Some of my
readers will be aware my mother has suffered from numerous small strokes and is
now bedridden. She is practically blind and unable to communicate most of the
time. Two carers visit my parents’ home four times a day to keep her comfortable.
My father feeds her and is her constant companion.
Her main
carer is Florentina, who comes from Eastern Europe, as do most of her
fellow workers. The majority are competent, kind and compassionate and have
built up a good rapport with my father, who soon discovers their life story and
special interests.
When Chris
and I were staying at the farm a few weeks ago, Florentina had gone down with a
nasty cold. The Saturday was a workshop day, so while others were busy digging
roots and making willow wands, I picked a bowlful of elderberries to make
Florentina a cordial.
The fruits
were simmering on the cooker when the carers came at five o’clock. They are
used to me cooking when they come into the kitchen to log in and log out on the
telephone. Sometimes they ask what I’m preparing and once how I made the cheese
sauce for macaroni cheese. They usually say it smells good and I know their
access to home cooked meals of any kind is rare as they are on the road from
6am to 10pm travelling the length and breadth of the North Cotswolds dealing
with clients.
By their
final visit at 7.30pm, the cordial was bottled and labelled. Both carers tasted
it and were pleasantly surprised, especially Lucas, the young 6’2” Slovakian
who was very unsure about tasting anything homemade labelled medicine! They
took a bottle for Florentina and thought they might be able to get it to her the
following day via a new worker who lived in her house and who would be
observing with one of them.
The next
morning Lucas told me Florentina was surprised and delighted with her gift. He
said he had “taken five minutes” to drive to Florentina’s house and deliver it
personally so she could have it straight away – a kindness which really touched
me.
Thanks to
the cordial, Florentina was able to return to work the next day and was full of
praise for the cordial. Apparently everyone in her shared house had tried it
and she had told all her clients about it. One of the clients asked for the
recipe, so when we were down at the farm last Thursday I took the recipe with
me.
It’s strange
how you make something and when you look at the recipes you possess, you
realise they bare little relation to the ingredients and methods you used. I’ve
posted several recipes for elderberry cordial in the past but here is another
one.
Elderberry Syrup
Gather a large bowl full of ripe
elderberries and remove the small berries from the stems with a fork. Place the
berries in a large, heavy bottomed saucepan with a large handful of ripe
rosehips and some blackberries if you have them. Add one inch of root ginger
(grated), half a nutmeg (grated), sliced orange or lemon peel and one cinnamon
quill broken up or some cassia bark. Cover with three pints of water (1.5
litres) and simmer for thirty minutes with a lid on the saucepan. (If the rosehips
are not cooked, simmer for longer until they are soft.)
Mash everything in the saucepan with a
potato mashed then strain the liquid into a large bowl or jug, using a wooden
spoon to get as much of the pulp of the fruit as you can. Alternatively you can
strain through a piece of muslin and squeeze the muslin firmly.
Wash the saucepan. Measure the liquid
you have strained and then put it back in the saucepan. Find the glass bottles you are going to store
the cordial in and sterilise them in the oven for ten minutes on 100 degrees
Centigrade. Sterilise the bottle caps by boiling in water for 10 minutes if
they are metal. For every pint (0.5L) of liquid, add 1 lb (0.45Kg) of sugar to
the saucepan. Bring to the boil, stirring continuously until all the sugar has
dissolved. If you want a thick syrup, evaporate the liquid until it reaches a
syrupy consistency. (This is not essential.) Pour into sterilised bottles and cap
immediately. Label and date. This should keep unopened in a cool dark place for
over a year. Store in the fridge once opened.
Dose: 1 tablespoon three times a day
for an adult. I dessertspoon three times a day for a child. Use for any kind of
virus, especially influenza. Alternatively, take 1tsp every day during the cold
season to build immunity.
As a cordial: Use 1-2 tablespoons in a
mug of boiling water with freshly squeezed lemon juice and enjoy.
The fruit
harvest this year has been bountiful; a welcome change from the dearth last
year. I’ve made redcurrant and apple jelly, raspberry jam, plum jam, damson
jam, damson, apple and blackberry jelly and jam, crabapple jelly and a plethora
of quince jelly. The freezer is full of various berries and apple sauce yet the
tree is still laden with huge red cooking apples. I’ve never seen them quite so
large or so red.
Today I have
turned a basketful of windfalls into sugarless applesauce to make muffins and
several bottles of spiced apple cordial. I’ve used the same method as for apple
jelly and it produces a very pleasant hot drink or could be poured over ice
cream.
Spiced apple cordial
Enough windfalls to fill a
5pt saucepan ¾ full once washed and quartered (Don’t peel or core)
Diced fresh orange peel
from 1 orange
A small handful of cassia
bark or 1 cinnamon quill
1/5 a nutmeg grated
8-10 cloves
3 pints of water
1” root ginger either
diced or grated (I meant to add this but forgot!)
Place everything in the
saucepan and simmer for about half an hour until the apples are completely
soft. Strain through a jelly bag or muslin, squeezing to release as much apple
as you feel like adding to the juice. (You might want to leave everything to
cool before you start squeezing the bag otherwise you could burn yourself!)
Clean the saucepan. Measure the liquid and add 1lb of sugar for every pint of
liquid. Bring to the boil then pour into sterilised bottles. Seal when hot, label
and date.
