More gooseberries… fool!

Gooseberry fool… so delicious… and yet all it is is custard with gooseberry purée folded into it. It’s best with home-made custard of course, but actually any custard is pretty good. Gooseberries are best, but you can make a fool, originally foole, with any fruit. Apparently, these days it is sometimes made with whipped cream instead… which doesn’t sound as nice, it doesn’t sound as unctuous as home-made custard – I mean custard made with eggs and milk, not custard powder!

Fools or fooles date from the 1400’s, but I would guess in actual fact the idea of mixing stewed fruit, puréed or otherwise, with milk/.cream/yoghurt/curds/custard must be really ancient.

I came across this very old recipe:

Stew in an earthenware or copper pan a quart of green gooseberries, hulled and wiped, previously adding about half a pound of loaf sugar, also a gill of water and the juice of a lemon. When the fruit is tender, rub it with its syrup through a fine hair sieve. When the pulp is cold, add to it one pint of cream or a pint of custard. The latter is made with three gills of milk, three yolks of eggs, and a little sugar to sweeten. serve this cold in a shallow dish or in custard glasses. Most people prefer gooseberry fool in a semi-frozen state, which can be effected by pouring the above mixture into a clean pewter freezing pot, surrounded by crushed ice and coarse freezing salt. The pot has to be turned in the ice until its contents begin to freeze to the desired consistency.

How easy our lives are now with ice-cream makers and freezers!

Have a look at this interesting post which goes into much more detail:

https://thehistoricfoodie.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/200/