Rotten Fruit

A wonderful childhood memory came flooding back to me last night as I was hit by the stench of an overripe pear. I was about 12 when around this time of year, my granny instructed me to collect all the rotten fruit from her garden. After whining that it was disgusting, I was given a pair of rubber gloves and told to get on with it. I slaved for what seems like hours picking up the most rotten, pungent and rotting fruit I could find. This was not easy, as, I was having to fight the local wildlife for the pickings. I warned granny that some of the fruit was badly decomposed and she would have more than her fair share of insects and gruesome creepy crawlies vying for the fruit. She just nodded her head and told me to pick up every last scrap of fruit, and, if I was nimble, I could try picking the "windfall" fruits from next doors garden.

I kept asking what her intention was for the fruit (she normally makes jam, compotes, etc from the best pickings only). She looked round shiftily and told me to carry on picking the fruit.

Once the fruit was gathered, I was told to place it in a large enamel pot and "go play". Anyway, to cut a very long story short, that was my first foray into the world of moonshine making. She basically let the rotten fruit mature for a couple of days and then boiled it into palinka (hungarian schnapps). Al Capone had nothing on my granny, who had to distille the palinka at least twice as the first brew was always too strong for consumption (although some of it was saved as disinfectant for wounds). Whenever I fell over or cut myself, granny would clean the wound and then douse it with schnapps. She said that there was no need for plasters once the schnapps was on it. I always thought I was the only kid whose wounds smelt of schnapps, until I realised that if you wore a plaster as a kid in Hungary, it meant that your mother or father had gotten to you before wise old granny could bring the vodka.

Anyways, I digress. The long and the short of it is, that my granny is probably waiting for her rotten fruit to ripen and in a couple of days, her kitchen will again become a distillery. I think I know what the rellies are going to get for crimbo, homemade jam and schnapps. I still have a litre downstairs that she made for my wedding, its about 80% proof and has a slightly blue tinge. Its like drinking paintsripper, something you should never drink on an empty stomach, something my hubby found out when he got alcohol posoining! My granny and most of the senior members of my family have a shot instead of an espresso on cold winter mornings.