
There's no place like home and, for me, that means there's no place like the Westcountry on a summer day. Having spent recent summers tied to a desk at a university library, or cooped up in a sticky city, or semi-stranded on a tropic isle where the sun sets at 6pm every evening, I've been longing to get back home. Home to hot air balloons, cricket, ducklings on canals, fayres, cider festivals, bandstands, open fields and ekeing out hazy evenings with a blanket on knees.
One of the most evocative tastes of a British summer, aside from strawberries and new veg smothered in butter, is the elderflower. Near where we live all the elderflower were plucked from the riverbanks some time ago, so when I spotted a bush still bearing white flowers, I had to take my chance and merrily denuded everything within reach. I collected over 60 heads (perhaps a little over-ambitious) and made home with my haul.
now follows... the citric acid sagain which many frustrations befall the frolicking foodieSATURDAY:
3pm: with a veritable heap of flora, the ingredients to make cordial must be sourced - sugar, water, lemons, oranges... fine. Citric acid? Well that must be with the bicarbonate of soda.
4pm, a well-known supermarket: OK, so it's not in home-baking. Or specialist foods. Or the medicines aisle. Or the cleaning fluids. Or the alcohol. I'll ask this helpful chap. OK, looking it up on the store's system. None. Bugger. Looking it up on the Sainsbury's mainframe. 'no populated content for this search'. That means that there is none, in any Sainbury's supermarket, anywhere. Onwards.
4:30pm, a well-known chemist: So people cut their drugs with it and you can no longer sell it? I could try and independent pharmacist? OK...
4:35pm [by this point, running Anika Rice-stylee down the high street]: You do sell it! YESSS! Oh... you can't get it for love nor money? Elderflower cordial season y'say. Funny, that.
4:40pm, an independent kitchen shop: Oh you'd love to help me, m'lover, but everyone's been asking for it! You'ves no idea what's got into every man and his wife!
4:50pm, a health food shop: Well, I'm at least the tenth person to ask today for this citric acid stuff. Not quite sure what it's for, but tell you what if you like, there's the man that owns the little chemist on the end of the bridge, good Lordy, can't even remember the name of him. Could be Gerald, or maybe Germone? Definitely began with a G of some sort, and, well, he's pretty good with stocking stuff, he is. What's it for anyway?
4:55pm, Gerry's pharmacy (no clearer idea what his name really is): Why haven't I tried the home brew shop? WHY haven't I tried the home brew shop!!
4:59pm, outside the home brew shop (which is next to a small church with a bell tower), the clock striking out 5pm as I turn the corner to face the front door. CLOSED. I raise my fists to the sky, shake them helplessly at the air and let our a prolonged 'Nooooooooo'. I resist falling to my knees and sobbing into them. Just.
5:00pm, car: slight mini-tantrum thrown.
6:00pm, kitchen: elderflowers reluctantly placed in a shallow bowl of water and covered with cling film. Cordial scuppered.
MONDAY:
Home brew shop closed till Wednesday. Phoned every independent pharmacy in town. None, anywhere. There's been a run on it, apparently. Then I get a phone call back... there will be a delivery. They can't say when. They can take my name and my number. They can't sell me more than 100g, cause the law's on their back. But they can do me two packets, if I can come in at lunch time.
I go in at lunch time. I sidle up to the pharmacy assistant. Got any citric? No, all out. She eyeballs me. I'm on the list, I try feebly. Oh, well, she says. That makes all the difference, she says. She unlocks a drawer below the till and takes out 'the list'. She crosses my name off and hands me two small boxes of acid. I pay cash, and stash them in my handbag.
Got to be careful round these parts, anyone'll have you for 100g of citric acid.