Flummery

[Ishbel]

Another old-fashioned gooseberry pudding, popular for centuries!
450g topped and tailed gooseberries
225g of sugar
1 teaspoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice
280ml of milk
4 tablespoons fine semolina

Simmer gooseberries with sugar and a small amount of water, until the skins burst and the fruit becomes pulpy. Remove from the heat and add lemon juice. Warm the milk and gradually add the semolina. Bring to the boil and simmer for 3 minutes until it has thickened. Take off the heat and fold in the gooseberries. Spoon into dishes cool and serve with langue du chat type biscuits or shortbread fingers.

 

[Shunka]

Thank you for this recipe!! My grandmother used to make this when I was a kid!! I have been looking for just this recipe!

 

[Ishbel]

Oldies are often the best, aren't they?!!! I've also used rhubarb or plums or greengages to make a flummery, too.

Enjoy it!

 

[Alix]

So Flummery then means sort of thickened fruit? Like a fruit pudding in essence? Semolina is flour right?

 

[Ishbel]

I think flummery is an old English word with the same meaning as 'Fool' as in Fruit Fool... But I have to confess, I'm not too sure.... I shall investigate and report back!

I have done a little research - and found this in a little cookery book I picked up somewhere on the Welsh Marches (that area which is on the English side of the Welsh border)...

Flummery is the English approximation of a Welsh word 'llymru' which was a soft sweet jelly made from oats.

(It has another meaning in English: meaningless chatter or deceptive speech.) Although, to be frank, I've never heard it used in general speech - and had only ever heard of it as the name of a very old English pudding!

 

[msalper]

So Flummery then means sort of thickened fruit? Like a fruit pudding in essence? Semolina is flour right?

Semolina is kind of it... Semolina is coarsely ground durum wheat, a highly glutinous wheat...

Oldies are often the best, aren't they?!!!

I fully agree with you... I always be filled with admiration to them...

 

[Ishbel]

Alper 'oldies' in this case is meant to mean.... old recipes - I hope you didn't think I meant old people

 

[Ishbel]

Semolina was always a staple pudding when I was a girl. The semolina was thickened by bringing to the boil with hot milk and sugar... Sort of like a gritty English custard!

 

[msalper]

Alper 'oldies' in this case is meant to mean.... old recipes - I hope you didn't think I meant old people

No Ishbel I didn't think old people ... I also meant old recipes...Thank you

 

[Ishbel]

Good! I certainly wasn't trying to be disrespectful to the elderly - after all, I intend to be one of them later in my life!

 

[msalper]

Good! I certainly wasn't trying to be disrespectful to the elderly - after all, I intend to be one of them later in my life!

Yes ofcourse, you were not. As a result; they created these old recipes. And now they are living with us and around us. So respect and love to old recipes means respecting to oldies(goldies) at the same time ...