Dried fruit "jelly"....

[PhilParry]

Hi All,

Not sure if any of you saw the recent wild food program of ray mears making what I can only describe as a fruit jelly from Hawthorns berries. :Wow:

After a period of time it appeared to jellify (one assumes due to the natural pectins) and then he showed some he had sliced and dried...


Has anyone ever tried this and if so, how hard is it?!?

thanks,

Phil

 

[hiroo onoda]

Didn't see the episode but did catch an excellent review of it on Harry Hill's TV burp last night.

 

[philaw]

interesting one, that. It looks like a quality trail food and they said it keeps a long time.

They also mentioned roasted hazelnuts being found in a prehistoric site. So, I was wondering whether roasted and ground hazelnuts mixed in with it would keep just as well, or if something similar could be done. Any ideas, people? It would be like those meal bars that weightlifters eat, and might keep for as long. It'd be high in protein and carbohydrate and get you through the winter.

Just a thought.

 

[underground]

IIRC it was charred hazelnut shells being found in a prehistoric site. It's probable that the dried hawthorn juice is able to stay fresh due to it's very high sugar / very low moisture content. Adding oils and fats would most likely cause it to go rancid through oxidation.

Mind you, the prehistoric people may have tried it and that was the only way they knew.

Give it a go philaw, let us know if it works- would be brillaint if you're right...!

 

[philaw]

Maybe to get it to last like a power bar, you'd have to add preservatives and foil wrap it, then it would be a... ...power bar.

I don't think it would taste great in all honesty, it was just a thought. What's interesting is to see how people could have prospered living an aboriginal lifestyle in britain.

 

[Roy's Badger]

When ray tasted the roasted hazelnut and claimed that it was a taste of the past, were we seriously supposed to believe that he has never enjoyed a Topic or Snickers in his life? Come, come, Mr TV producer big shot, give the audience SOME credit.

 

[Matt Weir]

Hi All,

Not sure if any of you saw the recent wild food program of ray mears making what I can only describe as a fruit jelly from Hawthorns berries. :Wow:

After a period of time it appeared to jellify (one assumes due to the natural pectins) and then he showed some he had sliced and dried...


Has anyone ever tried this and if so, how hard is it?!?

thanks,

Phil

Hi Phil,

The hard dried stuff they tried was said to be 3 years old but I can't remember if there was any particular way to store it. We have literally 100's of hawthorn trees nearby so this year I fully intend to have a bash at this.

Regards,

Matt.

 

[Kane]

When ray tasted the roasted hazelnut and claimed that it was a taste of the past, were we seriously supposed to believe that he has never enjoyed a Topic or Snickers in his life? Come, come, Mr TV producer big shot, give the audience SOME credit.

I think the idea is that it was a taste that has lasted from the hunter gatherer days to the present not some mystical lost flavour of the ancients

 

[Morrius]

Don't forget that he mentioned there was no proof at all that our ancestors used that method, or prepared that dish at all. It did look awesome though. I'll give it a go next time I'm about.

 

[Burnt Ash]

When ray tasted the roasted hazelnut and claimed that it was a taste of the past, were we seriously supposed to believe that he has never enjoyed a Topic or Snickers in his life? Come, come, Mr TV producer big shot, give the audience SOME credit.

I'm surprised they made so much of a deal about roasting them. Fresh 'green' hazelnuts are one of nature's great delicacies, IMO. They have a lovely, creamy fresh taste and I've certainly pigged out on them without ill effect.
We had a little hazel tree at our old house in Wadhurst that planted itself outside the back door. By the time we moved, the main trunk was thicker than my forearm and we got a nice little crop (2-3 pounds) most years. You could hear them rattling down onto the corrugated steel roof of the boiler shed when the wind gusted. Sadly, the new owners of the house cut it down just a couple of weeks before it would have produced. Townies!
The cultivated hazel -the Kent cob- is believed to have originated at Goudhurst, just a few miles from here.

Burnt Ash

 

[Toddy]

I agree, those first sweet, milky, hazelnuts of the year are a real treat,
Who said they weren't safe to eat? My kids have been eating them since they could reach the bushes.
cheers,
Toddy

 

[OzaawaaMigiziNini]

I don't know about those berries, but where I'm from we gather the blackberries, blueberries and dewberries (really big tarty, sweet blackberries), and mash them into a jammy substance. Than we smear it a few centimetres thick on a cookie sheet or sheet of birchbark, sprinkle some maple sugar on it and let it dry in the sun for a few days. When it's buggy out (berry season of course), we cover it with cheesecloth to keep em away.

When it's nearly dried, we roll it up and cut the roll into bite sized rolls. Been told by some elders this is how we prepared for the trail, and winter.. .the ab-original fruit roll-up yeah I laugh at my own corny jokes I know

 

[rik_uk3]

I don't know about those berries, but where I'm from we gather the blackberries, blueberries and dewberries (really big tarty, sweet blackberries), and mash them into a jammy substance. Than we smear it a few centimetres thick on a cookie sheet or sheet of birchbark, sprinkle some maple sugar on it and let it dry in the sun for a few days. When it's buggy out (berry season of course), we cover it with cheesecloth to keep em away.

When it's nearly dried, we roll it up and cut the roll into bite sized rolls. Been told by some elders this is how we prepared for the trail, and winter.. .the ab-original fruit roll-up yeah I laugh at my own corny jokes I know

Fruit leathers then they work very well, and you can do a pasta sauce leather as well