THE LOST ART OF SCRUPMING..

Yesterday for Sunday lunch, we had one of Mrs. Snopper`s home made, cordon bleu apple pies and very nice it was too.    I think it was Carl Sagan who said that if you want to make an apple pie, first you must create the universe.   And important parts of that universe are, of course, the orchards here in deepest Kent which have provided an abundance of fruit over the years - it wasn`t called The Garden of England for nothing.

As part of a kind of rustic ritual, for years now I have been walking our dogs around the assorted orchards, especially at harvest time.   Now I have to be careful here not to give the wrong impression, for the last thing I need is to be accused of stealing the farmer`s crop and finding myself transported to the colonies, but I have to admit that by some miracle of providence, the occasional item of fruit has found its way back to chez Snopper, hence yesterday`s apple pie.   That is until this year.

I always take a plastic bag with me on my dog walks, ostensibly to gather up any `items` Barney might leave on the paths but it is strange how, at harvest time, the lost art of scrumping comes to the fore.   Scrumping, like Morris Dancing, is an Olde Englishe Custome, whereby peasants would gather surplus fruit to see them through the winter and this is a custom that I have tried to maintain, especially given our plight as an elderly couple struggling to survive on a fixed income in the harshest winter we have known for years.

Somehow, when I returned home, I would find that my plastic bag had  been filled with assorted apples, plums and pears - all having fallen to the ground and running the risk of going to waste.  I`m guessing, but I wonder if the word `scrumptious` has its origins in this ancient custom, especially as anything scrumped always seems to taste better than anything `bought.`

 Last autumn I mourned the fact that a much loved Victoria plum orchard had been razed to the ground, bringing an end to years of plum scrumping.   In the last couple of weeks, I have noticed that a Conference pear orchard has gone the same way, along with a large Bramley apple orchard. 

Enquiries have revealed that these orchards are now to be given over to the production of wheat, suggesting that the bottom has dropped out of the Kentish fruit market having been replaced by lookalike fruit from China, Taiwan and all points east.   Maybe Mr. Kipling is getting his exceedingly good Bramley apples from elsewhere.  And so, as my years of perfecting the art of scrumping seem to be coming to an end, I`m beginning to wonder what Mrs. Snopper might make from scrumped wheat.   Something scrumptious, I hope.