The Rose-hip (2)

In the second of this two-part piece about the Rose-hip I describe making Rose-hip and Apple Jelly.

From the same recipe book that provided the recipe for Rowanberry Jelly, one first published by the Agricultural Press Ltd in 1935, comprising the favourite recipes of country housewives living in every corner of Britain, I used the following simple recipe:

"Take 4lbs of windfall apples, after any bruised or damaged parts are removed and 2lbs of firm, just ripe, rose-hips.

Cut the apples and put into a preserving pan with enough water to cover and one pint extra for the rose-hips. While the apples are cooking, put the rose-hips through the coarsest cutter of a mincer.

Add the minced rose-hips when the apples are cooked and simmer for ten minutes. Move away to stop it simmering and leave for another ten minutes before straining through a thick jelly bag. Leave to drip over night.

Next day, measure the juice and allow 14oz of sugar to each pint of juice. Measure the sugar and put it in the oven to heat through thoroughly. Bring the juice to the boil and add the warmed sugar. Boil until it reaches the setting point and pour into warmed jars.

This jelly has a most attractive rose colour and has a delicious flavour".

I picked two pounds of road-side rose-hips I found near Greenhaugh and used four pounds of the windfall apples I had been given. As I don’t possess a mincer, I used my food processor to gently chop the cleaned and washed rose-hips.

Top: The cleaned and washed rose-hips; the rose-hips after being chopped in the food processor; Bottom: Four pounds of windfall apples; The cooked apple pulp and the chopped rose-hips 'infusing' before straining in a jelly bag.
The seeds of the rose-hips are covered with stiff, sharply pointed hairs, and these can become a dangerous internal irritant, especially for children. It is for this reason that the minced rose-hips are added to and strained with the apple pulp. The picture shows that plenty of colour is released from the flesh during the ten minutes the rose-hips are simmering with the apple pulp; the further ten minutes when the pulp is off the heat allows additional colour and lots of flavour to infuse the pulp.

Next day I followed the recipe. When the setting point was reached I poured the jelly into the warmed jars and sealed and labelled them.
The jelly is delightful spread on a home-made fruit scone and served with tea.

The Rose-hip (1)

Rose-hips (Rosa canina)
“The fruit of the wild rose, the hip, is the star of one of the great success stories of wild food use.” So begins, Richard Mabey in Food for Free, his classic guide to the edible wild plants of Britain, first published in 1972.

The fruit of the wild rose, Rosa canina, is an orange-red, oblong, berry, sometimes as much as an inch long, and is found on bushes between late August and November. It is the only completely wild fruit which once supported a national commercial enterprise - the production of rose-hip syrup

It was in 1934 that the fruits of the wild rose were discovered to contain more Vitamin C than any other fruit or vegetable - four times as much a blackcurrants and twenty times as much as oranges - but it was not until the Second World War, when imports of citrus fruits were virtually cut off, that the potential of rose-hips as a source of Vitamin C, was first taken seriously.

In 1941, the Ministry of Health proposed a collection scheme resulting in 120 tons of wild rose-hips being harvested by voluntary helpers. In the following year, the responsibility was transferred to the Vegetable Drugs Committee of the Ministry of Supply and 344 tons were harvested. The Ministry of Health established a crash programme in identification and gathering techniques and for three years from 1943, voluntary pickers working under County Herb Committees harvested an average of 450 tons each year.

The story continued after the war years and the BBC website has two interesting film clips from 1956, one showing school children collecting rose-hips, the other showing the manufacture of rose-hip syrup at the Delrosa factory in Newcsstle upon Tyne.

Some weeks ago I gathered two pounds of rose-hips and I was given a very large supply of windfall cooking apples. In the second part of this two-part piece, I will describe making Rose-hip and Apple Jelly … from road-side bush to plate.