Olivia Potts

I’m not sure that many people would choose the unassuming garibaldi as their favourite biscuit. Garibaldis aren’t flashy: there’s no luxury chocolate, no pretty, brightly-coloured icing, no fancy-pants shapes. They aren’t squidgy, trendy cookies, or wholesome buttery shortbread. In fact, they’re often called squashed-fly biscuits because the currants baked into the dough resemble, well, squashed flies. And yet, they persist. Garibaldi biscuits have stuck around for 150 years, outseeing fads and fickle consumers, keeping their place on supermarket shelves for longer than almost any other biscuit. The biscuits have an unlikely namesake: Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian General, who fought for Italian unification.

When I was first playing about with the recipe, the sun was shining. Every day was hotter than the last, and I found myself seeking out dishes that were cooling, that were fresh, and made me feel like I was on holiday. Looking ahead to when this recipe might go out I was fairly confident that it would hit the right note at the height of summer: July might have a damp day here and there, but overall, it seemed a relatively safe bet for days and nights of heat, the kind of time where there’s a sudden run on paddling pools, and ice cream becomes near medicinal. But as I write this, August is letting me down. The early summer spells have vanished and it is looking distinctly autumnal outside the window. My neighbour has just run past the window in a raincoat.

I confess, the idea of a tres leches cake did not initially appeal to me. A dry sponge soaked in a variety of tinned milks sounds, at best, like bland nursery food and, at worst, tooth-achingly saccharine. ‘Milky’ has never been one of the words that I hope to see in connection with anything other than ‘coffee’ or ‘Way’. But I saw it likened to trifle and curiosity got the better of me – and I’m so glad it did. Actually, a tres leches cake is not terribly like a trifle at all, although I can see where the comparison came from. Soaked puddings are nothing new, and that’s really what a tres leches cake is.

I’m normally averse to leftovers: it’s not a trait I like in myself. I’d far rather be able to eat the same thing for days on end, especially when it’s seasonal veg, or an enormous, hearty stew that I’ve spent ages making. It’s a sensible way of cooking: healthy, seasonal, cheap, time-saving. But I’m easily bored, and the best laid plans of mice and men the night before, clingfilmed or tupperwared up, no longer appeal the following lunchtime. I end up parcelling those thoughtful, carefully prepared dishes onto my husband and plumping instead for so-called novelty in the form of toast, or a sandwich. For some reason, soup is the one dish that doesn’t suffer this fate.

I am always slightly nervous about presenting recipes which are distinctly regional: locals tend to be fiercely defensive, proprietary even. about how their particular delicacy should be made and enjoyed. Devon and Cornwall have long been engaged in a battle as to whether cream or jam comes first on their otherwise very similar scones (personally, if you’re offering me a freshly made scone, loaded up with delicious things, I have absolutely no interest in the order of their piling), and the Cornish are so protective of their eponymous pasty, that they campaigned for years for it to receive Protected Geographical Indication, meaning that it must be manufactured in Cornwall.

There are few things more comforting than a pie, but often that level of comfort is directly proportional to the amount of effort required to make it. Pastry bases that must be prepared, then chilled, lined, blind baked and re-baked; fillings that require pre-cooking, or sauces that need thickening. Not so with spanakopita. Spanakopita is a Greek cheese and spinach pie, encased in several layers of filo pastry, each sheet painted with butter or oil; once baked it is golden brown and crisp on the outside, and soft inside, fresh from the herbs, and rich and salty from the cheese. Filo is forgiving and easy to handle, the butter-brushing smoothing the filo into your pie dish, as well as bringing colour and flavour.

I don’t know about you, but my brain has felt like soup for the last week. If I were to see you in real life, I would probably say to you ‘My brain feels like soup; does yours?’ and then ten minutes later I’d ask the same question, because my brain is soup and I am incapable of normal human behaviour. I am, it turns out, not made for heat. Or at least, not made for it in a context where I’m required to work and commute and make decisions and reply sensibly to emails, rather than lie in the shade on a sun lounger reading a trashy book until it’s time to go out for dinner and cocktails. In England we are simply not made for such scorching temperatures.

In one sense, a madeleine is simply a small cake. In fact, it’s an extremely classic cake, made with the genoise method. But there’s more to a madeleine than that: the proportions of madeleines, their miniature nature and scalloped shape, mean that they have a perfect contrast between their slightly sticky, almost crisp outside, and impossibly light and soft interior. Traditionally they are made with browned butter, which does what browned butter does best, bringing depth and complexity to a straightforward sponge. The dark muscovado and honey in the recipe elevate these little sponges from a miniature cake into something really special. The holy grail when madeleine making are those characteristic bumps in the centre of the cake, sitting like pregnant tummies.

Some dishes are just meant to be shared. I’m not talking about those items you buy on a hangover from the corner shop that sanctimoniously declare ‘meant for sharing’ or ‘share size’ on their passive aggressive packaging (I’ll be the judge of that, cheese and onion crisps and chocolate fingers). I mean something that you’ve invested energy and love into, something which demands to be passed around, praised and enjoyed; something impressive and delicious. A homemade cassoulet. A perfect chocolate cake. A batch of scones. A gala pie. The moment of cutting into a gala pie, and revealing the perfect row of eggs suspended in meat minced by your own fair hands is one of serious culinary pride.

I have never been a huge fan of cold soup. It has always seemed to me to be contrary to everything good about soup: soup is inherently warming and cheering. It demands large portions and an accompanying doorstep of bread. Who on earth would want to chill it down and serve it in tiny portions – and without bread and butter? Madness! Historically, I have made an exception for gazpacho and salmorejo on the basis that they hail from hot countries, and that they aren’t thickened with dairy. But I drew the line at what I thought of as hot soups served cold. Vichyssoise was doubtless the worst of them: give me a vat of hot leek and potato, but spare me the cold stuff. Sometimes, we don’t get what we want, we get what we need.

There aren’t many veggie stews that can lay claim to being immortalised in popular culture. Fewer still that could then complain about being grossly misrepresented. But then ratatouille is no ordinary vegetable stew. Ratatouille is a Provençal dish, made by gently cooking aubergine, courgette, and red peppers, with a tomato sauce flavoured with onion, garlic and herbs. It is, in many ways, extremely simple. But for all its simplicity, it remains the subject of confusion. If you watch Pixar’s Ratatouille, you will see the terrifying food critic, Anton Ego, reduced to a Proustian state of rapture when served what we are told is ratatouille, making him recall his childhood and his mother’s cooking.