Olivia Potts

My theory is that sachertorte is a victim of its own success. Over the past 150 years, it has become an Austrian icon and, as such, can be found throughout Vienna. And that’s the problem: its ubiquity means that inferior versions abound. It has developed an unfortunate reputation for being dry, dull, tasteless – a pale imitation of a chocolate cake. It is often described – even by its supporters – as a ‘grown-up’ chocolate cake or an ‘elegant’ chocolate cake, but I feel like this does it a disservice. Both feel a little like euphemisms for ‘not that nice’, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.

There are a handful of elements that make me nervous about tackling particular classic recipes. First, if it’s a dish that I didn’t grow up with and can’t speak to personally; secondly, if it’s a dish that a lot of other people did grow up with, and feel very strongly about. Thirdly, if it requires an ingredient that we don’t have in Britain, which I then have to imitate, or simply ignore. That can be pretty restrictive. I didn’t encounter a Staffordshire oatcake until I was 28, so they’d be out. Risotto, which I’m fairly sure doesn’t hail from the north-east coast of England, would be untouchable. Gorgeous vintage puddings like bananas Foster or pecan pie would be out of the question, too.

‘As American as apple pie’, or so the saying goes. But what happens if the apple pie in question isn’t actually American? America is the source of many of my most beloved vintage recipes, especially puddings, and particularly pies. But the knock-on effect is that sometimes they can overshadow similar dishes that come from other places. The British apple pie is not quite an underdog in this fight, but it’s certainly less celebrated than its cousin from across the pond. It took a while for apples to take hold in the US. Only crab apples were native to America, and they were small and sour – no good for baking with.

As sure as eggs is eggs, what was once comfort food will be reinvented as fine dining. Lancashire hotpots will be turned fancy, served with teapots of lamb jus. Fish and chips will become canapés, spritzed with atomisers filled with malt vinegar. French onion soup will be served in teeny-tiny shots; Scotch eggs gussied beyond recognition. I once ate a (large and unwieldy) single bite of shepherd’s pie from a Chinese soup spoon at a posh party. Chefs just can’t resist the joke. Chicken à la king – chicken braised in a cream sauce with onions, mushroom and peppers – has gone in the opposite direction, from fine dining to comfort food.

The double-edged sword of eating with the seasons is the glut. A blunt, un-pretty word, which is a joy in theory and delicious in result, but which can feel daunting when you’re facing down a bench full of berries to be picked over, or countless apples to be processed. My husband and I were once given an apple tree as a present. It’s a multi-graft, meaning each of the three branches produces a different type of apple: russets, for storing, bramleys, for cooking, and tart eating apples. This is the first year that it’s thrown up more than three measly apples. Well, it’s made up for lost time; we are, to put it mildly, drowning in apples.

I admit to feeling a little intimidated by charcuterie. I have a clutch of books on my shelf all laying out in step-by-step detail how to craft your own salami or whip up a perfect pancetta. They’re well-thumbed, but not a single one has a cooking stain on it. I’m just too nervous when it comes to the scary stuff. I’m talking about the drying-sausages-hanging-from-the-rafters kind of charcuterie. I’m talking about jerry-rigging anti-pest guards to protect your hams. I can’t quite get past the fact that charcuterie requires hanging meat somewhere in my house, which feels at best frightening and at worst like I’m actively inviting botulism into my home. I’ll say it: I’m a charcuterie coward.

I am, for the most part, a rule follower and a people pleaser. It’s one of the reasons I love baking, which essentially amounts to a set of instructions designed to make something to be shared and bring joy. But if someone recommends something to me, I can be resistant to it for ages. The farcical element is that once I capitulate and try out the novel, TV show, restaurant or biscuit recipe, I inevitably discover that my tastes are extremely mainstream, and I love whatever it is. It took me years to listen to Taylor Swift before immediately accepting her greatness and becoming her no. 1 fan. There’s no good reason for this.

A few years ago, a friend wrote a cookery book for the UK market, full of gorgeous dishes, many of them esoterically British. It was snapped up by an American publisher who, as well as converting my friend’s careful metric measurements into loosey-goosey volume-based cup measures, queried a couple of her more British ingredients, one being golden syrup. My friend had a recipe for treacle tart which – as anyone who has made it knows – is just a whole tin of golden syrup held together with a handful of breadcrumbs and an egg. But golden syrup is hard to get hold of in the US. Her American publishers wanted to replace it with corn syrup. Now, corn syrup may look similar to golden syrup – they are both inverse sugars of a blond hue – but the taste is completely different.