"My Jam's An Arbutus"

A couple of people took up the idea, borrowed from Jane Grigson's Fruit Book, of putting the fully ripe - i.e

A couple of people took up the idea, borrowed from Jane Grigson's Fruit Book, of putting the fully ripe - i.e. quite red - fruit of the arbutus to use in pastry cases, half-filled with whipped cream. The fruit was improved by being simmered gently for about a minute. Now, an adventurous couple have gone a stage further: have made jam out of the last of their crop. In fact, it's only in the final stage, when the berries are soft and almost distintegrating that they take on a good flavour. Unfortunately these fruits ripen only in stages. When half the tree was still yellow, there was only a pound-and-a-half of really ripe ones to take the experiment a little farther - and make jam, as one enterprising couple did.

"We had actually picked more" they said, "but didn't put these into the fridge, so they went off, got mouldy." And they further excused themselves by emphasising that they had no recipe, so followed, roughly, the rules for the making of ordinary strawberry jam. They pounded the fruit, added the sugar and two tablespoonfuls of lemon juice. They heated it all slowly, until the sugar was melted, then boiled quickly for two minutes. Now it was the understanding of the woman of the house that these berries would need some pectin to enable the mixture to set appropriately. So she had bought a substance called Certo, and that, too, was stirred in.

Three pots of just under a half-pound each, and a bit more in another. "And it all came out a golden colour, with a nice sparkle from the many white seeds. And what a tantalising flavour - perhaps somewhere between figs and strawberries. Everyone who tried it had a different description." First time, of course. First time for so many berries. It was a freak year in various ways: acorns bigger than ever seen before from a huge old tree, though they were later in starting than usual.

Next year we will all be ready if there is a good arbutus crop again. Don't be put off by the taste of cotton wool which the early berries leave in the mouth. When they turn deep red, they have a genuine fresh flavour. They are, besides, decorative trees. Arbutus unedo is the botanical name. Charles Nelson in his majestic Trees of Ireland gives a fine detailed account of the tree's history and even tells us that in other countries a liqueur is made out of the fruit.