Having been deprived of sleep for the good part of two days, on the epic journey back home from New York, it was as good a time as any to make plans for the coming year. A sort of follow-up, new year's internal monologue so I can yet again attempt to organise myself.
"Yeh, right" is my response to this very subjective soliloquy – interestingly, this year, my inner voice is that of Don The Thunder Throat LaFontaine, so it runs like a movie trailer and my new year's resolution is to learn and use new words and phrases via Wiktionary.
On the shortlist of things to do are to try new foods, get out of that comfort zone of buying, each week, a chicken, some mince, four steaks and hoping something interesting will happen. Get out to the markets more, trawl the local hunters and gatherers to find more and more interesting things to cook – note that the deer's penis from last year is still lurking in the freezer, all this said there are some things best left untested.
So I'm pondering and planning, crammed into a seat watching Braveheart for the 10th time. Fifteen kilometres above the Pacific, thinking of what will I do when we get back? "In a land of timeless beauty, William Wallace, was a man of peace." booms out LaFontaine's deep voice, then "I've com back tae raise crops an, God willin', a family," Wallace continues. I really should get a couple of jobs done around the farm and stop watching this movie.
On return it looks nice, very green but a little untended. That big job of getting rid of the blackberries is first up. When we moved here the blackberries had almost overtaken a paddock so I had them dug out with a D4 dozer. My brother and I still have scars from when we took to this with a jerry can of diesel and a lighter. They have regrown now and look like triffids as each pile seems to move daily. They are covered in blackberries and I really couldn't live with myself if I didn't pick them first. As a "weed of national significance" you can't just leave blackberries in the hope that you can control them like the English did the Scots. Generally you'll have to hit them hard with a range of nasty herbicides. Which I won't do 'cause I'm sort of enjoying my 50s life stage and all.
As I wait for the machinery to arrive again, I'm busy picking these berries and thinking of how many ways I can cook and preserve them and also how long I can do this before I lose too much blood and faint. They are seriously covered in barbs but like a lot of pests that you can eat, stinging nettle, rabbits and bogong moths, there's a certain Braveheart-like heroism in dining on them.
The method here can be used on any soft fruit and then freeze or make into jam to preserve. A summer pudding is a great way of serving wild or domesticated berries, one of the easiest puddings you'll come across.
As an aside, but to follow up my opening thoughts, I'll throw in another recipe idea for free. Bugs also come in waves and plenty are edible like grasshoppers, crickets, mealworms, and, turns out, Christmas beetles. Wait, hey, come back, it's not that bad.
When I did get home and back to work the first thing I was presented with was a plate of these, fried in chilli and garlic with lime. OK, I thought, you cannot complain about this, so I tried them.
Crunchy ... there's no residual "beetle" flavour, the legs sort of stick in your teeth a bit but not unpleasant at all. In fact these would make a fantastic bar snack. They are plentiful after rain and by eating them you might just save a gumtree.
So, pray tell, how can I prepare a plate of Anoplognathus pallidicollis for my friends? Well, here's how our local Laos folk do it. Shake the trees and run around to collect the big ones. Toss them in a bucket of water. This just keeps them from flying away so you can pull the wings off. Heat a large wok until smoking, add a little oil and quickly toss the beetles in this. Add chopped chilli, crushed garlic some torn kaffir lime leaves. Keep cooking until they are crispy - this is important, really crispy but not burnt. Off the heat add lime juice and a splash of fish sauce. Serve immediately with beer.
Now, here's the pudding. Good luck.
Summer wild blackberry puddings
1kg blackberries, washed – or a mixture of any ripe summer berry
½ cup castor sugar
300ml water
60ml Cointreau
10-12 slices of slightly stale bread, crust removed
clotted cream to serve
icing sugar to dust and adjust
Have four large dariole moulds ready lined with cling film. You can use small pudding bowls too or just make one large pudding. Cut out four circles of bread that will neatly cover the moulds. Use the rest of the bread to line each.
Bring the water to the boil and dissolve the sugar in it. Add 200g of the fruit and cook until soft. Puree this and return to the pan, add the rest of the fruit and cook for four to five minutes until they sort of collapse. Add the Cointreau and set aside and cool. Taste the mixture for balance, add more icing sugar if it needs a little more sweetness.
Using a slotted spoon, fill the moulds so they are piled up and almost overflowing. Pour in the syrup until it is soaked up by the berries and bread. Cover the top with bread circle plus the overhanging cling film and gently push down, they will overflow a bit but you want to cram as much mixture as you can in each. Weigh down each pudding and chill overnight.
To serve, pull apart the cling film and invert the puddings onto a plate, gently lift off the mould, dust with the icing sugar and serve with the cream on the side.
Bryan Martin is the winemaker at Clonakilla and Ravensworth
