The month of June brings almost unparalleled joy to the forager. As far as flowers go, the elderflower is the absolute king. It is so delicious and so versatile. It is one of the few wild foodstuffs that is collected for commercial use, and for good reason. It produces a beautifully refreshing, summer cordial, one of the finest hedgerow champagnes, and an increasingly popular, sweet treat called elderflower delight. Thank you John Wright in the River Cottage Hedgerow Handbook for that.
I won’t give away that recipe, you’ll have to buy the book for that but I will pass on my recipe for elderflower cordial:
3 lemons
35 elderflower heads
1.5 litres water
2 kg sugar
50g citric acid
Boil 500ml of the water and dissolve the sugar in it. Then add the rest of the rest of the water, elderflowers, lemon zest and juice and the citric acid.
Leave it over night. Strain it through a muslin into sterilised bottles. Keeps for a few months due to the high sugar content.
You’d better satisfy your foraging urges soon as the flowers won’t be round much longer! I’m already looking forward to August-September time for the berries to make elderberry port!