The country lanes are frothy with elderflowers. Little baskets of strawberries are piled on trestles at farm gates. Already there are gooseberries and green peas. The first of the Pick Your Own signs beckon us to try our hand. There is asparagus too, fat bundles of it, and at a decent price. It must be a British summer.
Join the queue at the farmers' market for strawberries; bright as a button and piled up high in little white cartons. Despite them being flown in from Israel or Spain all year, the local ones can still come as a treat. Their flavour is often better, richer, deeper than anything that has travelled half way around the globe. If they turn out to be less exciting than you had hoped, slice them into a bowl, then squeeze a couple of halved passion fruit over them. Sprinkle over a few drops of balsamic vinegar and an hour or two later you will have the most intensely flavoured berries you have ever eaten.
The spring rains and the glorious sun have been good news after the long months of cold and floods. Produce is swelling and ripening. Strawberries, yes, but also gooseberries, both pale green cookers and the purple flushed dessert variety. Both are in their prime flush. Tip handfuls of pale, hard goosegogs into a stainless steel pan and sprinkle them generously with unrefined golden sugar and a few good shakes of water - just enough to stop the fruit sticking. Slowly bring them to the boil until they pop. Stir in 2 tablespoons of elderflower syrup then leave to cool. Chill thoroughly and eat them for breakfast.
Tiny turnips, the first finger-length zucchini and broad beans are there for the asking. For the first time in months the market vegetable stalls have something approaching an abundance upon them; be prepared for vast bouquets of celery-flavoured lovage and those early turnips.
A shock sight for me yesterday was a basket of baby horseradish, each no longer or fatter than a spring carrot. Not growing them for myself I had never seen anything but warty old roots before. They pack a punch and, finely rubbed against the coarse blade of a grater and stirred into little softly whipped cream they will lift a slice of beef or a fillet of mackerel. I never understood the point of horseradish sauce till I met the fresh stuff, with its hot sting and vitality. Try it stirred into soured cream next time you buy rollmops. The sweet, sour, hot notes certainly dazzle.
Look out for sea trout, around for another six weeks or so, and keep your eyes peeled for whitebait. The most diminutive of all fishes, and most often found frozen, they will be available fresh for the next couple of months. They need a good rinse and a quick toss in salt and peppered flour before deep or shallow frying. They must be eaten searingly hot to be good. Or how about cracking open a crab and stuffing its white and rust coloured meat into a baguette with watercress, mustard and cress and lamb lettuce and dressed with lime juice. This is the time to look out for young herb and vegetable plants for the garden. Long before I had a garden I would pick something to put on my windowsill. The zucchini did so well they somersaulted off into the garden below, but tomato plants, if you can give them enough water and fertiliser will live happily on a window ledge or balcony all summer. Likewise herbs.
Look out for unusual plants that are difficult to grow from seed. Anyone can grow nasturtiums and rocket in a tub, but I picked up Thai basil this week which I cannot grow and a couple of French tarragon plants to replace the ones that the slugs had for lunch one day last week. Another herb notorious for not germinating is parsley. Some say pour boiling water on the seeds, but even then they sometimes just sulk. Yet a transplanted pot can keep going for several months if you pick wisely and show a little patience with its new growth. Many markets have young plants for sale.
Pork is traditionally a meat for winter, yet it does well on the barbecue, when cut into thin chops and marinated in olive oil, sage and crushed garlic. Serve with halves of lemon and a spinach salad. Carnivorous outdoor cooks will, certainly, be taking their lamb to the feast and grilling it over hot coals, but just as savoury and in some ways easier to deal with is quail. Split the birds down the backbone and open them out as near flat as you can. (It will look like a roadkill at this point but bash on.) Now put one bird per person in a bowl with olive oil, some new garlic squashed flat with the blade of knife, and some thyme leaves torn from their branches. I sometimes put a long winding strip of orange peel in too. After a few hours in the cool, remove the quail and grill them, taking care to keep them juicy by not overcooking them. Serve them with lemon wedges and bread to mop up the cooking juices.
While summer is here I should make a plea for lettuce. I am the first to scoop up bags of salade Mesclun with their green, white and burgundy leaves, and wolf them down within 24 hours of getting them home, yet I still appreciate the old fashioned soft lettuce. It is too easily sneered at. There is something unshakably English about a soft-hearted lettuce, with its floppy outer leaves and tender, almost buttery, heart. Last Sunday I made an old fashioned lettuce sandwich - the first in years. Soft, farmhouse white bread thinly spread with pale, unsalted butter and a layer of shredded lettuce. An unmistakable taste of summer, the English way.
