Food

Saturday

Marina Ray

Big Red

‘Dear mother, I’m feeling quite ill, From all of these bits off the grill; Nostrils and tits and unspeakable bits, Balls haven’t come yet, but they will!’ So wrote my late father-in-law, Cyril Ray, as he ran up the white flag after one asado too many during a trip to Argentina many years ago. And nothing has changed: I’m the least vegetarian person I know, but by the end of a ten-day trip to Buenos Aires and Mendoza, the merest whiff of woodsmoke had me reaching for the lettuce sandwich. The traditional Argentine asado — a loose term that can mean ‘short rib’, ‘grill’ or ‘barbecue’ — is a long,

Alice Whitehead

God of fire

Tip 1: Fire Kettle, fire pit or gas-guzzler? These days, there’s a barbecue to suit every backyard, but before you get burned by the price, think carefully about when, where, and how you will use it. Josh Sutton, the chef/writer behind the outdoor cooking guide GuyropeGourmet.com, offers a unique and money-saving solution: ‘My “1,600 rpm barbecue” is made from an old washing machine drum salvaged from a scrapyard and it’s perfect for cooking all the usual favourites. Once the cooking is done, it makes for a splendid and safe campfire as you throw in a few logs and get the guitars out.’ Tip 2: Fuel Let’s be honest, gas barbecues

Sybil Kapoor

The buck stops here

It’s time we as consumers realise our own power to change things, and reconnect with our farms, says Sybil Kapoor This May, the National Trust launched a radical social experiment. Under the title ‘MyFarm’ (my-farm.org.uk), they invited up to 10,000 web users to actively manage Wimpole Home Farm in Cambridgeshire, entirely over the internet. Once a month Richard Morris, the farm’s manager, will ask for instructions on a particular farming decision. Over the next three years, every farming dilemma will be posed, from whether to sow clover in the hope of rain to how to make rare breed pigs more profitable. Morris will set the parameters of each choice and

Jonny Goodall

Cereal Offenders

Padding into the kitchen at 10 BC (10 minutes Before Coffee) I find my young son, James, crying silently and uncontrollably with laughter behind a giant box of Golden Grahams. He’s peering over the top at Walter, who is popping Weetabix into his mouth — whole, dry and sideways. Unaware he is being observed, our visiting language student from Italy crunches vacantly like a wide-mouthed frog, crumbs cascading down his cardie. My brain struggles to cope as I inadvertently pour un-boiled water over coffee granules. So this is why James has started getting up far too early for school; he’s setting his alarm to watch ‘our’ students eat breakfast. And

Gareth Jones

Rage against the tagine: Capital mistake

There’s nothing like following a theme: playing it safe, being on-message. Thus, we hear endlessly — from Michelin-starred chefs to their adoring throng — the mantra that ‘London is restaurant capital of the world’. From bitter experience, I disbelieved this the first time I read it — and then I started to think further. The shocking truth is that everyone chanting this mantra has a stake in the message getting through — from people with a share in restaurants, which are notoriously risky ventures, to those invested in tourism, London 2012 or restaurant guides. Of course, London has pockets of food excellence, but they are little pockets. Is there good

Jonathan Ray

Scoff out | 25 June 2011

LE RESTAURANT GASTRONOMIQUE Hotel Le Bristol, 112 Faubourg Saint-Honoré, 75008 Paris. +33 (0)1 53 43 43 00 lebristolparis.com by Jonathan Ray Hotel Le Bristol’s Restaurant Gastronomique is a swanky spot and no mistake. It’s all thick-carpeted, wood-panelled splendour, with a regiment of waiters per table and a touch too much one-two-three-and-off-with-the-cloche for my taste, but please, please don’t be put off, for the food here is outstanding with a capital O. It’s President Sarkozy’s favourite spot (the Elysée Palace is almost next door), and it’s no surprise to learn that head chef, Eric Frechon, not only boasts three Michelin stars, but also the Légion d’Honneur. I have never had –

Interconnect

Titbits and Crumbs | 25 June 2011

Rising Star Austere times breed entrepreneurship. Artisan Ben Keane was made redundant before training as a patissier and starting up his own product range trading as Yeast Bakery in East London. The Yeast line is small but perfectly formed (limited to just plain, almond and chocolate croissants). Made with Shipton Mill flour and French AOC Poitou-Charentes butter, these are the best pastries you’ll taste this side of the Channel: yeastbakery.com Scandilicious The craze for all things Scandinavian continues — the National Gallery is even running an exhibition, ‘Forests, Rocks, Torrents: Norwegian and Swiss Landscapes from the Lunde Collection’  (22 June until 18 September). So hail a fine new Nordic offering

Interconnect

How to be a beekeeper

by James Hamill Beekeeping isn’t rocket science. A lot of it is common sense and keeping the bees and hive spotlessly clean. You don’t need lots of space; a small garden is fine. I’ve been running weekend courses at my Surrey farm for would-be beekeepers for 20 years and my most basic advice is: don’t cut the wrong corners. You can scrimp on the peripheral kit such as the smoker but make sure you get good protective clothing and professionally bred bees, not an unknown swarm. And don’t buy a used hive because there can be disease in the wood. You might pay £200 or so for a beehive, another

Imogen Lycett-Green

Digestif | 25 June 2011

Hard-working, mercurial and good at playing mean – reformed hell-raiser Dominic West eats asparagus into the small hours with Imogen Lycett Green After nearly two decades hitting headlines as a womanising bachelor of the most hell-raising kind, Dominic West married the mother of three of his four children last year. Has family life brought tranquillity with it? ‘You must be joking,’ he screams, throwing his head back. ‘I am swamped by kids. The theatre is where the order is, the calm, the structure. Things begin on time. Family life is chaos. I have never been happier in my life but when it’s time to go to the theatre, I run

Interconnect

Summer recipes

Scottish Lobster with mussels by Jeff Bland I’ve been lobster fishing off the Hebridean island of Tiree and it’s fantastic to see the creatures from the moment they come out of the water — they are incredibly beautiful, shiny and black. I truly believe that Scottish lobsters are the best in the world due to the extremely low temperatures, and with them being so delicious, you can enhance the flavours in the kitchen with some simple ingredients. Serves 2. 1 kg Scottish lobster 500g mussels (I use Loch Fyne) 250g leeks 250g wild or cultivated mushrooms 10 Ayrshire potatoes 1 glass white wine ¼ l fish stock 100g butter 50g

Jeremy Clarke

Feverish Fairy

No prizes for guessing who wrote this, or what the drink is: ‘There was very little left of it [in his hipflask] and one cup of it took the place of the evening papers, of all the old evenings in the cafés, of all the chestnut trees that would be in bloom now in this month, of the great slow horses of the outer boulevards, of bookshops, and kiosks, and of galleries, and of the Parc Montsouris, of the Stade Buffalo, and of the Butte Chaumont, of Foyet’s old hotel, and of being able to relax and read in the evening, of all the old things he had enjoyed and

Saturday

Melanie McDonagh

Vastly entertaining

It may not be quite true that the next best thing to eating good food is reading about it, but undeniably food writing has its considerable pleasures. You’ve got it all there: sex and sensuality (the link between the appetites hardly needs spelling out), social history, the loving acquaintance with ingredients . . . and recipes. The Penguin Great Food series — a selection of 20 delightful, lightweight (we’re talking wrist-strain, not subject), prettily jacketed works by the finest food writers — is a feat. Just selecting 20 authors from the 17th century to now is difficult in itself. Do you go for good prose (Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein’s

Saturday

Fay Maschler

Bookends: The voice of the lobster

In existence for over 250 millions years, lobsters come in two distinct varieties, ‘clawed and clawless’. Human predators tend to the flawed and clueless as they overfish and — since lobsters must be cooked live — kill them heartlessly. In existence for over 250 millions years, lobsters come in two distinct varieties, ‘clawed and clawless’. Human predators tend to the flawed and clueless as they overfish and — since lobsters must be cooked live — kill them heartlessly. Part of ‘the Edible Series’, dedicated to the global history of one type of ingredient, Lobster by Elisabeth Townsend (Reaktion Books, £9.99) considers the creature that inspired mosaic artists in ancient Pompeii,

Saturday

Charlotte Metcalf

Heavenly simplicity

Borgo Egnazia in Puglia opened last year and immediately gained a reputation as one of Europe’s most spectacular holiday resorts, not least thanks to its cookery school under the tutelage of the resort’s executive chef, Mario Musoni. Until recently Musoni had his own Michelin-starred restaurant outside Milan. When I asked why he didn’t seem unhappy to be uprooted from his hometown relatively late in life, he grinned and replied: ‘This is where the best food is. Milan’s vegetables come from down here. Puglia is the garden of Italy.’ Indeed, Borgo Egnazia is surrounded by orchards, olive groves and vegetables thrusting up from rich soil. There is also a daily supply

Dan Jellinek

Pie in the Sky

Airline food does not enjoy the best of reputations, but with a new breed of on-board cooking and menu selection systems now emerging, its future could be a journey back to basics – with boiled egg and soldiers. Dan Jellinek reports Airline food has long had a poor reputation — odd-tasting, odd-sized and arriving at odd times. In recent years, however, innovations in preparation and ingredients have seen huge improvements, not only towards the front of planes, but in the cheap seats where most of us travel as well. To understand the challenges faced by airlines in serving any halfway decent food at all to passengers, you have to grasp the logistics. British Airways serves

Sudi Piggott

The Cure | 9 April 2011

On the continent, the creators of cured meats can draw on a tradition imbued in the genes (in the case of Parma ham, for example) since the time of Hannibal. Can a much newer generation of British charcutiers possibly hope to compete, boosted by the surge of interest in hand-made food with clear, local provenance and with a potent mix of bloody-minded determination and passion? Of course, there has long been a tradition of British hams — think Cumbrian or Carmarthen — but somehow they’ve never quite enjoyed the recognition and kudos of their European counterparts. But now at last we’re seeing British coppa (air-dried pork collar) and culatello (taken,

Kelly Falconer

Hidden gem

Britain is a country that loves its imports: its BMWs, its Egyptian cotton, its Russian vodka and its hardworking Polish builders. And with our history of imperialism and exploration, our palates have developed a taste for a smorgasbord of flavours. We delight in the Kama Sutra pleasures of Indian food in Brick Lane, Birmingham or even in the wilds of Scotland in places such as Lossiemouth. We have Cantonese food; Szechuan food; Vietnamese food; Japanese noodle bars; Thai restaurants; Greek restaurants and now Polish restaurants as well. Over the past 15 years or so, a British food revolution has also taken place, with the consequence that we are forever in

Penelope Rance

Moveable feasts

It’s midnight, and I’m hanging upside down in the bilges, diesel-polluted seawater sloshing under my nose, trying to pull a greased pig through the locker hole. Or, more accurately, a dry bag containing enough food to feed 20 tired, wet, hungry people for a day. The outside is anything but dry, and I’m hoping the pasta, biscuits and tins within have survived. The boat falls off a wave, and the bag (along with my head) slams against the side. There go the biscuits. Each night, two of our round-the-world yacht-racing crew go through this rigmarole — the start of mother watch. They will convert the contents of the sack into

Jonny Goodall

Streets ahead?

The citizens of Stockbridge in Hampshire must be surprised and delighted that their high street was voted Best Foodie Street in Britain in Google’s inaugural Street View Awards. Perhaps not overly surprised, however, judging by a sheepish comment from Google’s press office to the effect that local gastro-guerrillas ‘went to a lot of effort to get interest up and increase their numbers’. As if to dispel any doubts on the matter, the chairman of Stockbridge Parish Council, in her victory address in the Andover Advertiser offered, ‘congratulations to everyone involved in raising people’s awareness of this competition’. Still, everyone’s happy as the town gets an award, Google Maps gets a plug in SpectatorScoff and

Hattie Ellis

Keeping it real | 9 April 2011

Italian food is about simplicity and seasonality, and in Sicily spring brings the fragrant lemon harvest – eagerly awaited in one corner of Devon. Hattie Ellis takes a trip to the mother country with a pioneer of real lemonade Do you remember when lemonade used to be just that harshly fizzy clear stuff you bought in big plastic bottles? Now you can find a fragrant, sweetly-sharp drink that’s the soft yellow of a summer’s evening. Often called Sicilian lemonade, it is similar to what you’d make at home. Add a slosh of gin, vodka or rum and it’s something else again. One of the best Sicilian lemonades is made by