Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit
By Jeanette Winterson
EGG RATING
There is a saying that springs to mind:
“I know its good, I just don’t like it”
I know I should have liked it, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I was hoping to and I’m not too sure why?
It wasn’t the subject matter, it wasn’t the writing, I think it was the use of so many metaphors or story elements throughout the book that stopped me from getting as much pleasure from this book as I though I was going to.
Stop reading this is you want to, I’ve never said that I was a “proper” book reviewer, only me rambling on about something I’ve read or listened to, and for this book I used Audio books.
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is described on Wikipedia as ….”a coming of age story about a Lesbian girl growing up in a Pentecostal community”, set In Wigan. I’d definitely agree with that, a coming of age book that most people will find some common round with,, Lesbian of not.
I read somewhere that the author, Jeanette Winterson, wanted to know why, once the book had been removed from the food and recipe shelves in bookstores, it was seen as a “Lesbian” book, instead of just a book? Makes perfect sense to me, a book is a book right??
I can see how it could be incredibly relatable to teenagers by the way the writer dealt with Complex family relationships from a sometimes-humorous yet real point of view and at times the main character, quite rightly, had a younger voice.
Some of these relatable events aren’t just about the coming to know herself as a lesbian but as a young woman and how the world sees her, a thing that most people relate to and come to reconcile with no matter what the age or stage in their life. I include myself in this.
With every passing year I discover something new about myself, which means something new to explore, something new to accept and like, or not, about myself. I think that as we progress through life, ageing (gracefully or not) its all about learning about yourself and learning to accept and like who you are.
Teenage-hood, mother hood, father-hood, midlife- crisis-hood, singleton- hood, relationship- with-significant- other- hood, menopause- hood – any hood you care to mention.
Jeanette was adopted into a family with a very religious mother who convinced her that she was destined to become a missionary. She was able to be strong enough and sure of herself enough to stand up for how she felt, who she was. There had to be some credit given to how or who brought her up, no matter the many negative aspects of the sometimes strange and often bizarre behaviours of her mother and lack lustre and weak input of her father.
Spoiler alert, it all works out in the end. That’s not necessarily to say that’s it’s a happy ending, but its not sad either.
Listening to Jeanette narrate the audiobook about the single ladies who live together or just don’t talk about their sexuality is something that I’m grateful now is a thing which is slowly becoming a distance memory.
I have a memory of my Mum talking about two ladies she knew from her childhood who were “good friends” and lived together as companions. It wasn’t until my Mum was an adult that she had a realisation of the nature of their relationship. My Mum was incredibly naive about so many things even as an adult. Difficult for me to imagine same sex couples not being recognised now thank goodness (even though we all know that there are some out there who still judge).
So why did I not enjoy the book, its was all about the writing style for me, which doesn’t mean you won’t like it, and I encourage you to read it and let me know. Hopefully you’ve already read it and can share with me your thoughts.
March Foodie Book Club:
The Tea-Olive Bird Watching Society. By Augusta Trobaugh
Onto the Recipe:
When I made this recipe, I’d just made the Lamb Kofta for Yorkshire Dales Meat Company website so I wanted something very sweet and chocolaty to have after eating them.
Yes, I do eat what I cook and so does Mr G, but we all know by now he’s my not so reluctant chief taster.
I had a few blood oranges in my fruit bowl so it seemed to make sense to use them both for ta recipe. With my blood oranges I thought I’d make a Caramelised Blood Orange Poke Brownie. Now try saying that with a mouth full of Caramelised Blood Orange …… yes, and the rest.
With the addition of the loose blood orange caramel, this is a very moist and indulgent cake, which is why I wanted a brownie. Firstly I knew I wouldn’t need to eat a lot to satisfy my sweet tooth, and secondly, I wanted to have the cake thin enough to soak up as much of the delicious blood orange caramel as possible and still have some caramel left over for some ice cream, and maybe a cocktail or two.
Yes, this caramel is so easy and tasty you’ll be making it all the time for other things. See the tip box.
Poke Chocolate Brownie with Caramelised Blood Oranges and Runny Caramel
Brownie all soaked in the luscious blood orange caramel and sweet sticky blood oranges
What You Need
For the Chocolate Poke Brownie
250 g Plain Flour
½ teaspoon Baking powder
50g Cocoa powder
1 – large orange - Juice and zest
115g Castor Sugar
100g soft brown sugar
2 large eggs
150g Melted Butter
Peeled and sliced blood oranges and their juice ready for the caramel
For the Caramelised Blood Oranges
5 medium or 3 large Blood Oranges
500g Castor Sugar
250ml Water
Pale golden caramel ready for the blood oranges
How It’s Done
Peel and slice the Blood oranges. Do this over a bowl and keep all of the juice along with the orange slices.
In a heavy bottomed pan, add the water and the sugar. Heat the mixture on a medium heat slowly, until all of the sugar has dissolved.
Make your Caramel - Raise the heat a little and simmer until the mixture has reduced and has turned a pale golden brown. - See Tip Box
Once your caramel is ready, take it off the heat and lace onto something heat resistant.
Safety warning – its hot, hot, hot - In one go, add all of the Blood Orange juice and Blood orange (Its will spit and sizzle) and stir with a silicone spatula straight away. Keep stirring gently for about 1 minute to avoid the syrup from settling to the bottom of the pan and becoming solid.
Once combined, pour into a heat-proof bowl and set aside to cool.
Blood oranges and caramel combined
Chocolate Poke Brownie
Heat the oven to 180c – See Tip Box
Line a 9” x 9” ovenproof container with non-stick baking parchment making sure the parchment comes up the side of the dish.
Put all of the brownie ingredients into one bowl and give it a good mix.
Place into the hot oven and cook for 20 mins - See Tip Box
Once out of the oven let it stand for about 15 mins to firm up.
Take a skewer and poke holes all over the brownie.
Spoon the Bool Orange caramel all over the brownie until it is soaked in the caramel. Place the caramelised blood orange pieces n top of the caramel and let it cool completely before serving. If you can wait that long?
Don’t waste any left over liquid caramel See Tip Box for a few suggestion.
Chocolate poke brownie soaking up lot of blood orange caramel
Tip Box
Caramel – Let the sugar and water mixture simmer gently until it’s reduced and becomes a very pale golden brown. This will take longer that you think. The water needs to evaporate off and leave the heated damp sugar, and this needs to be a very hot temperature. So your mixture may take 20 mins or longer and have to be reduced by about two thirds. DON’T STEP AWAY. Didn’t need to shout there, but once the mixture starts to turn golden, it takes but a moment for it to burn.
Caramel 2 – When making your caramel, give it a stir when the sugar is dissolving, but after this don’t stir. Just give it a swirl. Mixing will start the make crystal sugar around the edges of the pan, and this is not what’s needed.
Oven – All ovens vary so keep and eye on that temperature
Brownie Cooking – The brownie is going to be a little firmer that I would normally bake mine, but you are going to be soaking it in caramel so its going to be very wet.
Left over Caramel – Don’t waste ant blood orange caramel you may have left. Try it as a base for a cocktail, over ice cream. Don’t limit yourself there, keep it covered I the fridge and add it to as many things as you can.
Chocolate brownie poke cake covered in caramelised blood orange and syrup cooling. Wont be there for long.
