The Greasy Spoon | Food & Culture

Wild Garlic

 

 

 

We've just come back from an invigorating five day trip to South Cornwall. It was warm enough to enjoy a simple lunch al fresco at the ever-wonderful Tresanton Hotel in St Mawes. The slightly Agatha Christie-ish ambience of the upper terrace (with its ocean-liner metal railings, sea views and steamship loungers) remains unchanged: fans of "Peril at End House" (first published in 1932) will know what I'm talking about.

 

 

On Monday we dropped in at Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant in Padstow and enjoyed an intensely flavoured bouillabaisse (Cornish style) with crutons, red pepper aioli and grated cheese; roasted Hake (served in a piping hot earthenware dish with puy lentils) and a pretty concoction of lobster and crab wrapped up in puff pastry and served with a pinkish lobster sauce.

The Seafood Restaurant at Padstow has to be one of my all-time favourite restaurants and, in my 'umble opinion Master Copperfield, remains consistently excellent. The discreet service is of the highest professional standard: raise your eyebrow and in an instant there will be a helpful waiter at your side; tables are spacious and the atmosphere is relaxed. The food is unpretentious and utterly delicious.  I can't recommend the place enough.

I've always had a thing about Cornwall- as a child, we used to spend our summer holidays at the charming sea-side town of St Mawes. It really is the most romantic destination: 

 

The mysterious St Michael's Mount.

 

Caerhays Castle: "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again..."

 

The Cornish lanes and hedgerows are full of wild flowers, (including violet coloured wild orchids) and at this time of the year, daffodils. A thought occured to me on our drive home over Salisbury Plain and past Stonehenge: the verges of Wiltshire's main roads are barren; and in the case of South Buckinghamshire, I regret to report, littered. Does an enlightened Cornish county council have an active policy to encourage wild flowers?  Or is it that in counties such as Wiltshire and Oxfordshire, with large-scale and mechanised farming, wild flowers are killed by the spillover from intensive crop spraying?

It's the time of year to pick and use wild garlic (Allium ursinum). It can be found in damp woodlands and hedgerows, and gives off an evocative, garlicky smell which can't be missed. I love its subtle taste. Funnily enough, unlike the standard variety in which you use the bulb, with wild garlic you eat the green leaves. In London we have to buy it from specialist shops, the superior supermarkets (such as Wholefoods) or your local farmer's market.

I'm going to make a creamy and simple risotto, flavoured with my favourite wild garlic. If I chop up the leaves small enough, I'm hoping that this will make the risotto turn a pale light green colour.

The Great Kitchen at The Brighton Pavilion

 

 

 

One of my favourite rooms is The Great Kitchen at The Royal Pavilion, Brighton. If you've never been to the Royal Pavilion- or indeed, Brighton, I urge you to go.

The Pavilion was The Prince Regent's (later King George IV) saucy sea-side retreat; originally a relatively humble farmhouse, which the architect, John Nash, re-built as an extravagent "Hindoo" architectural fantasy between 1815 and 1822.

The Banqueting Room there is an extraordinarily grand dining room in the fashionable Chinoiserie taste, and unusually for time, the kitchen was built alongside so that dishes could be served without getting cold.

It's a tall room, taking its ight from skylights in the roof, and supported by four cast-iron and painted copper palm trees. The kitchen was designed to be innovative and modern for its day; gadgets included the latest steam heating technology and a a constant supply of water pumped from a nearby well into the Royal Pavilion’s own water tower.

 

The King loved entertaining and hosted many elaborate banquets, often involving up to thirty five courses. In 1816 he employed Marie Antonin Carême (a fashionable French chef at the top of his game) to work for him at his London residence, Carlton House, and also at the Royal Pavilion.

 

Carême created magnificent culinary works of art that would have amused George’s guests and stimulated conversation. Particularly impressive were his elaborate confectionery pieces that sometimes stood up to four feet high and up to two feet across.

In 1817 Carême made eight confectionery centrepieces for a banquet honouring the Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia. The menu also included thirty-six main dishes and thirty-two side dishes. It's not difficult to imagine the kitchen as it then was: a working kitchen full of life; chefs and kitchen hands springing into action as Carême barked out his orders.

It's slightly spooky to think that the kitchen was used as an operating theatre during the First World War. The Pavilion was commandered as a military hospital; most appropriately for Indian troops from the British Empire.

 

Chefs in Art

 

 

Sir William Orpen (1878-1931) "The chef of l’Hotel Chatham", shown at the Royal Academy in 1921.

 

 

Rex Whistler (1905-1944) "The Master Cook", Sergeant Isaacs of the Welsh Guards, 1940 or 1941.

 

 

David Hockney (bn. 1937) "Peter Langan in his kitchen at Odin's", ink on paper, 1969, sold at Christie's for £19,120 (inc. buyer's premium) in 2004.

 

 

Chaim Soutine (1893-1943) "The Pastry Chef", 1927.

 

 

Francis Edwin Hodge (1883-1949) "The Arts Club's Woman Chef", 1935, The Arts Club, London.

The Sainsbury Classic Cookbook Series

 

Stocking problems at our local Sainsbury's continue: on a very recent visit I was unable to buy fresh leeks, tinned artichoke, tinned asparagus or Clamato juice, yet fennel bulbs and fresh mint could be found in abundance- two ingredients they seem to run out of on a regular basis. Their stocking policies seem bizarre. If you want to buy fresh dill there, forget it- but yet, just now and again, you will find it there: masses of it, heaped up untidily on the otherwise near-empty shelves. It's like a store from the bad old days of the Soviet controlled Eastern Bloc. Very hit or miss. And sad too, as there was a time back in the '80's when Sainsbury's had a reputation for quality, value and service.

Why do you bother going there then, I hear you ask? It's a fair comment. The answer's not especially one I'm proud of: out of sheer laziness. The supermarket's about a five minute drive away. But I'm on the verge of ditching Sainsbury's completely and switching one hundred percent to the excellent and wonderful Waitrose. Incidentally, The Girl introduced me to the equally excellent John Lewis Food Hall, which can be found in Cavendish Square. As with the superb Wholefoods, whoever manages its stocking deserves some sort of award.

 

Anyway, back to Sainsbury's. About twenty years ago, they produced a charming series of cook-books, edited by one of the most famous editors in the food business, Jill Norman, and published by the excellent Walker Books (better known for their beautifully illustrated children's books). It's hard to believe now these lovely books were associated with the very same supermarket we're discussing, as frankly, the original "Sainsbury Classic Cookbook" series could have come from another planet.

 

So far, I've bought three of them, for a few pounds each: "Simple Fare" by Nathalie Hambro (with illustrations by Sally Davies),  "Classic French Cooking" by Ann Willan (with illustrations by Susan Alcantarilla) and my latest find, "Fish and Shellfish" by George Lassalle, with illustrations by Alan Cracknell.

 

Alan Cracknell's work reminds me of Kit Williams and his "Masquerade". In case you've forgotten, he's that bearded artist chap (similar in his style of painting to David Inshaw and the Brotherhood of Ruralists) who fashioned a hare made from beaten gold, buried it in a field near Tewksbury and then published a book with all manner of esoteric clues to the golden hare's whereabouts hidden within the illustrations.