled the jars, labelled them and ranged them on the shelf I can’t help feeling – I admit it – horribly smug. I feel like Delia Smith! And as the light shimmers through the purple and red jellies I somehow I feel I have bottled up the summer. Not a photograph or a home video but still a souvenir of high summer that I can relive on a February morning as I spread my toast.
I know vampires are very fashionable at the moment, but those bloodsuckers are giving my house a wide berth. Why? That large bunch of plaited garlic that adorns our kitchen is enough to rebuff any number of the undead and quite a few of the living also. Of course preserves don’t have to be sweet – there are chutneys – and then there are confits. A confit is foodstuff preserved in fat. Making a confit of garlic couldn’t be easier. Of course you have to peel about 20 odd cloves, but just turn on the radio and it then becomes an oddly meditative exercise…
Garlic Confit
You’ll need
Approximately 20 cloves of garlic, peeled
Olive oil
Place the cloves in a small saucepan and cover them well with olive oil. Put the saucepan on a low heat – you may need to use a diffuser. Watch it quite carefully the oil should fizz not bubble wildly. The idea is to stew them in oil not fry them so the cloves should remain white. After about 30-40 minutes the cloves will be tender. When cool you can store these covered in the fridge for a few weeks. The garlic done this way is mild and creamy and you can use them in soups, salads and pizza toppings. Oh and you can use the garlic infused olive oil for dressings. But my dark secret is I like spreading a clove or two on toast. Dracula beware…
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