Vinegar

It puzzled me slightly that we learned the Latin for vinegar - acetum. Even the alternative - sour wine - sounded slightly too obscure to be worth knowing. Somehow I had picked up without being aware of it that Latin was a language of formality, where slang had little place. (Even our Latin teacher became pained when he heard himself using the expression “Shut up...if that’s the sort of language you understand!”) We might know how, in Latin, to praise the table, love the woman or fight the soldier. But not to chat with the newsagent, to engage in banter with the bus driver or to ask for salt and vinegar on our chips.

Seffie soup

Guest blog by Liz.

I believe that any good lunchtime soup should contain at least seven types of vegetable as well as protein and iron. This is ‘Seffie soup’, named after a famously fussy eating child, who nevertheless enjoyed this dish. 

Chop and fry onion, celery, carrot and leek. The amount depends on how many people the soup is for - allow one small onion, a stick of celery, a small carrot and couple of inches of leek per person. In fact this is the opening sentence of any hearty soup recipe. In this case I added courgette because there was some which needed using - and it’s an extra vegetable component. I have used cabbage, swede or squash in the past. Soften the vegetables, add a good shake of red lentils (protein and iron in one, as well as a nice thickener) and a tin of tomatoes per person. Add water until everything is submerged, and a teaspoon of bouillon per person. 

Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer for half an hour; then blend smooth. Add seasoning as needed. At this stage you can also add a spoonful of pesto or harissa for flavour; in this case I have added fried chopped chorizo and its oil scattered over the top.

Kay’s breakfast

Nearly forty years ago, the BBC first showed “The Box of Delights”, a wonderful rendition of John Masefield’s book, set in the days before Christmas. The book was a sequel to “The Midnight Folk” but the earlier book has never been the subject of a film or television adaptation. Both are wonderful and have some vivid descriptions of food. Here, from “The Midnight Folk” is an account of its hero, Kay’s, ideal breakfast.

‘They had for breakfast all the things that Kay was fondest of: very hot, little, round loaves of new white bread baked in the embers of a wood-fire, very salt butter, a sardine with a lot of olive oil, some minced kidneys, a poached egg and frizzled bacon, a very fat sausage all bursting out of its skin, a home-made pork-pie, with cold jelly and yolk of egg beneath the crust, a bowl of strawberries and cream with sifted sugar, a bowl of raspberries and cream with blobs of sugar-candyish brown sugar that you could scrunch, some nice new mushrooms and chicken, part of a honeycomb with cream, a cup of coffee with crystals of white sugar candy for a change, a yellow plum, a greengage and then a ripe blue plum of Pershore to finish off with.”

Less extensive but equally delicious is Kay’s breakfast with his friend, Peter, in “The Box of Delights”:

‘They went down into the larder, and got themselves ham and bread, which they spread with blobs of butter. Then, each had a big mince-pie, and a long drink from a cream pan.’

This is said to be a “foraging” breakfast before Kay and Peter head out for an early morning adventure, before returning for their “real” breakfast.

More guacamole

Accepting that there is no one perfect recipe for guacamole...

INGREDIENTS

1 avocado, chopped or scooped

1 green chilli, finely chopped

2 medium sized tomatoes, chopped

6 leaves of Basil, torn

Quarter red onion, finely chopped

Glug of olive oil

Juice of half a lemon

Shake of sea salt

Mix together.

Serve on toasted baguette.

A recipe from “What Katy Did”

“Take a gallon of oysters, a pint of beef stock, sixteen soda crackers, the juice of two lemons, four cloves, a glass of white wine, a sprig of marjoram, a sprig of thyme, a sprig of bay, a sliced shallot - ”

But then how does it end?

Roast beef sandwiches

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is strict about the making of something as seemingly simple as a cold roast beef sandwich. "Do yourself a favour", he warns in his Meat Book, "and follow these instructions to the letter". He is right. I don’t have the book in front of me as I write, but I will do my best. This is good food for a Christmas Day secret late night supper.

INGREDIENTS

Slices of cold rare roast beef.

Slices of bread.

Butter.

Real mayonnaise.

Fresh horseradish if you have it; tarragon mustard or ordinary Dijon mustard if not.

Slices of lettuce.

Sea salt.

Black pepper.

METHOD

Butter both slices of bread. Spread mayonnaise on one slice and horseradish or mustard on the other. Pave the horseradishy bread with beef, followed by a grinding of salt and pepper. Lay the lettuce on top followed by the mayonnaised bread. Slice and eat.

Babylonian food

The author E. Nesbit was a joint founder of the Fabian Society. Thus it was that she knew my great grandparents. I encountered her only in her fiction. “The Story of the Amulet” was and is a favourite. The children in the book make visits from the present (1905) to the past: one of their journeys is to a city so ancient that there is disagreement among scholars as to where its ruins are to be found. Babylon. Here is an account of the children eating with the Queen.

“She just ate with her fingers, and as the first dish was a great tray of boiled corn, and meat and raisins all mixed up together, and melted fat poured all over the tray, it was found difficult to follow her example with anything like what we are used to think of as good table manners. There were stewed quinces afterwards, and dates in syrup, and thick yellowy cream. It was the kind of dinner you hardly ever get in Fitzroy Street.”

Somehow the reference to Fitzroy Street makes the whole thing the more real. And Nesbit has already described the kind of food that is eaten in Fitzroy Street, a mutton chop, for instance: “as it lay on the plate it looked like a brown island in the middle of a frozen pond, because the grease of the gravy had become cold, and consequently white. It looked very nasty...” Something of a contrast to the Babylonian food which is to come.

Spaghetti cockles

This recipe is very loosely based on the classic ‘spaghetti alla vongole’ but I emphasise with all the force at my command that this is not intended to be an equivalent of the first thing I ever ate in Italy. I am with Elizabeth David on this. And Nigel Slater. I have no difficulty with the idea of creating new recipes, standing on the shoulder of giants, but to pretend that a flan filled with oozing cheese and onion is a quiche Lorraine is simply a perversion of the truth. But I digress. The cockle dish below does not contain any flavourings other than the shellfish, the meat, the vegetables and the oil in which it is cooked.

INGREDIENTS

Spaghetti
Cockles
Lardons
Celery
Shallots
Garlic
Cherry tomatoes
Fresh chilli
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

METHOD

Finely chop the shallots, celery, tomatoes and chilli finely.
Cook the spaghetti.
While the spaghetti is cooking, cook the other ingredients in a large frying pan or wok in roughly this order: olive oil, garlic, shallots, lardons, celery, fresh chilli, cherry tomatoes, cockles. Allow this to cook in its own juices, stirring to avoid sticking. When the spaghetti is cooked, drain it, but don’t worry if there is a little water left behind; stir it into the frying pan, add a little more olive oil and salt and pepper. Stir it all in, serve and eat.

Salt Duck

This was a recipe that my mother discovered late in my childhood, possibly even early adulthood. Salt duck. Perhaps the name had intrigued her. I recall her setting my brother, William, and my great aunt, Aunt C, who was staying with us in Beckenham, to work on it, probably while she was at work. I was not involved in the preparation, only the eating. And I do not recall precisely how it was made. Only that she served it as one might serve Parma ham, with cubes of melon. Delicious. Salt duck. It entered the lexicon of family cookery but I do not recall it ever having been made again.

Here is part of a recipe by Jeremy Lee which I think comes closest to recreating what I ate about thirty years ago.

INGREDIENTS

1 mallard

1 tsp sea salt

1 sprig of thyme

black pepper

METHOD

The day before serving, prepare the mallard for salting. Cut away the backbone and wishbone from the mallard. Place a gentle pressure on the bird to flatten it slightly, then place in a medium dish.

Sprinkle over the salt, ensuring an even spread across the bird, along with six turns of the pepper mill. Add the thyme and bay leaf to the dish, cover well and transfer to the fridge to marinate for 24 hours.

Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Once the mallard has finished marinating, carefully lift it from the dish and place it into the water. Allow the liquid to return to the boil and simmer the bird for 2 minutes.

Once cooked, use tongs to carefully remove the mallard from the pan and place on a baking tray or dish. Set aside and leave to cool.

Slice thinly and serve with melon. Eat.

Lithuanian Cucumbers

Here is a guest recipe from Cousin Tom, whose heritage is Lithuanian.

About 5 or 6 cucumbers peeled, thinly sliced

About 1 half thinly sliced onion
Salt

Dill
Sour cream or yogurt

In a large bowl

Layer slices and generously salt each layer Not too many onions, every other layer maybe Throw in some fresh dill once in awhile Put a small dish with a fairly heavy weight on top Drain during the process After a couple of hours drain well and mix in as much sour cream or yogurt to taste.

This dish always receives compliments. A great comfort food.