Adventures in Food

I have just become a publisher - with the production of a book about the English Christmas Pudding under the publishing name 'Spiderbooks'. The book is a tasting sample of some of the stories behind the ingredients of the Christmas Pudding. it will be in some local shops in the Kew and Richmond area, and should be on Amazon soon too. Your feedback is welcomed! Find out more at http://www.spiderbooks.co.uk

There was a big pile of rose cuttings in the garden and they were covered in rosehips; not being one with a high tolerance of wastefulness I set about cutting them off with plans to make some delicious thing or other. Then the little red hips sat in my fridge for a few days while i was too busy. Eventually I got round to dealing with them but quite a lot had gone soggy and or mouldy so the initial crop was quite whittled down. It was surprisingly difficult to find recipes for rosehips. I found several for rowan berries in my assortment of ancient recipe books, even though rowan is less spoken of generally in life, and i rather suspect, considerably less palatable than rosehip. I did find one however, in May Byron's Pot Luck, an old favourite. And it was very true about how awkward they are to prepare, covered in fine sharp hairs than get under your fingernails and apparently in another recipe ( which I ignored) one is expected to not only top and tail but de-seed and peel them bef...