Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard

749 Pages·2012·25.87 MB·English

by  Nigel Slater

Some of the recipes in this book include raw eggs. When eggs are consumed raw, there is always the risk
that bacteria, which is killed by proper cooking, may be present. For this reason, always buy certified
salmonella-free eggs from a reliable grocer, storing them in the refrigerator until they are served. Because of
the health risks associated with the consumption of bacteria that can be present in raw eggs, they should not
be consumed by infants, small children, pregnant women, the elderly, or any persons who may be
immunocompromised. The author and publisher expressly disclaim responsibility for any adverse effects
that may result from the use or application of the recipes and information contained in this book.
Copyright © 2010 by Nigel Slater
Photographs copyright © 2010 by Jonathan Lovekin
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of
Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com
Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain as Tender, Volume II: A Cook’s Guide to the Fruit Garden
by Fourth Estate, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, London, in 2010
Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
First Ten Speed Press edition, 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Slater, Nigel.
Ripe : a cook in the orchard / Nigel Slater ; photography by Jonathan Lovekin.
p. cm.
Includes index.
Summary: “A comprehensive guide to growing and cooking with fruit, featuring more than 300 recipes for
sweet and savory dishes”—Provided by publisher.
1. Cooking (Fruit) 2. Cookbooks. I. Title.
TX811.S58 2012
641.6’4—dc23
2011043551
eISBN: 978-1-60774-333-0
Cover design by Colleen Cain
v3.1

Introduction
Apples
Apricots
Blackberries
Black currants
Blueberries
Cherries
Chestnuts
Damsons
Elderflowers and elderberries
Figs
Gooseberries
Grapes
Hazelnuts
Peaches and nectarines
Pears
Plums
Quinces
Raspberries
Red currants
Rhubarb
Strawberries
Walnuts
White currants
A few other good things: medlars and sloes
Index

Introduction
And then there was fruit. I always knew that if ever I found a space in which to
grow a few knobbly vegetables of my own, some of it would be set aside for
fruit: wild strawberries with flowers like tiny, brilliant stars; amber and bronze
apples with russet skins; dusky blueberries in old terra-cotta pots; maybe a black
currant bush or two for jam. What I had not expected was to find myself with a
virtually blank canvas, an opportunity to plant not only fruit bushes but some
space for trees too, a row of raspberry canes, and even a vine.
Ten years on, permanently teetering on the edge of chaos, this garden creaks
under the weight of my overenthusiastic planting. There is barely an inch of
ground to spare. From white currants and golden raspberries to purple figs and
red gooseberries, my pocket handkerchief of urban space is bursting at the
seams. Give me a couple of feet more and I’ll show you space for a crab apple
with blossom the color of a loganberry fool.
There is a moment, sometime around the middle of September, when this
garden, this diminutive hortus conclusus I have made in an 1820s London
terrace, truly becomes the garden of my dreams. The leaves are turning from
green to gold, amber, and rust, the last of the fruits hang crimson and smoky blue
on the trees, the pumpkin-colored dahlias and Michaelmas daisies have
collapsed like drunks across the gravel path. The garden darkens to the color of
ginger cake, here and there a shot of saffron, brilliant ochre, or deepest crimson.
The colors, I would guess, of the Vatican at prayer.
The last berries, apples, and plums, wet and almost rotting from the late sun
and autumn rain, lend a mellow, alcoholic scent to the space, like the dregs of an
abandoned glass of wine. The garden is falling asleep with an air of damp
tobacco and wood smoke, but it is still abundant too, with late blackberries,
damsons, and a grapevine at breaking point. Each year I race to get to those
blackberries before the feast of Michaelmas, when the devil is said to piss on
them.
Growing many, though sadly not all, of my own vegetables is a deeply
pleasurable thing to do. Watering the tomatoes and the runner beans is now as
much a part of my life as taking a shower, but although I produce far less of my
own fruit than I do vegetables, curiously they give me even more joy. Walking
round the garden late on an autumn morning, pushing past the spiders’ webs that
festoon the pathways and plucking those last, wine-colored berries from their
blackened canes is as good as life gets. A moment of intense well-being, and
even more so when the time has been stolen from a busy schedule.
This space at the back of my house could so easily have been a lawn. Instead,
I have ended up with a back garden laden with sensual pleasures. A bough of
yellow plums the size of a blackbird’s egg; an apple tree whose fruit is snow
white flushed with rose pink; loganberries as dark and sultry as a glass of Pinot
Noir; and grapes that hang outside the kitchen wall like bunches of jet beads.
There are sherbet-sharp gooseberries and piercingly tart sticks of rhubarb; fat
black figs and raspberries the color of a glass of Sauternes. Their pleasures are
brief, and yes, there is always a struggle to get there before the birds and the
squirrels, but it is hard to find a mulberry more exquisite than the one you have
grown for yourself, a strawberry more sweet, or a fig more seductive.