Preservation...

It really is the time of year to get out and gather in what the hedgerows have to offer, then spend hours in the kitchen doing stuff with it all!  Yesterday I made sloe gin (sloes collected near the hotel at St Cirq!), mint jelly (mint from the garden, apples from down the road) and blackberry & apple crumble (same apples, blackberries from the garden).  Probably the last of the blackberries - I keep thinking that, but this time I think it really is.  But I have already stashed away several jars of apple and blackberry jam (took ages, seiving out all the seeds), to go alongside two sorts of chutney.  It should all go down in the cellar, but it's such a fiddle to get into that it's in a cupboard instead.  To get into the cave we have to move the table, lift up the trap door, get a torch and go down the wooden steps. Too much for a jar of jam!  Originally, of course, it would have been vital for folks to bottle all sorts of foods to see them through the winter.  I wonder what our cellar used to have in it all those years ago?