The Greasy Spoon | Food & Culture

Cutlet Class

 

 

Last week I had lunch at The Reform Club. It’s a distinguished building. Construction began in 1837 to the designs of Sir Charles Barry- the architect of the Palace of Westminster, Highclere Castle and Cliveden House in Buckinghamshire. It always reminds me of Phileas Fogg, as of course, The Reform Club is his point of departure in Jules Verne’s ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ (1872).

 

 

The food’s rather distinguished, too. I double-checked that organ of truth- Wikipedia- and it says, I quote: "The Reform was known for the quality of its cuisine, its first chef being Alexis Soyer, the first celebrity chef.” The menu looked good, simple, well-thought out and unpretentious, as only club food should be- but there was one dish in particular, blinking away at us in imaginary neon: LAMB CUTLETS REFORM in REFORM CLUB SAUCE, it said. Well, it had to be.

 

Alexis Soyer: “the first celebrity chef”.

 

Which reminds me. According to Patrick Marnham’s 'Trail of Havoc' (a superb account of the Lucan Case), the 7th Earl of Lucan’s two favourite dishes (as served at the Clermont Club in Berkeley Square) were Smoked Salmon and Lamb Cutlets (which he ate in the Winter), and Salmon and Lamb Cutlets en Gelée (which he ate in the Summer):

"To this destructive atmosphere Lucan returned night after night, week after week, for eleven years, munching his smoked salmon and lamb cutlets, losing his fortune and stubbornly insisting on his skill and his luck. If Lord Lucan ate four lamb cutlets a day, for four days a week, for forty weeks a year, for eleven years, and if there are seven cutlets in a sheep, then he would have by the end have dispatched 1,006 sheep.”

Lamb Cutlets Reform are- well, you guessed, lamb cutlets, dipped in egg, dipped in chopped ham and breadcrumbs and fried. Reform Sauce is more complicated. It’s a tangy brown sauce, flavoured with redcurrant jelly and served with mushrooms, gherkins, strips of hard-boiled egg white and ham. The combination is- and was- surprisingly delicious and I am glad to report that the Reform Club serves its food in plates of the piping hot variety. I’ve found an original recipe from the excellent- and now very collectable ‘Clubland Cooking’  (1974) by Robin McDouall (former secretary of The Traveller’s) and cookery correspondant of Harper’s Bazaar:

 

Côtelettes de mouton à la Reform

The chef of the Reform Club, as I have already said, declined to give me any recipes. I presume Mutton Cutlets Reforged were invented there, so I take this from Soyer’s Gastronomic Regenerator (1846):

Chop a quarter of a pound of lean cooked ham very fine, and mix it with the same quantity of breadcrumbs, then have ten nice cotelettes, lay the flat on your table, season lightly with pepper and salt, egg over the paste-brush, and throw them into the ham and breadcrumbs, then beat them lightly with a knife, put ten spoonfuls of oil in a sauté pan, place it over the fire, and when quite hot lay in the cotelettes, fry nearly ten minutes (over a moderate fire) of a light brown colour; to ascertain when done, press your knife upon the thick part, if quite well done it will feel rather firm: possibly they may not be all done at one time, so take out those that are ready first and lay them on a cloth till the others are done; as they require to be cooked with the gravy in them...sauce over with a pint of the sauce Reform and serve.

Sauce à la Reform

Cut up two middling-sized onions into thin slices and put them in a stew pan with two sprigs of parsley, two of thyme, two bayleaves, half a blade of mace, and an ounce of fresh butter; stir them ten minutes over a hot fire, then add two tablespoonsful of Tarragon vinegar, and one of Chili vinegar, boil it one minute; then add a pint of brown sauce or sauce Espagnole, three tablespoonfuls of preserved tomatoes, and eight of consommé; place it over the fire until boiling, then put it at the corner, let it simmer ten minutes, skim it well, then place it again over the fire, keeping it stirred, and reduce until it adheres to the back of the spoon; then add a good tablespoonsful of redcurrant jelly, and half do. of chopped mushrooms; stir it until the jelly is melted, then pass it through a tammie into another stew pan.

When ready to serve, make it hot, and add the white of a hard-boiled egg cut into strips half an inch long, and thick in proportion, four white blanced mushrooms, one gherkin, two green Indian pickles, and half an ounce of cooked ham, or tongue, all cut into strips like the white of an egg; do not let it boil afterwards. This sauce must be poured over whatever it is served with.'

Robin Mcdouall was not, alas a fan: “Much ado about nothing, in my opinion..."

 

The Return of the Spoon

 

 

I’m back. After, God, how long now? A year and a bit? Something like that. 

I started writing The Greasy Spoon in 2007. I suppose- in a way- it’s become a sort of psychogeographer’s food blog: an antitode to all those prim websites with precise instructions to add this ingredient or that, or having queeny hysterics over a gobbet of fat. Which means, that despite being ostensibly about ‘food’, it isn't really about food at all.

In those days blogging was a new thing- and scrolling back to the beginning (it’s still there!)- I find tiny photographs and very little text. At smart cocktail parties, chatting up an attractive girl, the mention of the word ‘blog’ made their eyes glaze over with a mixture of boredom, pity and horror. But then, of course, I had the last laugh, as that very same girl’s now peddling shabby chic nick-nacks to her seventy eight-and-a-half followers online.

The problem with blogging, alas, is that you might spend two days writing what you think is a brilliantly witty feature- and then receive only one comment, from a Nigerean gentleman recommending the benefits of Viagra perhaps, or a Californian robot flogging something called bitcoin.

Which is one of the reasons I switched to Instagram. And then The Greasy Spoon was banned from Facebook- and presumably, by default, instagram too, which is why I can’t post The Greasy Spoon on either Facebook or Insta, which you may not have realised, is under the power of Facebook. I still can’t get my head round it.

 

‘Not in tune with our community values’ they said. There was the late Bob Carlos Clarke’s slinky snap of Rachel Weisz in a shiny black rubber cat suit. Maybe that was it? Or the post about the cute little Suckling Piglet- the cooking and devouring of? Or the photograph of St. Fanny Cradock about to be sick? Okay, The Spoon’s a trifle subversive- but a BAN? Californian Cromwellians!

So I’m revisiting The Greasy Spoon to do battle. It should be fun. Lots of new ideas up my sleeve. Sometimes taking a sabbatical is no bad thing. We do want to remain fresh, don’t we?

Incidentally, if you want to follow me on instagram, you’ll find me at @luke_honey. My little instagram blog is slightly different: stuff on films, books, architecture, history, music, 1970s advertising- anything that turns me on, really, plus the occasional rant.

 

Black Velvet

 

 

As I advance- tentatively- into the twilight years of Late Late Youth, I'm finding that simplicity (in all its many splendid forms) is the way forward- most especially when it comes to cocktails- and the making of. Once Upon a Time there was a fashion- I'm thinking back to the 1980s- for exotic cocktails. This may also explain the popularity of vodka in that exuberant time: sapphire blue in colour, decorated with miniature umbrellas and flavoured with chunks of tinned pineapple. It may also explain the enthusiasm for Hawaiin shirts, Ray-Bans, people dancing around swimming pools, and the music of Wham!

No. Give me a Dry Martini over a new-fangled cocktail invention. Any day of the year. Or a Bloody Mary, a Bullshot, a Whisky Sour or a Margarita. Infinitely preferable to some trendy concoction invented by a bearded 'mixologist' in a tight suit, yup- him wot keeps you waiting for fifteen minutes at the bar, as he throws his cocktail shaker in the air. The concept of 'theatre' can be taken to extremes.

And it's the same with food. A simple 'classic' (as The Sunday Times Colour Supplement prefers to call it) is infinitely preferable to a pretentious Gastro-Pub horror, served with a flourish, and on a square plate. I would rather have a well-made Prawn Cocktail- prepared with love- than a trendy 'fusion' dish, which- somehow- doesn't quite seem to work; or along similar lines- a traditional dish given a 'twist' by a twenty-something up and coming 'chef'. What's the point? Why does a classic need a twist? Isn't that why it's a classic in the first place.

Which takes me to the Black Velvet cocktail. Now, there's a classic if there ever was one! Savoury, creamy Guinness stout and bone-dry champagne: it's beautifully simple. The story goes that it was invented at Brooks's to commemorate the death of Prince Albert from typhoid fever in 1861- which makes sense, as when it's made properly, it does look a bit like a black armband- or at least for those of us with over-active imaginations.

Go to the wonder that is YouTube and you will discover a whole plethora of earnest barmen teaching the world how to make it. Some make it better than others. It's not just a matter of mixing Guinness with Champers- plonking in the stout with a fizzy white wine, doing the hokey cokey and stirring it all about. No. To make it properly, you need to do the following:

Get hold of a champagne flute and stick it in the 'fridge. Pour in some Guinness Stout- about halfway up the glass. Now it's time for the Champagne. Very slowly pour the champagne over an inverted silver spoon into the glass. The goal is to separate the Guinness from the champagne, so that the Guinness remains at the bottom of the glass, and the champers blurs in nicely at the top. And that's it. No more, no less. It's a splendid drink.

I'm also keen on serving this with a pheasant casserole- which reminds me. Country Life have just published a bizarre recipe for devilled pheasant, as favoured by HRH The Princess Anne. It's Gothic. It's magnificent. It's a homage to a pint of double cream and a jar of Sharwood's Green Mango Chutney. I need to cover this in a subsequent post.

 

 

The Balham Mystery- Last Dinner at the Priory

 

 

 

Many years ago, in a futile attempt to get into publishing, I worked in various London bookshops, including Hatchard's in Piccadilly, and the old Foyle's in the Charing Cross Road. This was the Foyle's of the notoriously eccentric Christina Foyle (in other life, Mrs Ronald Batty)- and I may well write a post about her at a later date. But that's for another day.

Now, as any bookseller can tell you, there are two decidedly dodgy sections in which to lurk in a rancid mackintosh: Occult and True Crime. I must confess to having a passing adolescent curiosity in both. True Crime, despite those lurid paperback covers, is an especially fascinating subject- as much for its human- and often poignant- element, as for its macabre conundrums. George Orwell understood this only too well in his essay "The Decline of the English Murder", and for connoisseurs of extermination, us Londoners do exceedingly well. And oh what murders! For the English have elevated this to a high art form. Take your pick folks, we're spoilt for choice: Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel Murders, the bizarre Whitehall Torso Mystery, the pathetic Dr Crippen (39, Hilldrop Crescent), Brides-in-the-Bath-Smith, the glamorous Mrs Rattenbury, The Croydon Poisoning (The Riddle of Bathurst Rise), the ghastly necrophilic Christie at number 10, Rillington Place; 'Group Captain' Neville Heath, the tragic Ruth Ellis; and John George Haigh, the seedy hotel lounge lizard, conman and seducer of lonely widows, also known as The Vampire of South Kensington.

I'm also currently enjoying a nerdy little obsession with the Balham Mystery (aka The Bravo Poisoning), which is a worthy companion to any of the above- partly because Mrs Aitch happens to be the great-great-great granddaughter of one of the suspects, and also because it gives a fascinating insight into the daily life of a well-to-do Victorian household drowning in a toxic sea of dubious tinctures and homeopathic remedies. My mother-in-law is obsessed with the case, and claims to have attended a 'Bravo Murder' dinner party in which none other than Dame Agatha Christie starred as a surprisingly unimpressive guest. It's a long story.

 

Florence Bravo

 

It's also a slightly complicated yarn, and I will do my best to explain what happened:

In 1876, a Mrs Ricardo (née Florence Campbell of Buscot Park, Berkshire), takes out a lease on The Priory, Balham. Mrs Ricardo is an attractive, voluptuous widow ('smart' in both the English and American sense); considered 'fast' by the standards of Victorian Society. She's also rich- which helps- following her marriage to the late Alexander Ricardo, an alcoholic Captain in the Coldstream Guards.

In those days, Balham was a bucolic semi-rural enclave on the far outskirts of London, surrounded by fields, market gardens and common land- an hour or two's carriage drive away from the luxurious delights of the Big Smoke, but with enough distance to create the illusion of a secluded pastoral idyll. The Priory still stands, a Regency Gothick wedding cake of a house in the Strawberry Hill style, now surrounded by the grime of the inner London suburbs, and divided up into sinfully luxurious flats for the aspirational classes.

Now for several years, Mrs Ricardo has been having a scandalous affair with the elderly Dr James Mamby Gully, a distinguished- if naive- Society physician (some might say quack), forty years her senior: this liaison involved a secret abortion, and the pair being caught in flagrante delicto on a sofa in Tooting Bec. Honestly, you couldn't make it up.

 

Dr Gully by Spy, from Vanity Fair, 1876

 

So a few months after she's moved into The Priory, Florence dumps poor old Dr Gully and decides to marry a young mercurial barrister with a weak chin called Charles Bravo. And before I forget, there's a rather sinister ladies' companion called Mrs Cox, the secretive heiress to a fortune in the West Indies. And a disgruntled coachmen, Griffiths, who was sacked a few weeks earlier for driving Mrs Bravo's carriage into a stationary milk cart in Bond Street. So we're all set up for a game of Real-Life Victorian Cluedo.

On the night of Tuesday, April 18th, 1876- four months into their marriage- Charles Bravo retires to bed, following a tetchy dinner with Florence and Mrs Cox. This includes a fish first course (whiting), roast lamb and an anchovy and egg savoury, washed down with more than several glasses of Charles's favourite Burgundy. Within minutes, he's desperately ill- fighting for his life, fatally poisoned- it's discovered later- by four grains of tartic antimony (a dangerous emetic, used by the Victorians to cure worms in horses) slipped into his bedside water bottle. 

 

 

The Bravo Household; The Priory, Balham. The sinister Mrs Cox (presumably) to the left; Charles in the centre, Florence (presumably) to the right.

 

No less than five doctors are summoned, including the distinguished physician, Sir William Gull, Bt.- later, in the subsequent century, to be the conspiracy theorist's favourite- if wonderfully nutty- suspect for Jack the Ripper. Poor Charles lingers on for a few days- writhing- sporadically- in agony- and dies on Friday, 21st April 1876.

Yet, one hundred and forty years later, we still don't know what happened. One theory has it that Charles committed suicide: certainly at the subsequent inquest Mrs Cox claimed that he had told her exactly that. And there's an intriguing idea that Charles had been feeding small doses of antimony to Florence to stop her drinking habit (unsurprisingly, it makes you feel nauseous), and had then, accidentally- and slightly implausibly- taken it himself to counter the effects of swallowing laudanum. Another theory has Mrs Cox slipping the antimony into the water jug (it's invisible and tasteless when mixed with water, apparently), and then creeping back to Florence's bedroom unnoticed.

 

Mr. Charles Bravo (né Charles Delauney Turner) 1845-1876, National Portrait Gallery

 

And what about dear old Dr Gully? If anybody had a reason to murder Charles Bravo, surely it had to be the Good Doctor? Agatha Christie certainly thought so. He had the motive, and as a physician he certainly had the means. But did he have an alibi? Could he have crept into the Priory, mixed a sachet of tartic antimony into the water, and departed from the house unobserved?  And then we come to Florence. Several writers over the years have pointed their ink-stained fingers at her. Both Mrs Cox and Florence claimed that Charles had treated her brutally, and was threatening to cull members of the household, including Mrs Cox, in an attempt to curb Florence's extravagance. Following the inquests, she moved to the South Coast, changed her name to Turner, and continued to drink heavily, finally dying of alcoholic poisoning in 1878. She was 33 years old.

And there you have it. "In a nutshell, my dear Milo", as Andrew Wyke says in Anthony Shaffer's Sleuth. Of course, the story's far, far more complicated than I have indicated; but I hope, at least, armchair detectives, come the next rainy and stormy night, I may have whetted your appetite for more. There are several books to add to your amazon wish list: Death at the Priory by James Ruddick, Suddenly at the Priory by John Williams, Dr Gully by Elizabeth Jenkins, How Charles Bravo Died by Yseult Bridges, and my favourite of them all, Murder at the Priory by Bernard Taylor and Kate Clarke.

I've trawled my crowded bookshelves for some appropriate recipes, which are reproduced below; so that if the inclination suddenly takes hold- you too can recreate that infamous last dinner at the Priory. Chemical properties of antimony included:

 

Eliza Acton's Baked Whiting à la Française (From Modern Cookery for Private Families, 1845)

Proceed with these exactly as with soles au plat of this chapter. or pour a little clarified butter into a deep dish and strew it rather thickly with finely-minced mushrooms mixed with a teaspoonful of parsley, and (When the flavour is liked, and considered appropriate) with an eschalot or two, or the white part of a few green onions, also chopped very small. On these place the fish after then been scaled, emptied, thoroughly washed, and wiped dry: season them well with salt and white pepper, or cayenne; sprinkle more of the herbs upon them; pour gently from one or two glasses of light white wine into the dish, cover the whitings, with a thick layers of fine crumbs of bread, sprinkle these plentifully with clarified butter, and bake the fish from fifteen to twenty minutes. Send a cut lemon only to table with them. When the wine is not liked, a few spoonsful of pale veal gravy can be used instead: or a larger quantity of clarified butter, with a tablespoonful of water, a teaspoonful of lemon-pickle and of mushroom catsup, and a few drops of soy.

 

Robin Mc Douall's Roast Lamb (from Clubland Cooking, 1974)

I don't know where to get mutton. It doesn't pay farmers to keep sheep until they become mutton: they are all slaughtered as lambs- sometimes rather elderly lambs- lamb dressed as mutton, to reverse the bitchy expression of Edwardian ladies about each other. Roasting a leg of lamb, I put a good deal of rosemary and some chopped garlic with it. I haven't bough a shoulder for years as I've never learnt to carve one. Carré d'agneau (American 'rack of lamb') I like very much but put no herbs with it. With a saddle I might put a few slices of onion. Times per pound are nonsense: you must learn by trial and error. I start a gigot in a very hot oven, turn it round, lower the heating and probably, for a small leg enough for six, cook it for not more than an hour.

Red currant jelly is nice, if you're not drinking a very grand wine. Mint sauce kills any wine. Pretend you've got mutton and have onion sauce. I like a little nutmeg grated into the gigot.

 

Mrs Beeton's Scrambled Eggs with Anchovies (Oeufs Brouillés aux Anchois) (from The Book of Household Management, 1861)

Ingredients—3 eggs, 3 anchovies, ¾ of an oz. of butter, 1 tablespoonful of cream or milk, a teaspoonful of essence of anchovy, toast, butter, capers, parsley, pepper and salt.

Method.—Skin and bone the anchovies, and cut them into fine strips. Cut the toast into pieces 3 inches long and 2 inches wide, and spread them thickly with butter. Beat the eggs slightly, then put them with the butter, cream, and anchovy essence into the stewpan, and season to taste. Stir by the side of the fire until the mixture thickens, put it on the toast, lay the strips of anchovy across, forming a lattice, and place a caper in each division. Re-heat in the oven, then serve garnished with parsley.

Time.—40 minutes. Average Cost, about 10d. Sufficient for 5 or 6 persons. Seasonable at any time.

 

Chemical Properties of Antimony- Sb

Atomic number: 51

Atomic mass: 121.75 g.mol 

^{Ionic Radius:0.245 nm (-3); 0.062 nm (+5); 0.076 nm (+3)}

Boiling Point: 1587˚C 

 

Antimony is a semimetallic chemical element which can exist in two forms: the metallic form is bright, silvery, hard and brittle; the non metallic form is a grey powder. Antimony is a poor conductor of heat and electricity, it is stable in dry air and is not attacked by dilute acids or alkalis. Antimony and some of its alloys expand on cooling.

Antimony has been known since ancient times. It is sometimes found free in nature, but is usually obtained from the ores stibnite (Sb₂S₃) and valentinite (Sb₂O₃). Nicolas Lémery, a French chemist, was the first person to scientifically study antimony and its compounds. He published his findings in 1707. Antimony makes up about 0.00002% of the earth's crust.

 

The Gourmand: Dining on High

 

 

 

I'm very aware that I've rather neglected The Greasy Spoon over the last few months, due to 'pressures of work'- the blogger's perennial excuse. Sorry. But I'm glad to report that I am now hard at work on a new post for The Greasy Spoon. Fans of the Balham Mystery, aka The Bravo Poisoning (or Murder at the Priory) are in for a treat.

 

 

In the meantime, may I direct all Greasy Spooner's attention to my very recent feature, 'Dining on High', published in the excellent (and beautifully designed) cult Gourmand Journal? Six glorious pages on the revolving Post Office Tower restaurant- a celebrity favourite in the Swinging London of the late 60s and early 70s. Owned by none other than Sir Billy Butlin, and the haunt of the likes of Mick Jagger and Chrissie Shrimpton. You can subscribe to The Gourmand by following this link. Issue 13 out now. Hurry while stocks last!

 

 

And while I'm about it, a quick rant about The Greasy Spoon on social media. I know that some of you prefer to get your dose of The Spoon this way. That's dandy. But just to let you know- I'm now banned from posting any form of link to The Greasy Spoon on, and by, the Cromwellian organisation that is Facebook- as, apparently, my 'content fails to live up to their community values'. I've think I've finally worked out why this may be: it's 'cos I've included a handful of links- here and there- to interesting gin distillers in the past. Dearie me- naughty old Uncle Luke’s introducing the sinful pleasures of alcohol to the kiddywinks. Oh horror.

Actually, as we all know only too well, it's quite possible to declare that you were born in 1895 when you log in to any drinks website, so I suspect it's really more about covering their backs with the lawyers, isn't it?

 

 

If Looks Could Kill: Daniel Farson vs Fanny Cradock

 

Fear of Fanny: What are you going to eat? Live ones or dead ones? 

 

Television is dead. A generalisation, of course, but if recent viewing figures are anything to go by, this could be the end of the road for the big four British channels as we knew them. Younger people don't watch the BBC and ITV. They watch YouTube and Netflix, which means big box drama stuff, CGI thrills and spills, and home made films featuring psychotic kittens, and attractive young female doctors popping ginormous cysts. We've only just upgraded to a "smart" television set (I fear that here at the Greasy Spoon hovel, we're a little bit behind on these matters), and so far, it's provided hours of bonus entertainment- especially as I've discovered something called the BFi Player, which as I expect you already know, is a subscription service for British film buffs.

And buried deep within the BFi archives, is a fascinating car-crash television interview with Fanny Cradock from 1959. You can download it for a quid. I've written about Mr and Mrs Fanny Cradock before; the pair, for some reason, seem to crop up on the Greasy Spoon's pages at regular intervals, partly, I think because their cooking was "actually rather good", and because, of course, Fanny was such an extraordinary- if bizarre- character.

The set up goes something like this: investigative journalist, Daniel Farson, is invited to lunch by the Cradocks at their Louis the Something gilded South Kensington flat. So far so good. Farson- the official biographer of Francis Bacon- was another troubled, possibly damaged, television star of the period- whose education, following a stint at Wellington, was finished in the the drinking clubs of Soho: and in many ways the antithesis of the bourgeois Cradocks. It's a priceless clash of two journalistic styles: remember, this is commercial Associated-Rediffusion television, not the BBC.

 

Daniel Farson with Francis Bacon: his further education...finished in the drinking clubs of Soho

 

The lunch- sorry, luncheon- goes something like this. Almost Pinteresque dialogue: 

 

Fanny (presenting a huge silver dish piled high with crayfish, winkles and prawns, and garnished with shells, scalloped lemon wedges and champagne corks): In French this is called Assiette des Fruits des Mer. It's rather fun.

Dan Farson (clipped tones, pointing to a mollusc): They're moving!

Fanny (near collapse): Strangulated gurgle.

Dan Farson: No. It's true! One crawled off here a minute ago. Absolutely. It fell off!

Fanny: Give it to me. You're perfectly right it is moving. What are you going to eat? Live ones or Dead ones?

 

"They're alive! It's moving!"

 

Things then goes from bad to worse: 

 

Dan Farson: What is this?

Fanny: Butter. Even the gold dust is edible. It comes from Belgium.

Dan Farson: Quite honestly to my mind your whole approach to cooking seems to be the antithesis of good cooking- why even the butter needs to be dolled up with gold leaf and pink stuff, whatever that is. 

Fanny (jabbing her silver lobster pick in the air): This is an elaborate drawing room, Duckie, where I have a lot of Regency gilt, I like the butter to look the same.

Dan Farson: Do you have any sympathy with vegetarians?

Fanny: Yes. Profound sympathy. Think what they miss.

 

"Are you nervous cooking for your husband's boss? Want to impress that Mrs Jones next door?"

 

It's a masterclass in tact: Our Dan not only goes on to criticise Fanny's Filet de bœuf en feuilleté- beef wrapped in puff pastry, and a dish which she had kindly fed him in her kitchen a week before- and which he felt "ruined the fillet steak", but suggests that the pair's performance on stage is "like a circus act".

Curiously enough, I'm rather with the Cradocks on this one. Dan Farson is incredibly ill-mannered, and his comment on the Bœuf en feuilleté (not unlike our very own and much-loved Beef Wellington) verges on the crass. I detect too, alas, an element of tiresome snobbery going on here: Farson, whose family background happened to come from the American upper class, mocks the Cradock's perceived suburban pretensions, and thinking about it- in a recent documentary about British food in the post-war era, another well-heeled television cook, a recent convert to the zeal of the vegetarian cause, does exactly the same thing. It's all a bit sneery- but then what does one expect from the commercial channels? 

And in any event, aren't they all missing the point?  Fanny was a brilliant television presenter- one of the first television cookery stars, and years ahead of her time. And the woman could cook too: the endless Cradock books are even now, still "rather good" in their way- and eminently usable. Pulling one of them- at random- off my crowded shelves, I find recipes for: onion soup, hunter's pot, cabbage casserole, risotto Piemontese, fried sprats, gazpacho, and homemade bread. No sign of gilded butter in sight. Even from Belgium.

 

 

The Greasy Spoon on Facebook

 

I've been banned from Facebook. For some bizarre reason I am no longer allowed to post links to "The Greasy Spoon- Food & Culture". Not in tune with Facebook's "Community Values"- whatever that means.

I have no idea why this is. No idea at all: Encouraging readers in the ways of gin, perhaps? A photograph of Rachel Weisz in a black rubber catsuit? English vocabulary beyond the understanding of Americanised computerised logarithms? I suspect the truth is, typically, more banal- and for some tedious and mind-bogglingly dull reason, The Greasy Spoon is, mistakenly, being flagged up as spam.

Anyway, I won't bore you with my views on Facebook and the other mainly negative attributes of our increasingly frustrating Social Media. But I do need to let you know that I will be removing my "The Greasy Spoon- Food & Culture" Facebook page first thing tomorrow morning, and if possible, my personal page too. The Luke Honey Ltd Antiques Business page will remain.

If you are a follower of The Greasy Spoon on Facebook, please find the GS via google (typing "Greasy Spoon Luke Honey" should do the trick) and subscribe via the website. You can, of course, leave comments via the website. Actually, in some ways, I prefer it as in the past it's been slightly frustrating when a post gets numerous comments on Facebook, but the website commentary box remains bare. 

Any difficulties please get in touch. A big "Thank You" to all the readers who have followed me in the past.

You can also find me on Instagram.

Many thanks, Luke

Ginmania

 

 

Gin Lane, etching & engraving by William Hogarth, 1751.

 

I first wrote about gin back in 2007. It's almost hard to believe but that's twelve years ago. In those days, I found myself describing gin as, I quote: 'slighty old-fashioned and fogeyish', a drink favoured by 'retired Colonels and bridge-playing spiritualist mediums: reminiscent of peeling Cheltenham stucco and chipped bowls of stale Twiglets'; actually two worthy reasons to champion the stuff at the time: a contrarian two fingers to the slightly tedious vodka craze; the herd mentality of Youth; the fag-end of Acid House and the Nineties cocktail circuit. Well, well. Hasn't the rest of the world caught up? 

One of the reasons gin has become so popular, I think, is because of the numerous ways it can be flavoured with herbs and botanicals at the distillation phase: Juniper, Coriander, Lemon, Orange, Anise, Angelica and Cassia Bark amongst others- giving rise to endless variations, brand combinations and 'secret recipes', in turn spawning package design inspired by the Victorian apothecary. In an increasingly bland and corporate world, gin can be marketed as the drink of the individual. It's a marketing man's dream. Vodka, in contrast, is distilled from fermented cereal grain or potatoes and generally left unflavoured, although there is a tradition of adding steeped flavour (bison grass, lemon, chili, pepper and honey) after the distillation process.

In 2009, two heroic chaps, name of Sam Galsworthy and Fairfax Hall, persuaded the British government to let them open the first micro copper pot distillery in two hundred years. Up until then, gin, legally, could only be produced on an industrial scale. By conglomerates such as Diageo and Pernod Ricard. For the Gin Revivalists, this was a key moment. It is estimated that there are now over 300 independent gin distilleries in the United Kingdom, and exports of gin are said to have risen by more than a third.

And hand in hand with the craze for hipster gin, comes the rise of quality tonic water. Several years ago I stuck some spare rhino into shares of the Fever-Tree company- as it happened, a wise decision, as the international march of the superlative Fever-Tree remains- for the time being- unstoppable: even our local Co-Op now stocks Fever-Tree 'Premium' tonic as a default, with Schweppes yellow label consigned- if at all- to the back shelves. I suppose, with hindsight, this was going to happen. If a discriminating punter forks out thirty quid or so on a bottle of 'craft' gin, is he or she going to slosh in a saccharine-sweet, bog standard tonic water manufactured by Coca-Cola Great Britain from fizzy tap water? No they are not.

While I'm at it, a quick word about 'London Dry'- a term you will see bandied about on the various labels. Dutch- or jenever gin became popular in England with William of Orange's accession to the throne in 1688. The invention of the two column Coffey still in 1830 produced a better quality gin- lighter in flavour with a smoother character yet of a higher proof. London Dry is made in a Coffey still.

So where do you start? I'm still keen on the upper middling range of gins- relatively affordable, but more interesting, perhaps, than the standard Big Boy's offerings; Gordon's (the world's best selling gin), Bombay Sapphire (slightly sickly?), and Hendricks (cucumbers and all that). 

 

 

Portobello Gin No. 171 was founded above a pub in the Portobello Road, Notting Hill, as recently as 2011- although its wonderfully evocative Neo-Victorian packaging might suggest otherwise. It's a London Dry with a slightly medicinal flavour, with a hint of cloves and liquorice. Currently priced at £26 a bottle, it's a hot favourite at the Greasy Spoon Residence. 42% ABV.

 

 

That said, my current choice is Plymouth- a classic gin popular in the Roaring Twenties, the tipple of the Royal Navy, and the authentic ingredient in a Pink Gin; produced by the Black Friars Distillery- in operation since 1793. It's got a slightly sweeter, creamier flavour when compared to a London Dry, with a hint of parsnip to the taste. The standard 'Plymouth Original' bottle comes in at 41.2% ABV with the 'Navy Strength' version at a punchy 57% ABV. 'Plymouth Original' will set you back £20.

 

Another recent discovery is Mary-Le-Bone London Dry, produced by the Pleasure Gardens Distilling Company. Botanicals include: juniper, lime flower, lemon balm, clove, liquorice, chamomile and grapefruit. 50.2% ABV. Currently discounted at £34 a bottle on Amazon.

 

Gin has a fascinating history, and if you're interested in reading more about it, I would recommend the books of my father's old friend, John Doxat- now available for a pittance on Amazon. Doxat was the 'Thinking Man's Drinker', or perhaps even 'The Drinking Man's Thinker', a writer of some wit, and a leading authority on the Dry Martini cocktail. But what goes up, must come down, and there will come a time- in the distant future- when gin falls out of fashion, although I am still mulling over what's to come next. Teetotalism? 

 

Hong Kong Foodie

 

Green Silver Shads outside the Peninsular Hotel, Kowloon

 

Hong Kong in the Seventies. If there was ever a natural habitat for the International Man of Mystery in his later incarnation, this has to be it. Think "The Man with the Golden Gun" (1974)- the guiltiest of all guilty pleasures: Brown Suede and Kung Fu. Golden Buddhas and Jade. Priceless Antiques (often Fake). Sam's Tailors and The Dragon Boat Bar at the Hong Kong Hilton. The Royal Hong Kong Police (Sam Browne Belts), Cathay Pacific and Suzie Wong. I last visited Hong Kong in the spring of 1997, just before the handover to Communist China, and loved the place from first landing; struck on my first day by the thrusting young tai-pans of Jardine Matheson in their all-wool, English cut bespoke suits- cool as cucumbers in the sweltering humidity of the Hollywood Road. I have no idea if they're still there, for I'm told that the former colony has now changed, some say for the better, many for the worse.

There was also a rather naff aftershave called Mandate, which, I think my Mad Man father advertised (although he consistently denies it), shamelessly championing the ersatz cause of sinful luxury, and with brilliant 70s packaging which, like sunken baths and golden dragon taps, for some reason reminds me of Hong Kong during that glittering decade: the gilt font set against simulated marbled cardboard in decadent chocolate brown.

 

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974): "A guilty pleasure if ever there was one..."

 

I suppose that alongside The American Bar at The Savoy and Harry's Bar in Venice, The Captain's Bar at The Mandarin Hotel (now Oriental) has to be one of the most famous watering holes in the world. It first opened its doors in the 1960s, and the decoration was decidedly clubby, as it more or less remains to this day: red leather banquettes, draught beer served in silver tankards, tropical palms, nautical nick nacks and chess-themed glass screens. By 1997, it had, perhaps, fallen on hard times and lost some of its former allure: I spent several evenings there, with a lonely Dry Martini as company- for it's very much a Greasy Spooner's kind of place, and the select clientele over that time numbered: Yours Truly, a Chanel-clad tart, two Alan Whicker types in double-breasted blazers, and a bowl of salted peanuts.

 

The Captain's Bar, Mandarin Hotel, Hong Kong, circa 1969

 

And it was in Hong Kong that I acquired my love of Dim Sum- those never-ending, bite-sized snacks, served from a trolley and taken as brunch; steamed and braised chicken's claws, a sweet, glutinous treat; shrimp dumplings and pan-fried turnip cake. Browsing our over-stuffed bookshelves this afternoon, I rediscovered a small hardback I had almost forgotten. It's called "A Taste for Music- Recipes from Hong Kong Kitchens", published in 1977 in aid of the Royal Hong Kong Philarmonic; one of those charitable cookbooks to which various well-heeled Society types contributed. My parents must have brought it back from one of my father's business trips. The first recipe is from a Mrs Frank Pong, and I like its utter simplicity. The second recipe is for those rather exotic looking marbled "tea eggs" and comes from Mrs Kitty Siu Hon Sum:

 

Drunken Chicken (Chicken in wine sauce, Shanghai) Recipe from Mrs Frank Pong, A Taste for Music, The Hong Kong Philarmonic Society, 1977

1 chicken, about 3 Ib

3 tbsp salt

2 cups dry sherry (or Chinese Wine)

Wash and clean the chicken. Wipe dry. Rub the inside and outside of the chicken with salt evenly. Let it stand for at least 5 hours. Place the chicken in a deep plate and steam it over a high heat for 40 minutes. Remove the chicken and let cool.

Cut chicken into six pieces. Place these in a deep bowl. Mix the drippings with the dry sherry. Pour the mixture over the chicken and cover the bowl tightly. Put it into the refrigerator for at least 12 hours.

When serving, cut into small pieces about 1/2" wide and 1" long. Serve hot or cold.

 

Tea Eggs (Recipe from Mrs Kitty Siu Hon Sum, "A Taste for Music", 1977)

12-18 eggs

3 tbsp black tea or 6 tbsp used tea leaves

2 tbsp salt

1 tbsp star anise cloves

3 tbsp soy sauce

Hard boil the eggs starting in cold water over a medium fire. Then cool the eggs in cold water for a few minutes and make cracks on the eggshells by rolling them gently on the table or a chopping board. 

Place the cracked eggs in a saucepan together with the tea, soy sauce, salt and spice and simmer for about one hour.

The eggs may be served hot or cold. The eggs should not be shelled before serving as the eggshell will keep the eggs moist. This is a good dish for picnics.  It is also an attractive hors d'oeuvre if prepared before quails' egg, in which case the eggs must be peeled before serving. In the case of the quails' eggs, it is not necessary to cook for as long a period of time and particularly gentle care must be taken when rolling the eggshell.

 

 

Happy Christmas

 

 

The Skating Lovers, hand-coloured aquatint by Adam Buck, 1800

 

Oh Crikey, I have to admit that Christmas this year has crept up on me with unsettling haste; maybe it's something to do with Christmas falling on Tuesday? Poor Mrs Aitch is spending Christmas Eve- Bob Cratchit style- at the Blacking Factory. I'm supposed to be baking a ham, and stupidly forgot to soak it last night, sprawled on a sofa watching a DVD of Aces High instead- so it looks like an early morning Christmas Day crawl out of bed. We're off to Farm Street tonight for the Midnight Mass. Mrs Aitch is of a Catholic persuasion. I'm not especially, but I rather like the Jesuits, and for those of us who appreciate High Victorian Gothic architecture, it's a genuine treat.

As there are only two of us this year, we're having a goose- far preferable in flavour compared to that usurper Turkey, I think- which Mrs Aitch discovered at Fortnum's. It's a decent size and amazing value. Never was there such a goose! It's going to be stuffed with my mother's famous watercress and chestnut stuffing. We're also going to shred the Brussels sprouts and fry them in a wok, chef style, with peanut oil, ginger, garlic and a pinch of chili flakes: a recipe taken from Paul Levy's superb The Feast of Christmas.

This afternoon, I'm making Elizabeth David's apple sauce (to go with the goose tomorrow) and, if I've got time, my signature potted mushroom dish. One of the weird things about reaching the fag-end of late, late youth is that time seems to rocket by with increasing speed. For children, an hour seems like an eternity (remember the agony of Double Maths?), for grown-ups an hour goes by with the snap of a finger. 

Incidentally, our Christmas card this year is the Skating Lovers by Adam Buck, and charming it is too. I've always wanted an original one of these- from the early years of the nineteenth century; they come up at auction now and again, but so far no luck. That's the thing about antiques. It's all about serendipity.  Anyway, we'll get there in the end.

A Very Happy Christmas to all the Readers of The Greasy Spoon and My Best Wishes for the New Year.

 

 

The Greasy Spoon visits...The India Club

 

 

But where have all the students gone? Photo via: The India Club Restaurant & Bar

I've been writing The Greasy Spoon since 2007, and it's to my shame that until yesterday evening, I had never eaten at The India Club. Which is strange, as the trappings and environs of The India Club are very much to the Greasy Spoon's taste. I can go further (I’m really hanging my head in shame now) and admit to you that until a few months ago, I had never even heard of The India Club, and this is coming from somebody who was actually born here in London- in the Big Smoke, and possibly even during one of the very last November pea-soupers.

According to the restaurant's website, The India League founded the club in 1951: 

as a symbol of post-Independence friendship between India and the UK (founding members included Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten)...The charmingly eccentric India Club has remained much the same since its opening over 50 years ago...Today, enter a timewarp with portraits of the Independence era on the walls, bottle-green leather chairs, red lino flooring and wooden laminate tabletops

The original club was situated at 41 Craven Street and did not move to the current premises until 1964. It now occupies two floors of the Strand Continental Hotel (not to be confused with the Strand Palace); a rickety Edwardian hotel with an elusive entrance found beneath a grimy illuminated sign for Cadbury's chocolate.

 

Photo: Luke Honey/The Greasy Spoon

I asked one of my oldest pals to join me. We arrived at 7.30. The joint was heaving. The restaurant door opened to a layered wall of sound. A polite- if harassed- waiter in a white jacket asked us to have a drink downstairs in the bar and promised to come and find us in twenty minutes. The bar, on the first floor, is a cross between a National Service Officer's Mess, circa 1947 and the Student Union of a red brick university. It's a temple to chipped formica. A girl in skin-tight red leather trousers served us gin and tonics, with a wedge of lime. The restaurant, one floor above, is painted a pleasing saffron yellow and decorated with old black and white photographs of politicians and Indian freedom fighters. There is a whiff of the post-war canteen. The dining room was packed full of shouty old men with silver beards, scarily intellectual looking middle-aged women with cropped hairdos, and students. Lots of 'em.

Thinking about it, and if you will allow me to digress for a minute or two, what exactly is a student? The concept of 'a student' is decidedly European and suspiciously anti-English. Students have long hair, and don't wash; they lie in bed until noon, they watch cartoons on the television during the day, they tear up Parisian cobblestones and throw them at the police; they plot revolution and live in garrets. They eat Pot Noodles and read Karl Marx. When students grow up, they become accountants. 

One of my favourite ghost stories is by Washington Irving. It’s called The Adventure of the German Student (1824) and it says it all:

Gottfried Wolfgang was a young man of good family. He had studied for some time at Göttingen, but being of a visionary and enthusiastic character, he had wandered into those wild and speculative doctrines which have so often bewildered German students. His secluded life, his intense application, and the singular nature of his studies, had an effect on both mind and body. His health was impaired; his imagination diseased. He had been indulging in fanciful speculations on spiritual essences, until, like Swedenborg, he had an ideal world of his own around him.

 

 

Photo: Luke Honey/The Greasy Spoon

Anyway. The food. We ordered the set menu for two for the eminently reasonable price of £16 a head. It wasn't great, and a report in the Evening Standard earlier this year suggests, perhaps, that a snap inspection of the kitchen would not be a happy experience: the coconut chutney was grim: watery and flecked with mint; a bit gritty. Packet popadums. Lime pickle, presumably from a jar. A lukewarm battered and fried green chilli. Mashed potato folded into a limp pancake. The Butter Chicken was okay- actually quite nice, in a decent, juicy tomato sauce. The Lamb Bhuna, visually, left much to be desired. The dal was thin, slightly greasy, and again, a trifle gritty, although enlivened with mustard seeds. The Basmati rice was basic and unadorned but cooked well.

The total bill came to £25 a head, including service and two pints of Cobra beer. It was if the clock had stopped in 1947; but making you appreciate the food conjured up by the terrific Vauxhall restaurant Hot Stuff even more, where for a similar price, you can enjoy Indian food of value and quality.

  

The India Club. Photo: Luke Honey/The Greasy Spoon

 

But, look, I don't want to be too hard on the India Club. You're not going there for some crooked little finger 'fane daning' experience, are you? My culinary standards are high. If you're a student plotting revolution or a grumpy old man lamenting the past, the atmosphere's terrific. It's fabulous value for money, and the service has charm. It's a buy.

I'm a great believer in the idea that atmosphere and continuity are just as important- if not more important than the food. Step forward: The Gay Hussar, Odin's, Daquise, The New Piccadilly Cafe, The Polish Club, The Vine Bar, Piccadilly; the former Joe Allen's, the original Ivy, Wilton's, and the old Annabel's. But as the majority of institutions on this august list are now kaput, you will understand that the rest of London struggles to appreciate my point of view.

Until very recently, The India Club was under threat of demolition- those pesky property developers at their diabolical work yet again, and I am thrilled to learn that the joint intervention of a 26,439 signature petition and Westminster Council has saved the restaurant for the time being, or at least until another wave of development hits London town.

 

The India Club Bar & Restaurant, Hotel Strand Continental, 143 Strand, London, WC2R 1JA (020 7836 4880)

 

Clientele: Students, Swiss Cottage Intellectuals, Out of Work Actors, Silvered Beards, Grumpy Old Men

Ambience: 1950s Officer's Mess meets Noisy Student Union Canteen

Food: Bog Standard

Service: Charming

Cost: £

 

Cream of Onion and Cider Soup

 

 

Like vodka, soup's out of fashion. Which is a shame; as it's so easy to make. I suppose soup's in danger of consignment to the culinary dustbin of history, along with dining rooms, decanters, dinner services and aspic. These days, with everybody slobbering around on the sofa watching catchup television, unless you drink soup from a squalid mug it ain't going to cut the mustard in 2018.

I'm currently working on a brand new post for The Greasy Spoon, but I'm waiting for a second-hand book I've ordered to arrive (essential for research), and with All Hallow's and Bonfire Night upon us, I felt that it was time for another post. Before you think The Greasy Spoon's in danger of becoming yet another derelict blog: Abandon all hope ye who enter.

So here's a very early blog post from the archives; from the first days of The Spoon. Autumn 2007.

 

It's that time of year again. Here in the gloomy streets of London, the nights are drawing in, and a sniff of woodsmoke is in the air. Before we know it, Bonfire Night and Hallowe'en will be upon us. And what better than a warming onion soup laced with cider?

Here's how you make it. First, you need to understand that onions need a great deal of cooking before they become palatable. I don't care what your cookery books say; you will have to trust me on this. You need to slice some onions. Throw a few knobs of unsalted butter into a pan. Now cook the onions. It's probably better if you've sliced them thinly.

Add some thyme. I'm lucky enough to have a vigorous plant thriving on my kitchen windowsill. Let the onions cook well until they are soft, but not burnt or brown. So you will want to use a low heat. Now stir in some flour and let that cook.

Pour in a good slug (I love that word) of cider. I used a dryish West Country Organic Cider that I found in a local shop. At this stage, it's important to let the cider bubble- to boil off the alcohol. Okay, we all love a good dram of whisky at the right moment, but I find that alcohol needs to be boiled off in cooking- otherwise you are left with a nasty bitter taste.

Now add some stock (chicken or vegetable is all right, home-made or reduced-salt Marigold Bouillon powder would be better). Cook the soup on a low heat. Like mad. Mine took over an hour before the onions were cooked properly.

When that's done, lower the heat and add a dollop of single cream, (double cream is likely to curdle). If you are using single cream and you don't lower the heat, you run the risk of the soup curdling. Season with salt flakes, and ground chunky black pepper to taste. That's it. And if it's cooked properly, it's surprisingly subtle and smooth.

 

 

Gruel

 

 

Is it worth the waiting for?

If we live till eighty four

All we ever get is gruel!

Every day we say our prayer

Will they change the bill of fare?

Still we get the same old gruel!

 

Gru-el. Sounds dreadful, doesn’t it? Have you ever had it?  Do you know what it’s made from? I have to admit to a ‘no’ on both counts. And that’s despite several long and hard years at Dotheboy’s Hall, which included stainless steel spoonfuls of frog-spawn pudding, stale spotted dick and freeze-dried mashed potato: force fed by Irish hags in stained nylon housecoats. Stop any reasonable person in the street and ask them the same question, and I bet you’ll get a blank look and a vague answer: “a watery soup?”... “a porridge made from floor sweepings, perhaps?” ...”Something to do with Dickens?”

Now our old friend, Wikipedia, rather sniffily describes it thus: “from a literary...or bourgeois point of view...(gruel) has often been associated with poverty...Gruel was on the Third Class menu of The Titanic on the eve of her sinking.”

And so it was, and so it has. Essentially, gruel is a generic term for a cereal- oat, wheat, rye flour or rice boiled in water and milk to create a thin porridge or soup; it was the staple diet of the Ancient Greeks. It can also be made from acorns. The photograph on Wikipedia is appalling.

There’s a whole chapter devoted to gruel in Stefan Gates’s brilliantly subversive, Gastronaut (BBC Books, 2005) which I would recommend without hesitation to anybody else with a dark and twisted mind. I love this book; it’s a comforting bedside companion. It includes recipes for marinated criminal (a Confucian concoction from Ancient China) and Nettle Haggis, and instructions on how to catch, cook and eat the kiddywink’s guinea pigs. Strangely, Gates seems to quite like gruel and includes a recipe made from rice simmered in water for an hour, sweetened with sugar, and flavoured with cinnamon, an orange and a splash of brandy.

 

The Strange Affair of Napoleon's Cognac

 

 

 Not tonight Josephine...
 

The cognac was not to Rex’s taste. It was clear and pale and it came to us in a bottle free from grime and Napoleonic cyphers. It was only a year or two older than Rex and lately bottled. They gave it to us in very thin tulip-shaped glasses of modest size.

“Brandy’s one of the things I do know a bit about”, said Rex. “This is a bad colour. What’s more. I can’t taste it in this thimble.”

They brought him a balloon the size of his head. He made them warm it over the spirit lamp.

Then he rolled the splendid spirit round, buried his face in the fumes, and pronounced it the sort of stuff he put soda in at home

So, shamefacedly, they wheeled out of its hiding place the vast and mouldy bottle they kept for people of Rex’s sort.

“That’s the stuff”, he said, tilting the treacly concoction till it left dark rings around the side of the glass. “They’ve always got some tucked away, but they won’t bring it out unless you make a fuss. Have some.”

“I’m quite happy with this.”

“Well, it’s a crime to drink it, if you don’t really appreciate it.” He lit his cigar and sat back at peace with the world; I too, was at peace in another world than his. We both were happy.”

From “Brideshead Revisited" by Evelyn Waugh, Chapman & Hall, 1945.

 

Napoléon “Grand Reserve” Cognac. 1811. Sounds sexy, doesn’t it? Think Napoleonic cyphers, cobwebs, imperial bees, dusty residue from ancient cellars, decaying chateâux, campaign maps shadowed by spluttering wax, duelling pistols and rickety carriages racing over cobblestones through the night; thunder and lightning. “Children of France, Adieu!” and ”Not Tonight, Josephine”: All the Glamour of the First Empire. It’s a 1970s marketing mans’ dream, of course.

I first played around with this idea in 2014, in a post investigating The Brandy of Napoleon. But this summer’s afternoon, in the interests of objective research, you understand, I’m going one step further. Before I start, I must stress that I am not- in any shape or form- an expert on rare wines, brandy or cognac. Far from it, I have a casual, amateur interest and anything I’m writing is my own opinion based on reading and research. And that’s about it. No shame in that, but what I do claim to know a bit about (like Rex, above!) is antiques and especially selling antiques online. And I think my nose can smell a rat when I see one. 

So, recently, I’ve developed a quirky little interest in old cognacs. It’s really amusing, and a marvellous way to spend a languid Saturday morning online,  especially as there seems to be so many ‘rare’ antique cognacs available to buy on the web. And at the push of a button too.

So please go ahead and type “Napoleon 1811 Cognac” into your computer. Now press the image button. What do you see? Over a hundred images of ‘fine and rare’ early 19th century Napoleon cognacs. Incidentally, don’t confuse these with modern “Napoleon” branded cognacs. Until relatively recently many reputable cognac houses, such as Courvoisier, Hine or Martell, marketed a “Napoleon” cognac (although interestingly, the modern trend is to play down the association) and significantly, they didn’t seem to attach the Napoleonic tag to the premium cognacs at the very top of their lists.

But antique cognacs- and their like- dating from the early years of the nineteenth century, are an entirely different matter. And the year 1811 seems to hold a special allure, partly because of the Great Comet which appeared in the sky over the fields of France. Many of these bottles are being flogged by slick wine merchants or specialist online auctioneers, who, frankly, in my opinion, should know better. Here’s a taste of what’s on offer (an amalgamation from various websites, picked entirely at random and without prejudice):

“Perhaps one of the rarest finds, this bottle represents an important time in history...a stunning example...1811 is described as a mythical year among wine enthusiasts, not only because of a comet which was visible by astronomers at the time for 17 months...Many ascribed the extraordinary weather this year to the Comet, historically during the months of September and October 1811, when the grapes would have been harvested, the comet was clearly visible to the naked eye...This is probably - together with the A. E. Dor Cognac 1811 (sic) which was the best cognac vintage of the 19th century...the most valuable and a highly sought cognac of the famous year of the “comet”...1811 was regarded at the time as the greatest vintage in living memory...an important historical example...”

I could go on and on and on. And it would all be such fun if it wasn’t for the eye-watering prices being asked for this stuff. I’ve just seen one bottle with a £9,000 price tag. And there’s another priced by the seller at 15,000 golden nugs. Yup, that’s right: the price of a decent second-hand car.

 

Courvoisier: The Brandy of Napoleon

 

You see, the first problem we’ve got is rarity. It's a term which is bandied about at will and tends to be frowned upon by the more distinguished auction houses. I admit that now and again- and against better judgment- I use it on my own antiques website, but then I only apply it to items that I reckon are genuinely scarce- maybe I’ve come across one or two examples of something in a career spanning twenty-five years?  But anybody with a brain investigating 1811 Napoleon Cognacs online, will discover that there are many, many similar examples for sale (or photographs posted up by financially desperate people trying to find out more about the value of grandpa’s inherited bottle) with printed or engraved labels- sometimes featuring a portrait of Napoleon- often soiled by dust and grime, and augmented by a pressed Napoleonic cipher in the glass, suggesting origination from a single source, and judging by the typography, design and style of the paper label, a date stretching back to the Edwardian period, or possibly the 1920s.

Rare they ain’t. It reminds me of the famous Fabergé Frog incident which other antique valuers of a certain vintage might remember. As a junior works of art specialist at Phillips Auctioneers in Bond Street I had to man the departmental counter; a brilliant training exercise in its own right: you never knew what was going to turn up. One day an excitable old boy in a rancid mac turned up with a crumpled plastic bag. Inside was a little frog with the words FABERGE in Russian Cyrillic, and an Imperial Romanov Eagle pressed onto the underside. All very thrilling. Except that it was made of plastic. Or ‘resin’ as we used to call it (a useful euphemism, especially in the sale of plastic chess sets). And then precisely the very same frog turned up the next day, except this time it was a different colour, brandished by a young girl in her teens who had bought it in a car boot sale and was already planning her retirement. Over the following weeks, we had a plague of frogs. Of biblical proportions. 

The second problem is Napoleon. According to Andrew Roberts, he was teetotal, or at least, ‘never drank any spirits, preferring a cup of coffee after breakfast, and another after dinner’. So when did cognac become associated with Napoleon? Courvoisier, famously, promotes itself as The Brandy of Napoleon’. According to the Courvoisier website:

After his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon was exiled to the remote island of St Helena, in the wild Atlantic Ocean, halfway between Africa and South America. Legend has it that he chose several casks of cognac as his one granted item of luxury, a treat much appreciated by the English officers on board HMS Northumberland during their 67-day voyage. They named it ‘The Brandy of Napoleon'.

 

Wing Commander Dennis Wheatley, RAFVR, Rtd., Wine Merchant turned Thriller Writer

 

Brilliant marketing, that. It’s significant that the cult of Napoleon was at its height in the 1920s, especially popular with American tycoons and international Men of Mystery- including none other than Sidney Reilly of Ace of Spies fame. In his autobiography, Drink and Ink, wine merchant turned thriller writer, Dennis Wheatley, claims- with endearing modesty- to have invented the old brandy racket during the 1920s: 

Most of the bottles had what were then unusual features. The Tuileries, for example, had an embossed medallion containing an ’N’ with the Napoleonic crown above it. But what really mattered was that the old Fine Champagne Cognacs in them were truly superb. I have never tasted finer. But in a year or two imitations were appearing in every restaurant. The bottles had the ’N’ medallion and were often covered in fake cobwebs; but the brandy in them was indifferent stuff. Whenever a waiter produced one at my table I used to say: ‘Take it away. Bring me some John Barnett or Delamain’. Unintentionally, I had started the old Brandy racket.

 

Cyril Ray, Author and Respected Cognac Enthusiast, photograph by Bill Brandt, 1940s

 

So what’s at the bottom of all this?  I turned to Cyril Ray’s beautifully written and definitive, Cognac, published in 1973, in which he devotes a complete chapter to the Napoleon problem. According to Mr Ray there is no such thing as a true Napoleon brandy. If any did still exist (i.e. it had been in wood since Napoleon’s time) it would now be undrinkable, because brandy deteriorates in the cask after about seventy years...unlike wine, brandy ceases to develop once it is in glass. He goes on to quote a director of the firm that ships Bisquit Dubouché: “No, of course, Bisquit Debouché no longer market bottles purporting to contain 1809 or 1811 or 1865 brandy: it is now generally agreed in the trade that any brandy more than about 70 years old would have to be ‘refreshed’ so much by younger spirits that it could no longer claim the earlier date.” And here’s another quote from a director at the venerable cognac house, Remy Martin: “It would be most unlikely that it is a genuine 1811, and if it were it would be undrinkable”. 

So with our charitable cap on, we might presume that these 1811 Napoleonic cognacs are an early 20th-century blend containing a tiny proportion of genuine 1811 cognac- especially as I gather there was a tradition to date a cognac by the earliest spirit in a blend made up from a selection of brandies of varying dates. Another possibility is that they’re an Edwardian recreation of an earlier style cognac- or frankly- and I hate to say this to you cognac collectors out there- yes, you with your fat wallets- an out-and-out early 20th-century fake capitalising on the fashionable interest in all things Napoleonic. I do wonder... 

 

Private Recipes From Private Clubs

 

 

 

“PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER”. 

Telegram sent to the Friar’s Club of Beverly Hills, Groucho Marx, 1959

 

I'm back. After a Six Month Break. And there I was bragging that I had never missed a monthly post since the Spoon began- all those years ago, back in 2007. Since those halcyon days, the world, frankly, has gone stark raving bonkers and the pressure to answer emails 24/7 (as our American cousins would put it) or slog away until the early hours of the morning has become immense. Somebody once gave me a copy of “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People": it’s in the growing pile somewhere; I’ve mislaid it. Social Media's ghastly too- although I quite like Instagram. My little sister is urging me to commit ‘Facebook Suicide’ (apparently the latest trend; she's a hot advertising business guru), but as I'm an online antiques dealer, I'm not convinced- just yet, that this would be a sensible way forward.

And then this little number turned up on American eBay. It’s “Private Recipes from Private Clubs" by Beverly Anderson Barbour, one of those elusive, rather expensive, second-hand titles which usually (VG with D/J) go for several hundred dollars. And there it was winking at me with a buy it now price of ten pounds. And free shipping to London. Reader, did I press that button.

“Private Recipes From Private Clubs” was published in 1976, presumably in a small print run, and as the blurb on the inner flap says, “...will help gourmet cooks as well as the professional chef, prepare dishes formerly exclusive to members only.”  It’s a back-lit window into a vanishing world unless you happen to be a member of the Denver Petroleum Club of Colorado, the Offutt Officer’s Club of Nebraska, the India House of New York, the Witchita Country Club of Kansas, or the Atlanta Athletic Club of- you guessed it- Atlanta.

I’ve already spent several happy hours pouring over the marvellously out-of-date recipes, punctuated with furry, over-exposed photographs in glorious monochrome: the Glen Oaks Country Club’s recipe for Lobster Stuffing shows a trout- scales, head, and tail still intact- decorated with a frosted plastic (?) tree stuffed into a tomato, from which hang cute little leprechaun men with long white beards, not unlike Smurfs. Food photography was a science in need of development back then. I am sure that the New Orleans Country Club’s recipe for Rum Mangoes was- still is- delicious, but in the fuzzy 1976 photograph it looks, frankly, like a bowl of fermented sick, as does, I fear, the silvered dish of Cacahuate (“an unusual and very inexpensive Mexican cocktail dip that warms the tongue...”) as served at the River Oaks Country Club, photograph courtesy of Peanut Associates Incorporated. There’s cream. There’s curry powder. There’s tinned consommé. There’s lobster. There’s sherry. There’s the unashamed promotion of  ‘Flavor Enhancer”, aka Monosodium Glutamate. We’re in the world of tax deductions, expense accounts, and the Seven Year Itch.

As a nod to the foreigners, the book includes two non-American clubs: The Lansdowne Club of London, England and The Sanno Club of Tokyo, Japan. Personally, the somewhat downmarket Lansdowne is one of my least favourite places in London, partly because of the unpleasant reception I once had there from the surly front of house staff, coupled with the terrifying concept of Scottish reeling amongst hideous reproduction portraiture. And the Sanno appears to be some recreational facility for off-duty American military personnel stationed in Japan, controlled by the US-Japan Status of Forces Agreement.

Anyway. I’ve picked out a few recipes that you might want to have fun with:

 

Members of the Denver Petroleum Club celebrate the announcement of their new building’s construction, 1953

 

Denver Petroleum Club Dressing (from Private Recipes from Private Clubs by Beverly Anderson Barbour, 1976)

 

“ All of the members of the Denver Petroleum Club are connected with the petroleum industry in one way or another...The cuisine of the club reflects its members’ backgrounds...it runs from Country Gravy (made by adding chopped onions and bacon to chicken fat and then adding as much clour as there is fat...right in the pans the chicken was fried in) to fine French fare... Colorado is famous for its trout, and although the club is able to get some fresh fish in Colorado, better luck and consistency come with the purchase of fast-frozen products. Each local Colorado trout must be purchased through a processor. The club credits a neighbour, the Garden of the Gods Club in Colorado Springs, with an interesting chef’s secret. It’s possible to make a Truite a Bleu with frozen trout!” 

 

INGREDIENTS

Mayonnaise: 1 1/2 cups

Parmesan cheese, grated: 3 tbsps

Lemon Juice: 2 tsp

Pepper, freshly ground: 1/4 tsp

Garlic Powder: 1/4 tsp

Water: 3 tbsps

Salt: to taste

Flavor Enhancer (ie MSG): few grains

 

METHOD

Blend well until all ingredients are thoroughly mixed. The mixture should be the consistency of thick cream. Allow to marinate for a few hours.

 

Gilbert Roland and Constance Bennett at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club, 1938

 

Beverly Hills Tennis Club Antipasto

 

"One member called it “an oasis in Beverly Hills.” But the Beverly Hills Tennis Club is approached on bicycle, not camelback, as early as 8am by many of the 163 members who come to pay court to the body beautiful. With a large number of doctors, a few movie industry personalities, and the normal sprinkling of health food enthusiasts, the membership has to be one of the most diet-conscious in clubdom.”

 

INGREDIENTS

Olive Oil: 1/4 Cup

Garlic, peeled and crushed or chopped: 1/3 clove

Green Beans: 2 oz

Mushrooms: 1/2 lb

Onion, chopped: 1 small

Green Pepper, cut into strips: 1

Carrots, cut in strips: 1-1/2

Zucchini, cut in strips: 1- 1/2

Cauliflower, broken into flowerets: 1/4 head

Celery, cut in strips 1- 1/2 ribs

Tomato Sauce: 1/2 cup

Catsup: to taste

Salt: to taste

Pepper: to taste

Oregano: to taste

Sweet Basil: to taste

Tuna: 1 7oz can

Sardines: 1 can

Ripe Olives: 1/3 cup

Green Olives: 1/2 cup 

 

METHOD

Cook all except last 4 ingredients together until vegetables are tender but still crisp. Before serving, garnish with tuna, sardines, and olives.

 

The Somerset Club, Boston; founded 1846

 

The Union Club of Philadelphia’s Crabmeat Dewey

 

“...Change is not the order of the day at the Union League, and one of the institutions no one would ever tamper with is the New Year’s Day stag reception and open house. Fisthouse Punch and a buffet help to kill the pain from the night before. The punch is an effective combination of blended whiskey, Jamaican rum, Champagne, peach brandy, orange and lemon juices- combined and cut with soda. Members force their medicine down like good soldiers.” 

 

INGREDIENTS

Newburg Sauce:

Butter: 3 tbsp

Flour: 3 tbsps

Light Cream: 1 qt

Sherry: 1/3 cup

 

Crabmeat Dewey:

Newburg Sauce: 1 qt

Pimiento, diced: 1

Mushrooms, diced: 6

Egg Shade or Yellow Food Coloring: 2 to 3 tsp

Lump Crabmeat: 1 lb

Salt: to taste

Pepper: to taste

 

METHOD

For the Newburg Sauce, melt butter and stir in flour. Gradually add cream. Simmer for five minutes. Add sherry. To make Crabmeat Dewey, heat Newburg Sauce, add pimiento and mushrooms; simmer, add colouring. At the last minute add crabmeat, salt, pepper, and additional sherry, if desired. Serve on rice or toast points or in individual shells.

 

How to Make Haggis and Influence People

 

 

 

Mrs Maciver’s Good Scotch Haggis (From The Cook’s Oracle by Dr William Kitchiner (1817)

 

Make the haggis bag perfectly clean. Parboil the draught. Boil the liver very well so as it will grate. Dry the meal before the fire. Mince the draught and a pretty large piece of beef very small. Grate about half of the liver. Mince plenty of the suet and some onions small. Mix all these well together with a handful or two of the dried meal.

Spread them on the table and season them with salt and mixed spices. Take any of the scraps of beef and some of the water that boiled the draught and make about a choppin (sic.) a quart of good stock of it. Then put all the haggis meat into the bag and that broth in it.

Sew up the bag, but be sure to put out all the wind before you sew it quite close. If you think the bag is thin, you may put it in a cloth. A large one will take two hours boiling. 

 

The Metropolitan Hotel Champagne Cocktail

 

David Niven and Ginger Rogers in Bachelor Mother (1939) 

 

And so we come to my favourite time of the year. That in-between bit. I just love it. London’s deserted. My bloated email feed has evaporated. The telephone’s stopped ringing. Those over-familiar identity-badge-wearing people who knock on your shiny front door and ask for money seem to have gone away. Cue Plain Song, Cue Silence. Cue the Slow Ticking of an Antique Clock. Peace and Harmony Reign. It’s interesting how in the modern world there’s all this focus on the run-up to Christmas, which now seems to start in October, while the leaves are still on the trees. And all for only one day. As my little sister succinctly puts it: “All for a Bit of Bloody Turkey”.

But historically, of course, the Christmas season is still very much with us. Christmas Day was just the start of the whole shebang, which ran over the Twelve Days (ending on Twelfth Night) and Christmas Day itself wasn’t especially important. By the 1830s Christmas had become a minor, rather low key festival, in danger of vanishing, which was one of the reasons why writers such as Washington Irving and Charles Dickens romanticised it in their writings and in turn, helped to re-invent the nineteenth century Christmas. Judith Flanders’ excellent Christmas: A Biography looks into all this in greater depth: the truth is that people have been celebrating mid-winter for thousands of years, actually long before the advent of Christianity, which- I hate to say it- means that all those hand-wringing, tut-tutting Cromwellian religious types who moan about the commercialisation of Christmas, have, I fear, got it all completely wrong: historically, at least, the middle of December has always been a time for carousing, dancing, spending money, drinking too much and generally behaving in a disreputable fashion. And long may this tradition continue.

Looking ahead we’ve got some old friends coming over to the hovel for the New Years Eve revels and Jiminy Cricket, do those two renegades like cocktails. Champagne Cocktails. Luckily we’ve got a bottle of Veuve Clicquot yellow label knocking about, so it’s time to make classic champagne cocktails courtesy of the Metropolitan Hotel New York, circa 1934. For some reason, New Year’s Eve makes me think of Manhattan in the 1930s, top hats, the Rockefeller Center and ginormous Christmas trees. Anyway. Here’s the recipe: 

Soak a sugar cube with a dash of Angostura Bitters. Drop it into the bottom of a champagne flute.

While I'm about it: a quick word on champagne glasses. I use the classic flute shape. My parents still think it’s amusing to use those rather kitsch Victorian novelty shallow glass things- fashioned, I gather, from Marie Antoinette’s left tit. They’re fun- but I’ve been told on competent authority that they’re not a friend of bubbles, and makes the champagne go flat rather quickly. I’m not keen, although its quite fun seeing the tiny bubbles whizz up the stems. 

 

 

But on with the cocktail: Fill up the glass with a decent Champagne. Our bottle of Veuve will do just fine, although some wiser types might think this a waste of the good stuff. Finish it off with a twist of lemon.

Thank you to everyone and anyone who has taken time off to read The Greasy Spoon over the last year, and I wish you all a happy and peaceful 2018. Happy New Year!

 

Happy Christmas

 

 

 

A very Happy Christmas to all readers of The Greasy Spoon, and my best wishes for the New Year. To be frank, the last year’s been a bit of a slog, and I’m crossing my fingers for a more relaxed and less chaotic 2018.

I realise this may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but have a look at my new little friend, as pictured above. It’s a splendid Suckling Pig from the Wicked Food Cooking School.

Since reading Stefan Gates’s brilliant, insane and subversive Gastronaut, I’ve become mildly obsessed with getting hold of a suckling piglet. Although it’s relatively easy to cook- supposedly- the snag is that it feeds ten, and costs over £100. Our dining room table seats eight, and Christmas has virtually bankrupted me. According to Stefan Gates, Pugh’s Piglets is the place to get them. You stuff the critter with black pudding, apples and sausages, glaze him with honey and rum, stuff an apple in his mouth and bung him in the oven. 

 

Charles Laughton in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933)

 

For those of us with Olde England banqueting fantasies, this is the ultimate ticket. How Splendid! By the way, if you’re looking for a fun film to watch over Christmas and the New Year, that 1930s black and white number with Charles Laughton starring as Henry VIII would be ideal (The Private Life of Henry VIII). Dear old BBC4 is also devoting its entire Christmas Eve schedule to M.R. James ghost stories, which is a treat in store. I’m going to be sitting up late with the hound, getting spooked, while Mrs Aitch goes to Midnight Mass. Can’t wait.

 

Lord Lucan & The Lamb Cutlet

 

 

 

It appears that the late Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, was a man of conservative habit. According to Patrick Marnham’s Trail of Havoc (a superb account of the sorry affair), Lucan’s two favourite dishes (as served at the Clermont Club in Berkeley Square) were Smoked Salmon and Lamb Cutlets (which he ate in the Winter), and Salmon and Lamb Cutlets en Gelée (which he ate in the Summer):

"To this destructive atmosphere Lucan returned night after night, week after week, for eleven years, munching his smoked salmon and lamb cutlets, losing his fortune and stubbornly insisting on his skill and his luck. If Lord Lucan ate four lamb cutlets a day, for four days a week, for forty weeks a year, for eleven years, and if there are seven cutlets in a sheep, then he would have by the end have dispatched 1,006 sheep.”

I’ve been fascinated by the Lucan case for years. It’s a desperately sad story, yet somehow representative of London in an evocative period- the early 1970s. I remember my father coming home from work- dog tired, in mac and racing trilby, the Evening Standard on tow- which I devoured avidly. The famous photograph, as pictured above, haunts me still. The papers were full of it. That must have been on a rainy night in early November 1974. 

In the 90s, as a thrusting young specialist and valuer working for Phillips auctioneers in New Bond Street, I spent several days in the company of Veronica Lucan, sifting through stacked family portraits, books, tatty cardboard boxes and ephemera in the disused garage of her genteel, yet shabby mews house tucked away behind the original family house in Lower Belgrave Street, Belgravia. Underneath a pile of foxed antiquarian books, we discovered a battered dispatch tin. Inside was an original letter from the 7th Earl of Cardigan, protesting his reluctance to lead the Charge of the Light Brigade. Like others under his command, he obeyed orders. An awful man in many ways, but My God, a brave one.

Lady Lucan reminded me of a frail, chirpy little bird- bright as a button, damaged, although- how can I put it tactfully- not exactly the easiest client to deal with. She lived cardigan-clad, in semi-seclusion, surrounded by flickering moths and yellowed photographs of her husband in silver frames. Lucan’s golf clubs were still leaning in the corner, presumably where he had left them. I liked her.

 

Lamb Cutlets (taken from “Clubland Cooking” by Robin McDouall, Secretary, the Traveller’s Club, 1974)

“Lamb cutlets in clubs ought to be like the lamb cutlets of my youth at every dinner before a deb. dance, except in very grand houses: grilled and served leaning against a mound of mashed potato. Only they should be trimmed of all the fat along the bone and should be cooked, French style, well done outside and slightly pink inside. Do not season them till right at the end of the cooking. Paper frills looks nice.

Do not serve gravy with them.

I fight a constant war against gravy: certain catering establishments, which shall be nameless, serve the same gravy with everything- chicken, lamb, beef, liver. Most of the things that call for gravy make their own in the process of cooking: making gravy is an abomination.

Lamb cutlets can also be dipped in egg yolk and then breadcrumbs and fried in clarified butter. 

A further variation is to mix grated Parmesan with the breadcrumbs and fry them like that. You can serve them round a mound of macaroni, drained, cut up, a lump of butter on top, plenty of grated Parmesan cheese and ground black pepper.”

 

Kensington Gore

Here’s another post I wrote for The Dabbler. It’s got nothing whatsoever to do with food (unless of course, you happen to be a vampire) but I thought it might amuse you, especially as the American Pumpkin Festival’s just around the corner. We’ll be back to All Things Foodie next time. Promise.

 

Luke Honey takes us on a trip around some London landmarks captured on film and uncovers strange and groovy goings on down the Kings Road...

 

I first noticed him one Saturday morning; about a week or so after moving into my new house in Battersea: a man with a plastic Instamatic camera, lurking near the bay tree outside my glossy, bijou front door. A middle-aged man with a beard, sporting a rancid anorak. One twitch of my curtains, and he was gone.

Realising that something was up, I turned to that “simple sword of truth”, Google, and- O Fortuna!- discovered that I appeared to be living inside the Tardis: for my house had been used as a location for the 1981 Doctor Who series, Logopolis. The Doctor Who Locations Guide website gave precise directions on how to get to my street, several helpful “then and now” photographs of my house (how grim it looked back then!) and further directions to another Doctor Who location at a lay-by on the A413 near Watford.

The camera is kind to London, and it looks, perhaps, better on celluloid than it does in truth. Are not the pavements and parks haunted by the ghosts of films past? Who can forget dear old Genevieve and the tramlines of Westminster Bridge; or the real star of Blow-Up- Maryon Park near Greenwich: its grass painted verdant green by Michelangelo Antonioni; the dancing chimney sweeps of Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins, the mean suburban avenues of SW11 in Up the Junction, foggy Berkley Square in Midnight Lace (actually, filmed entirely at the Universal lot, Los Angeles) or the charming late 70s street anachronisms of Shepherd’s Bush in Quadrophenia?

Still on the theme of London and film, I must raise my hand and admit to a guilty secret. I am a fan of Dracula AD 1972. Those of you who have yet to see this legendary oeuvre have a treat in store: Dracula (as played by Christopher Lee) arrives in Swinging London, and heads straight for the King’s Road to hang loose with a gang of groovy flower children, headed by a miscast Stephanie Beacham and a teen-like Michael Kitchen. The blurb on the DVD case reads: “The Count is Back with an eye for London’s Hot Pants and A Taste for Everything…”

All this, of course, is deeply amusing: it’s as if the producers at Hammer (undoubtedly pipe- smoking, Telegraph-reading squares) suddenly woke up to the idea that if the studio was going to survive, it had to get “With It”. Setting their picture in Swinging London was the answer; except of course, that by 1972, with the oil crisis just around the corner, the glory days of Terry and Julie were more than well over.

Christopher Neame (to go on to greater glory in Colditz and the excellent Secret Army) features as Johnny Alucard (those of a cryptic persuasion will have already worked out that this spells Dracula backwards), the suave Count’s manic vampire side-kick. Becoming an acolyte of the Devil has its financial rewards, and the producers gave Johnny a mustard coloured Triumph Stag and funky Notting Hill bachelor mews pad in which to seduce the obligatory dollybird and plot fresh evil.

Other highlights include a hilarious sequence in which the gang gatecrashes a dinner party in Paultons Square: a spectacular montage involving go-go dancers gyrating to the sound of the American band, Stoneground. Tut-tutting old biddies in dinner jackets and horn-rimmed glasses; and a Black Mass in which the tasty Caroline Munro writhes spreadeagled on a fibreglass altar splattered with Kensington Gore, as Christopher Neame bellows out one of the all-time immortal lines in British Z-Movie history: “Dig the music, Kids!”

Chelsea, alas, is now a shadow of its former past: the area around the former Duke of York barracks (wherein the glory days of Vivienne Westwood, punks and other low-life used to gather) now an immaculate shopping mall for banker’s wives along New England lines; Carlyle Square, where William Walton and the Sitwells first performed Charade to a salon of the avant-garde, now more likely to echo with the pneumatic drills of a plutocrat’s basement dig-out- the shrieks of the Bright Young Things a mere remembrance of things past; The Cavern, at World’s End, once the haunt of the chain-smoking kids from Dracula AD 1972, now a Yoga Health Studio; eccentric boutiques replaced by bland, international chains. Picasso’s Cafe, The Chelsea Kitchen, Pucci Pizza and the Chelsea Antiques Market (albeit in their original incarnations) all of them: no more. And so on, and so on. Chelsea, requiescat in pace.

But London, like English society, is fluid; continually evolving, and this is one of its many strengths. The Romans built their city on a mixture of shifting sand, clay and gravel, and what lies below is mirrored above. Perhaps “Chelsea” is more an attitude of mind, rather than an actual place; more likely these days to be found in Spitalfields, Shoreditch and other environs of the East End? In a century’s time, I have no doubt that “Chelsea” will still be with us. With any luck, it might even arrive back in SW3. Full Circle.