Today I picked our red dessert gooseberries. I brought home about 700 grams of ripening fruit and needed some inspiration. I consulted my 'charity shop' cook book selection and went for The Dairy Book of Family Cookery published over thirty years ago in 1983. I was going to make Gooseberry Fool, but had no gelatine, so chose Honeyed Gooseberry Dessert (serves 4). I had all the ingredients, including the semolina which I bought for the stock cupboard on the inspiration of Anjum Anand's Indian Every Day (2003) with the intention of making pilaff or perhaps halva following Madhur Jaffrey (1982). I thought it would be interesting to experiment with semolina.
Semolina that is, that had taken on an exotic guise. How different these recipes seemed from the bland milk-based puddings of my sixties school dinners - semolina, tapioca, sago - or one of my late mother's stand-bys at home before the era of widely available yoghurt - junket made with milk and a flavoured rennet tablet (consumed by mother but not by me).
Honeyed Gooseberry Dessert with its layers of gooseberries and semolina was a success. We ate half of it although we did not eat it chilled as suggested as I was running out of time. I also reduced the sugar content - eighties recipes are not always suitable for diabetics.
So here's to semolina whether by east or west. Semolina rediscovered and relished.
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