thebigfatnoodle

Seasons of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness – Mother Monster’s Blackberry and Apple Charlotte

Posted by bigmonster77uk on December 9, 2011 · 9 Comments 

Hell’s Ditch: getting chilly! It’s the stream that runs behind our house.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

Autumn’s coming

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease.

For Summer has o’erbrimm’d their clammy cells.

Mellow Mists

‘To Autumn’ John Keats 19^th September 1819

This was one of my favourite poems that I studied for English ‘A’ Level, many years ago. Since then, I have always linked Autumn with Keats and this ode, a recollection of the gentle melancholy sinking of the sun into the depths of winter, and a remembered celebration of the bountiful harvest.

This year has been an exceptional one for fruits, with stories of fruit trees collapsing under the sheer weight of fruits. I usually make one or two Bramble Jelly batches, but this year I made three, with the Brambles fruiting from Late July until early October.

As the evenings draw in and we head rapidly towards Christmas, I wanted to post a recipe that celebrated the feast of apples and blackberries from this year, and remembered an old family favourite. It’s a great recipe that uses up old stale bread that would otherwise head into the bin, or out for the birds.

This one used the last of the fresh blackberries and two of the wild apples from the Lammas Lands out the back of the house, and everyone knows it tastes better when foraged, right? I’ve called it Mother Monster’s Blackberry and Apple Charlotte. If you’d like to know how to make it, click here.

Mother Monster’s Blackberry and Apple Charlotte

And here’s the rest of Keat’s Ode to Autumn: http://www.online-literature.com/donne/480/

The Lammas Lands