Damsons are blue-black fruit which look like a small plum.
They are best cooked, which brings out their sweet, spicy flavour, and put into pies and crumbles, jams, jellies, ice cream, fools and sorbets. An old English recipe using damsons is damson cheese which is a rich confection of fruit, potted and aged before eating. Many wine-makers are eager to harvest the fruit for their home brew. There are many varieties of partridge, a bird related to the pheasant. The British, or grey partridge, has delicate and tender flesh which, when young, is pale in colour and most flavoursome.