Orchard Training Cookery Club - Damsons

During this season, there are numerous tasks to undertake in order to preserve the various harvests from the garden or allotment, so why do we make the extra effort to forage?

It's definitely worthwhile to go and pick damsons. Damsons are small, oval-shaped fruits similar to plums, with a unique sharp flavor. They are perfect for making delicious jams and added an extra dimension to the Design and Technology skills of our KS3 learners. Therefore, with our bags ready, we set off to forage damsons from a tree discovered by one of our learners' grandparents. We made sure to ask for permission before picking them.

One skill we had to acquire was extracting the stones from the damsons. The most effective method we discovered was to gently cook them without adding sugar until they became very soft, then to mash them using a potato masher. After allowing them to cool, we strained them overnight using a jam strainer.

We discovered that it was important to handle the damson pulp carefully because of its strong colour, as splashes are very noticeable.