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Sarah Robinson and Lucy H Pearce3 min

Celebrating Autumn with the Kitchen Witch

September 22, 2023

Roasted nuts, chutneys and pickles, succulent squashes, slow roasted meats, freshly foraged mushrooms and orchard fruits – they make the ingredients for rich and warming autumnal dishes.

This was a time when our ancestors would hunt and stock up on meat for the coming cold weather. The leaves turn, their colours of red, yellow, browns and purples are mirrored in rosehips, apples, medlars, elderberries, sloes and haws. The harvest is a time of hard work and joyful play; once this time would have seen great gatherings for the harvest and people coming together to do the most important farm jobs of the year to see communities through the winter. Autumn is a time of many harvest festivals: Lughnasadh, Summer’s End, the autumn equinox, mushroom hunts, nut gathering, blackberry picking expeditions, and of bonfires, for Halloween, Samhain, Bonfire Night, as well as Day of the Dead (Dia de Los Muertos), All Souls...it is a time to surrender to the darker season and step into the winter with warmth in your heart.

Kitchen table charms

Arrange twigs of coppery beech leaves and dancing silver coins of Lunaria (honesty) in a jar
Pumpkins and squashes carved as lanterns (the flesh of which can later be turned into velvety soups)
Corn dollies made of corn stalks, you may be able to gather a few stalks whilst out walking by fields and meadows
A bowl of freshly harvested apples

Elderberry and blackberry syrup

Elderberries are packed with antioxidants and vitamins. They also contain a compound proven to fight cold and flu viruses, reducing the length of illness and severity of symptoms. In England and Ireland there is an abundance of these sprays of tiny jewel-like berries in the hedges every September, but you have to get there before the birds. Green elderberries and the green stems have toxins in them, so be sure to remove them. It is safest to eat elderberries cooked as when eaten raw they can cause stomach ache and nausea. They have a very distinctive flavour which I am personally on the fence about, hence why I add blackberries to my syrup as well. Be sure to check the centre of each blackberry when picking to make sure it is white-ish green: a discoloured brown or juicy centre lets you know the maggots have got there first. Both fruits are high in vitamin C, so this is a great tonic to see you through the winter. You can take a teaspoonful each morning as a preventative, or at the first sign of a sniffle. It’s also nice drizzled over plain yogurt or made into a cordial over iced water or with hot water and an extra squeeze of lemon and perhaps a few drops of echinacea tincture to give your immune system a boost. Extra berries can be slowly dried in a very low oven and used like raisins, or frozen.

Recipe

Makes about 600ml (1 pint)

450g (1lb) combination of freshly picked elderberries and blackberries
350g (12oz) caster sugar
Juice of one lemon

Remove the elderberries from the stalks (I use a fork to strip them off, a trick that works fabulously well for currants too!). Discard any hard green elderberries. Put both types of berries into a saucepan and add the water. Simmer for 15 minutes or until the berries are soft. Strain through a piece of muslin or a very fine plastic sieve and return it to the pan. Add the sugar and the lemon juice, stirring until dissolved. Bring back to the boil for about 10 minutes, allow to cool before pouring through a funnel into sterilised bottles. Screw the lids on and store in a cool, dry place.

Kitchen witch magic

Elder: Known as a tree of protection. The word elder is thought to connect to aeld, the Anglo-Saxon word for fire. Correspondence tables often connect the berries and flowers to the element of air. Between these two elements, of air and fire – we have an energy of rising heat and stoking fires, exactly what is needed to boost immunity. Blackberries: Associated with the supernatural, with old folks in Ireland still shouting warnings to leave them be after the end of September (for others, this is the end of October), because you will be taken by the fairies/the devil has pissed on them/they are for the witches. Consider yourself warned!

Sarah Robinson and Lucy H Pearce

This is an extract from The Kitchen Witch Companion: Recipes, Rituals & Reflections (£14.99, Womancraft Publishing) by Sarah Robinson and Lucy H Pearce, available from womancraftpublishing.com and all the usual online retailers.