Olivia Potts

I am sure there are beloved British dishes that inspire horror in those from different cultures, that are truly unappealing to the uninitiated. I can quite imagine that the bright green eel-gravy that traditionally accompanies the East End pie and mash could be figuratively and literally hard to swallow for a visitor. Or that our predilection for Yorkshire puddings – glorified pancakes – on our very savoury roast dinners and a desire for strong cheese served with fruitcake make us seem as mad as a box of frogs. Vitello tonnato might be called the original surf and turf.

Standing in the biscuit aisle of my local supermarket, I’m overwhelmed by possibilities. This isn’t unusual for me, but normally it’s fuelled by greed, and resolved by buying them all. Today I have to make a choice. I am making an American icebox cake, which requires a lot of one type of biscuits, and the structure and flavour of the whole cake depends on them. As befits a no-bake dessert, the process of making it is a cinch The problem is that the three most popular biscuits for the pudding are not easily available here: graham crackers, Oreo thins and Nabisco chocolate wafers. I almost feel relief when I discover that the classic icebox biscuit, the Nabisco chocolate wafer, was discontinued last year.

The Americans are weird about salad. I’m sorry, but somebody had to say it. Really, their use of the word ‘salad’ needs scare quotes around it. Where we generally mean ‘green leaves, and possibly a tomato if we’re feeling adventurous’, an American ‘salad’ can mean anything from pistachio cream with glacé cherries to tuna in sweet jelly. It is a hangover from the middle of the last century, when – in a perfect confluence – canned goods, especially otherwise unavailable fruit, and mass-produced gelatine simultaneously became easily available. The American housewife ran with it, and inexplicably called it a salad. Salad can be maximalist, with everything thrown at it. Bacon! Anchovies! Grapes! Marshmallows!

There are many old dishes in the UK that are hyper-regional, whose reach has never extended beyond geographical boundaries but remain much loved where they originated. Yorkshire curd tart is a good example: it is barely known beyond God’s own county (or God’s own four counties, which now technically make up what we think of as Yorkshire). There is no good reason for this – Yorkshire curd tart is just a delicious well-kept secret. The tart enjoyed its heyday in the 17th century, when most families would have kept their own cow It was traditionally baked for Whitsun, or Pentecost, the day the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus’s disciples. Curd tart is literally a moveable feast, as its date depends on that of Easter itself.

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been… too long since my last confession. Picture the scene. I am in the kitchen, almost literally spinning plates. I should have been focusing, prioritising the bits that needed to get done, keeping an eye on the clock. Instead I’ve been mucking about, making an unnecessary batch of cookies, re-testing some buns that almost certainly didn’t need it, but I fancied baking. And I’ve lost track of time. Emerald, gleaming with oil, slightly textured and bursting – bursting – with flavour I’d volunteered to do lunch earlier in the day when my husband had mentioned that he was in back-to-back meetings with a breakneck turn-around lunch break. Now here he is: ‘OK, here we go, I have 20 minutes for lunch!

I am evangelical about scones as a gateway bake – they are the perfect entry point for the nervous baker. They don’t require any nonsense. Rubbing the butter and flour together by hand and stamping the dough out is straightforward; and as long as a scone is risen and golden-topped after baking, then you’re fine. But more than that, if you can bring a scone dough together – and you can, I promise – then you can bring any pastry dough together. I’m not suggesting you open a pâtisserie while your first batch is still in the oven, but rather that scones can be a confidence-builder for the novice baker, in a way that biscuits, cakes and brownies can be quite the opposite.

Whenever I think of steak tartare, I can’t help but remember a heartbreaking passage in Nigel Slater’s memoir Toast. Slater, working at a French restaurant in a Midlands hotel as a young man, is desperate to try the steak Diane. He books a table there for himself and a date. In a moment of madness, he accidentally orders the steak tartare instead. Expecting a rich, cream-spiked, butter-fried, brandy-flambéed steak, he is first surprised, and then horrified when a waiter begins chopping up raw meat alongside him. ‘I felt cold, then hot, then cold again. The little egg yolks seemed to be looking up at me, laughing. Then everyone was laughing.’ He goes outside and faints.

I have a complicated relationship with elderflower cordial. I love taking ingredients that have short seasons, preserving and squirrelling them away for future enjoyment. And I’m cheap, so the fact that the main component comes from the hedgerow is appealing. And it’s fun! It is a little like making a potion, dunking whole heads of flowers into an enormous pan and then leaving it to steep for days, before bottling it. Magical. But the truth is, I really don’t like drinking the cordial. It is too floral, too perfumed, too green. It’s just not for me.

We all have our quirks when it comes to cooking. I have clear mental blocks over what is and is not a complicated supper, many of which do not follow any kind of logic. I wouldn’t think twice about setting a sauce or ragu going early in the day, blipping gently, returning to it every so often for a stir and a taste, knowing that it will take hours and not inconsiderable attention before it is ready. I don’t mind at all making dough which will need proving and shaping as the afternoon wanes. I even find the act of slicing or chopping various different components meditative. The result is neat little parcels of golden-brown crunchy breadcrumbs encasing chicken, cheese and ham But there are processes that set off klaxons in my head: warning, warning, avoid.

I have become obsessed with the French idea of goûter, the time in the afternoon when French schoolchildren have a sweet treat to tide them over from the end of the school day until dinner. It’s just teatime, really, a pause for an afternoon snack – my kid has the same, but we don’t have such an elegant word for it (and his tends to be a gobbled Babybel, and rejected cucumber sticks, which is far less fun) – but giving it its own distinct name and place in the day is charming.