On this occasion – with Marja, Anna, Bec, Amos and Susie – the kitchen produced FIVE different preserves: dried suppilovahvero mushrooms, salt pickled karvarousku mushrooms, boozy plums, rowanberry jam and sweet apple preserve. Almost all the ingredients we used were picked by those present, from places like Marja’s garden, the streets of Kuopio and the forest at Huukaniemi. Amidst all this industriousness our conversation covered such ground as the Finnish ‘tontu’ (mythical elf creatures) who ‘save what is worthful’ if appeased with offerings of food, how increasingly extreme seasons make preserving the fruits of a brief summer more important than ever, and what it means to continue pickling beetroot and collecting forest berries in ways your parents and grandparents have for generations.