Recipes

A Partridge in a Pear TreePartridge pear terrine with lingonberries and cognac, served on Scandinavian bark bread.Two Turtle DovesA miniature coeur à la crème on a large white plate, surrounded by two doves sketched in raspberry coulis.Three French HensHot chicken consommé.Four Calling BirdsThe best-known calling bird (or songbird) is the lark, traditionally roasted and devoured bones and all. But many today prefer their larks ascending, so instead this course features Japanese quail, originally domesticated for its vocal talents and only subsequently introduced into cuisine. Sliced poached quail breast is served on a bed of arugula and endive with pomegranate, walnuts and orange vinaigrette.

‘They must be fruit as they’re next to the pomegranates,’ thought I. Then I read the sign: persimmons. Perplexed by persimmons, I asked a Persian friend here in Montecito, California if she knew about them. ‘My grandmother had trees full of them in the fall,’ she told me, waxing lyrical about their sweet, juicy meat covered by a waxy but edible skin. ‘I used to pick them up from the ground and eat them like apples. They always seemed to be smiling at me.’ Her grandmother made jam from them. She told me I’d bought the fuju variety (the hachiya being astringent and less available in Central California).

The world as we know it may be in disarray thanks to the pandemic, but the British countryside continues its seasonal cycle unabated. Gregory Gladwin’s heritage-breed Sussex cows can sense the winter on its way and frankly they are not that keen on the torrential autumn rains. Instead of disappearing into the further grazing fields they cluster by the yard gates mooing for attention. Barns have been lined with straw in preparation: within the next 10 days our two herds will be brought into their respective sheds, ready for a cozy winter of shared bodily warmth and of course carving the next generation. There is no conclusive proof that Beef Wellington was created in honor of the first Duke of Wellington. Arthur Wellesley.

I’m not sure what it is about brandy snaps that have placed them so firmly in the Christmas culinary tradition: this simple biscuit lacks the dried fruits and nuts of other yuletide stalwarts, its spicing is minimal, and its shelf life is fleeting compared to the cakes and puddings that require festive forethought months in advance. But whatever the reason, I can’t imagine making or eating brandy snaps at any other time of the year. In fairness, my brandy bottle is rarely used other than in the lead up to Christmas — when it gets sloshed into every cake and bake that stands still for long enough — but the brandy in the name is misleading.

Discovering a secret hoard of chanterelles or a giant cepe hidden under an oak tree is one of the most exciting and fulfilling things a foodie can do. But please be wary: to the inexperienced eye, an innocent looking poisonous toadstool can easily be mistaken for an edible delight. Luckily, there are professional foragers out there who will discover, collect and vet wild mushrooms that you can buy in specialist food shops to fulfill this recipe. This extraordinary year seems to have made people much more interested and aware of the provenance of what they eat. Indeed, lockdown turned many of us into foragers as we looked to get better acquainted with the countryside. Outside of a kitchen our brother Oliver’s favorite activity is to go foraging for wild mushrooms.

Many moons ago, long before I learnt how to cook properly, I took it upon myself to make Scotch eggs. It seemed like a nice little weekend activity but, looking back, it was doomed from the get-go. My boiled eggs were too soft and threatened to splurge their yolks. The meat I used was mealy, not fatty enough, and crumbled when I tried to press it onto the eggs. I didn’t really understand how you coated food for frying so haphazardly stuck breadcrumbs to what little meat was forlornly clinging to my misshapen egg. I tried to fry them anyway: it did not go well. Scotch eggs shouldn’t be this hard, I thought. Who can be bothered with this? I ended up smashing the whole thing up (in resignation rather than anger), and turning it into a slightly strange hash.

Take your time. Measure twice. Finish what you start. How will you have time to do it again if you don’t take time to do it right the first time? Work hard at work, then come home. Loosen your tie and relax. Make a highball or mix a cocktail for your wife and yourself. Share the end of the day. We are brothers and we write here of a drink and the man who taught it to us, our father. Teaching us how to make it, he also taught us something of how to live. He was a chemical engineer, and so the formula was important. The drink was the Old Fashioned (or Old Fashion; it doesn’t matter), and this is how he made it.

When we talk to guests on The Spectator’s food and drink podcast, Table Talk, school dinners never fail to elicit strong opinions: from those who loved spam fritters, stodgy crumble and vats of custard, to others who shudder at the mere thought of a gloopy, tepid rice pudding. One dish that seems to have the fewest detractors is cornflake tart: a cheap and cheerful pudding, that required little more than store cupboard staples to make, and satisfied generations of children with its sky-high sugar levels. Food has the power to evoke nostalgia like almost nothing else. Dishes can be a shorthand to memory, to shared experience — good and bad; smells and tastes bringing back things we thought we’d forgotten.

Bonfire night in Britain this year, like most of the occasions we celebrate, was a little different to previous years: no hustling lines to public displays, squeezing spectators in like sardines, standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Many of us can’t have people round to ours, even in our gardens. It’s never been more important to lean into a shorthand to create a sense of occasion, something that reminds us of the rhythms and rituals of our year. Those foods that we eat at certain times are an ideal shorthand, filled with memory, nostalgia and the ability to transport us. And when it comes to Bonfire night, you can see why honeycomb has become so associated with it: bright, smokey and with more than enough sugar to gird you against the cold, it’s the perfect November treat.

Ah, autumn, season of mists and mellow soupfulness, as the poet Keats didn’t quite say. In southern England, where Keats was inspired to write his famous ode to summer’s red-and-golden aftermath, fall mists may stick around all day; but in New England, they burn off with the morning sun, giving way late in the day to heady breezes that blow clean through the soul. It was Geoffrey Chaucer who brought the word autumn into the English language. As sure as ‘Aprill with his shoures soote’ leads ‘folk to goon on pilgrimages’, so October cries out for vigorous outdoor activity followed by autumnal soup.

Between my parents, my six brothers, my sister and I, we were always gathering for something special in normal times: a graduation, a baptism, a cookout, even just pastries after Sunday Mass. But then the days and weeks of quarantine stretched darkly before us with nothing to celebrate, minor or major. The days all run together, differentiated by nothing except my parents’ choice of detective procedural for binge-watching. Until this week, when we got the news: L. is coming home. My younger brother L. is a second lieutenant in the Marines, the second of my brothers to become an officer.