The more Royalist-inclined among you will already know that the Prince of Wales turns 60 tomorrow. The BBC News website has a picture gallery to mark the occasion.

So what relevance does that have to Not Delia? Well, Picture 9 in the series shows two pictures of Prince Charles in a food or agricultural environment, accompanied with a caption referring to his organic food range launched in 1992 with produce from farms on his Duchy of Cornwall estate, Duchy Originals.

So far, so humdrum. But what really grabbed our attention was the caption, which included this gem:

But it is not without critics – chef Gordon Ramsay berated its salt and sugar levels

If you’ve ever seen the DVD that accompanies Ramsay’s book Gordon Ramsay Makes It Simple (and that title is a bit of a misnomer itself – it’s an excellent book, but most of the recipes in it aren’t really for the novice cook) you’ll already be falling about laughing. If not, get hold of a copy if you can. There’s prodigious quantities of salt flying around everywhere!

What makes it even funnier for Not Delia and me is that a couple of years back, we saw a skit on the ITV comedy show Monkey Trousers in which John Thomson parodied a TV chef on a morning programme. All was running smoothly at first. But then things started going off the rails when he gave his recipe for pancakes, which consisted of flour, water, butter, eggs – and a pinch of f***in’ salt…

Fruit and beer.

For many people, the two concepts don’t belong together. For example, one of my ex-colleagues had a letter published in Viz which sneered at the whole concept of a “lager top” as being the Southern softy drink of shandy under a euphemistic name.

Funny though the letter was, I don’t think he was altogether right. OK, it’s a shame to spoil a decent ale by pouring half a pint of R. White’s into it. Snakebite destroys the lager, the cider, and half of your braincells at a stroke. And Guinness and blackcurrant is an abomination.

But there are plenty of respectable beers on the Continent which involve fruit in some way. Take Hoegaarden, for one. Wheat beer is nice enough in itself, but adding that Curaçao orange peel to the process gives the drink a zing which makes it perfect for sitting outside on a summer’s day.

The Belgians seem to be particularly big on fruit in beer. Kriek, the beer made with cherries, is probably the most famous instance of this.

Just now I’ve been drinking a bottle of framboise, or frambozenbier if you’re in Flanders rather than Wallonia; beer flavoured with raspberries. Like Hoegaarden, it’s a great drink for summer – it’s refreshing and has a pleasant zing to it which really helps take the heat off. (Pity it’s a bit on the pricey side, though on the other hand that does mean you’re less likely to gulp it down in industrial quantities and be totally wasted by dinnertime.)

The Germans do something very similar in Berlin, called Weiße mit Schuss. But in the German case they simply add raspberry syrup to the finished beer, whereas the Belgians use real raspberries in the brewing process. Nice though Weiße mit Schuss can be, it’s not got the bite that framboise has. It’s a bit stickier, too.

So the message seems to be: Don’t knock the idea of fruity beer until you’ve tried it; but if you’re going to do it, do it properly, with real fruit, not rubbish with additives and colourings.

Test your foodie knowledge with our quick quiz. Only five questions but quite difficult, we think. Have fun!

1. What is Bûche de Noël?
   1. A French Christmas recipe for a Yule log
   2. A well-known Swiss cookbook with recipes for Christmas
   3. A Canadian pastry traditionally made at Christmas
   4. A Belgian liqueur distilled from birch sap, traditionally drunk on Christmas Eve
2. What does au gratin mean?
   1. Served with a cheese sauce
   2. A dish sprinkled with cheese and/or breadcrumbs then browned on top
   3. A sandwich made French-style, like a croque, with the cheese on the outside
   4. Garnished with a roux-based cheese and parsley sauce
3. In culinary terms, what does marc mean?
   1. A joint of meat used only to provide flavour to a dish rather than for the meat itself
   2. A method of infusing fruit with alcohol in a technique similar to macerating
   3. A clear alcohol made from the pressed grapes after wine making
   4. It’s another word for cocotte (a small dish for baking individual soufflés etc)
4. Who wrote the book Ballymaloe Cookery Course first published in the UK in 2001?
   1. Donna Hay
   2. Delia Smith
   3. Darina Allen
   4. Jeanne Rankin
5. What is charcuterie?
   1. Prepared meat products (such as sausages, patés, hams, etc) made from any kind of animal
   2. Prepared meat products as above, but made from pork only
   3. Any kind of meat prepared according to French butchery techniques
   4. French salami-style sausage

Check the answers here