It’s been a sensational year for London’s roses. So don’t tell anyone, but I’ve been known to sneak a quick snip of a full-blown beauty that’s found its way over a someone else’s wall (strictly for artistic purposes, you understand).
Meawhile, the countryside is awash with glorious blossoms including a single-petalled native beauty, Rosa canina, dog-rose, as observed in full-bloom last week when I spent a few days in her Dorset garden with an old friend talking over old times (as you do) in the shade of her sweet-scented rose-arbour. We met in the early 1960’s, when we were unmarried and fancy-free in London and I was on secretarial duties in a crowded upstairs office in Soho at the UK’s one-and-only satirical magazine, Private Eye (fifty years on and still going strong). Venetia, on the other hand, was a mini-skirted dolly-bird with a preference for the cafes of the King’s Road and a keen eye for a generous boyfriend supplemented by whatever part-time work came her way. And so it continued, one way or another, throughout our lives.
If the Kings Road was all about style and Swinging London, Soho, London’s red-light district, was the very reverse - a rabbit-warren of ladies-upstairs, jazz-clubs and drinking-dens where anyone could rub shoulders with the movers-and-shakers - young and not-so-young (Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud), artists, actors, designers, writers, satirists, playwrights, drunks, East End villains, anarchists (poets, mostly), gamblers’ runners, bent policemen and - well - dolly-birds in mini-skirts (me too). All of us were crammed together, night and day, into a fertile rubbish-heap just a stone’s-throw from the Houses of Parliament, where our elders-and-betters ruled everything but us - a bunch of no-goodnicks, feminists, anarchists, ban-the-bombers and political ignoramuses conspiring to overturn the government and heaven knows what. And we did - at least for a time.
You get the picture. So gather ye rosebuds while ye may with Georges de Mauduit - gardener, ci-devant aristo and general man-about Britain, Europe and America, mostly in the 1930’s (he disappeared into a concentration camp in WW@. In The Vicomte in the Kitchen (London 1937), the viscount recommends the red rose of Provence as top-of-the-heap for rose-water - which are not to be confused with attar of roses, a distilled perfume of high commercial value much loved by the ladies of the Ottoman Empire as well as the perfumiers of Provence.
Rose petals for rosewater, advises M. de Mauduit, should be gathered before sunrise on a dry day, each petal inspected for bruising and the little white point at the center removed. Roses recommended for use in the kitchen include Etoile de Hollande, Red Provence and any of the single-layer rugosas and hybrid tea-roses. To prepare rosewater [from your own or someone else’s garden] half-fill a silver basin with red rose petals picked before sunrise. Fill to within 2 inches of the rim with rain water, cover and set in a pan of boiling water. Leave to infuse for an hour. Remove the petals, and replace with fresh petals. Repeat six times, then bottle up. To prepare rosewater jam, allow a litre of rose-petals to an equal volume of water, add the same weight of preserving sugar, the juice of a lemon and simmer till thick and spoonable. To prepare rose jelly, use rosewater as the cooking-liquid for crab-apples. To prepare rose-syrup, bring the rosewater to a gentle simmer, add as much sugar as liquid and stir till the crystals dissolve.
Rosepetal risotto
Gather your rose-petals exactly as the Vicomte recommends, on a dry day and prepare them as for rosewater above.
Serves 3-4, delicately
150g pink or red rose petals
1 small or 1/2 large red onion, finely sliced into halfmoons
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
350g risotto rice
1 glass rose wine
about 500ml vegetable broth or water
1/2 teaspoon pink peppercorns, crushed
salt
To finish
unsalted butter
grated parmesan
Put 100g rose-petals to infuse in 1/2 litre hot water for an hour. Strain, discard the petals and reserve the rose-infused water.
Warm the oil in a risotto pan and fry the onion gently till it softens and gilds - 5 mins. Stir in the rice and let it turn transparent as it absorbs the oil. Meanwhile heat the wine in a small pan with the vegetable broth or water and bubble up till it and no longer smells of alcohol.
Add the hot vegetable broth (or water) to the rice a ladleful at a time, waiting to allow the grains to drink the liquid, stirring throughout. After 10 minutes, stir in the rosewater and the crushed peppercorns. Continue to stir in the hot broth till the rice is soft but still retains a nutty little heart – this will take 15-18 minutes from start to finish. The result should be juicy rather than dry, so make sure you add enough liquid.
Remove the pan from the heat, stir in a few scraps of butter and a handful of parmesan. Finish with the reserved rose-petals.
Oh oh what wonderful scented deliciousness. Risotto now there’s a thought. I’ve squirrelled the idea away and will practice over the next few weeks before nature stops me.Thank you, Elisabeth.
Elizabeth, your watercolors are beautiful. Minimalist yet capturing everything.
I look forward to reading your posts. I hope one day I can paint watercolors in this way.