Rosemary's ham

How many recipes, I wonder, are said to come from the author's grandmother? Hundreds of thousands, perhaps. One pictures a white-haired old lady stirring a bowl of cake mixture, following a secret recipe which, perhaps came from her own grandmother. My first memory of home-cooked ham came from my grandmother. She would spike it with cloves, boil it and smother it in some unknown brown spice, and we would eat it over several days, accompanied by salad: lettuce, washed and dried in a salad spinner; hard-boiled egg, sliced in an egg slicer; cucumber with the peel chopped off; tomatoes which were sometimes skinned; beetroot in vinegar; spring onions; sometimes a tiny bowl of potato salad. There was salad cream in those days, although as the seventies turned into the eighties, she gradually switched to mayonnaise. Olive oil was used only rarely, for extra-special salad dressings, made in a vinaigrette and shaken vigorously before each meal. Slices of brown bread. Once upon a time I would have eaten the last ever slice of ham which had been cooked by her, but, like many firsts and lasts, I cannot pinpoint that moment.

Food from Madrid

"Nothing could be better than the leg of a little lamb, roasted in a domed oven, with a salad of lettuce and some red wine" - Christopher Howse in the Spectator.

Hot chicken salad with bacon and tarragon

Warm salads are counter-intuitive. I found this on a recipe card in Sainsbury’s and cooked it for many friends since. Simple to put together.

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts, skins removed

4 rashers of middle bacon OR lardons

1 teaspoon olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

1 teaspoon tarragon

Ground pepper

1 lettuce

For the dressing:

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon wine vinegar

Salt, pepper

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan.  Chop the chicken and the bacon into bite-sized strips and add it to the oil. Fry until crisp.  Add the lemon juice, tarragon and pepper and allow the liquid to reduce.  Put the lettuce in a bowl and dress.  Add the chicken and bacon mixture, toss and serve.  Serves 4.

Making salt

In about September 1981, I began studying Chemistry at school as a separate subject. My career as a chemist was to come to an ignominious end four years later when I dropped the subject, having achieved the distinction of the lowest mark in the exams in the entire school year.

But I still remember aspects of the subject with affection. Burning magnesium! My white shirt being turned into a chromatogram by some clever idiot in the desk behind me, using ink, a pipette and surgical spirit or similar. Best of all, in that very first lesson in 1981, we made salt.

The process involved dissolving a pile of what looked like sand in water, heating the water (Bunsen burner) and then - can't remember the detail but I think filter paper may have been involved somewhere - ending up with a small and rather damp pile of salt.

Very satisfyingly, we were allowed to take the results of our experiment into the dining hall to have with our lunch. Monday lunches were particularly dispiriting: salad, so-called. The salt improved the undressed lettuce and slab of pork pie.

It may have been on the same occasion that I was required by the prefect in charge of the table (I shall name and shame him: Jonathan Harding) to eat my pork pie jelly, a feat I managed only by melting it into the barely warm mashed potato on my plate.

Mortadella

I first visited Italy on 11 September 2001. Cousin Pen took us there by motorway from Lorgues in Provence to just over the border: Ventimiglia. The purpose of the trip was to go to the post office to pay a parking fine that one of my other cousins had incurred. It was a good excuse.

As we drove through the tunnel at the border, I concentrated, hard, on the fact that we were entering Italy. On the other side, we descended into the town.

The so-called purpose of going, the post office, was quickly over. Of much greater interest to us all was Pen's favourite food shop.

You know how many supermarkets in England have a cheerful "Try before you buy" sign at the delicatessen counter. I always feel slightly guilty for asking and, when I do, it becomes such a big deal to produce a wafer thin fragment of ham or whatever, presented to me on a cocktail stick, that I end up buying some. Possibly the point.

The lady behind the counter in Pen's shop had a different approach. I would express the vaguest interest in a particular salami or some Parma ham and she would immediately seize the article, rush to the slicing machine and produce enough for all three of us to have a large mouthful. Of course, we would end up buying some. A lot. Possibly the point. But the feeling in that shop was one of generosity. (Later, Pen would reveal that the woman running the shop may in fact have, dishonestly or otherwise, charged us incorrectly and in the shop’s favour – but let me give the shopkeeper the benefit of the doubt. I warmed to her.)

The title of this piece is Mortadella and that is one thing I did not buy at that shop in Ventimiglia. But I saw it for the first time I can remember. Not surprisingly. It was the largest sausage I have ever seen. Slightly off-putting.

Since then, though, I have grown to love it. As cousin Pen told me later, it is great picnic food. Folded into good bread, with slices of tomato, lettuce and a little mayonnaise , its moist slightly bland saltiness is welcome at the edge of the road on the way, say, from Rome to Lorgues.

But be warned: there is plenty of rogue Mortadella out there. I would say as general rules:

Only buy it loose, never in packets.

The bigger the better.

It should be studded with peppercorns and either pistachios or pieces of truffle. If not, avoid it.

If it looks particularly dry, don't bother - one of the exceptions to the rule of dryness in sausages. Having said that, once the outer slice has been removed, it may be better within. It will be a good test of the integrity of the person trying to sell it to you: does that person try and include the first slice in what you're being sold, or discard it?

Ask for it to be sliced thinly.

Eat it quickly.

If you are disappointed, don't give up on it. It is variable.

Part 2 of the trip to Ventimiglia to follow.