A trip to Riverford

It’s been a busy few weeks, not much time for cooking, eating, or writing about either. But, two weekends ago, we were in Devon for the weekend and made a detour on the way home to visit Riverford. Imagine my excitement. 

First, though: we stayed at Combe House, just outside Honiton, and had a happy Saturday morning poking about their vegetable garden. I was amazed at how many summer vegetables they had, despite the lateness of the season. Amongst the kale, savoy cabbages, leeks, purple sprouting broccoli, rhubarb and artichokes outside, there were also salads, tomatoes and grapes in the greenhouses. There was also a particularly lovely quince tree trained against a sunny wall.

We had dinner here late on the Friday night after an epic five-hour drive from London. The menu is based largely on what comes out of the garden, and we did see someone harvesting greens for Saturday’s dinner. The food was good, but I’d say a touch too fussy: one too many flavours and reductions in each dish for my liking. For example: a wild mushroom and porchetta mille-feuille with strips of crispy pancetta and some sort of sauce that I can’t remember (so far so good) served with deep-fried foie gras bonbons (no no no). It was an unnecessary flavour and extravagance and only detracted from the dish. With ingredients this good and fresh, why bother? And I have unpleasant memories of eating foie gras bonbons at Le Moulin de Mougins on honeymoon – for me, they will always taste of being horribly ripped off. 

No such problems at Riverford. I approached it as a pilgrim on the hajj might approach Mecca for the first time. We came upon a group of grey sheds and barns in a fold in the Devon hills, misted over with fine autumn rain.

We mastered the audio player, turned the map the right way up and set off on a self-guided tour of the farm, narrated by Guy Watson. If anyone reads the weekly letter that comes with the vegbox (also reproduced on the Riverford website), you’ll be familiar with his sanity-inducing style. We visited the pumpkin patch and learned all about the clover that was sown in one field as part of the traditional crop rotation that ensures the soil’s fertility. 

There were lots of fruit bushes that were more or less finished, but a few raspberries remained. We were encouraged by Guy Watson to sample them, which we did. (I wonder how many conventional farmers would encourage or even allow you to taste things in the fields, for commercial or health-and-safety or even toxicological reasons?)

Anyway, it was a bit wet and we were a bit weary, so we headed back to the Field Kitchen for lunch. This was fantastic and I’d highly recommend it to anyone, with or without doing the farm tour. We had roast lamb with at least six different vegetable dishes – fabulous sweetcorn, greens, two salads, beans – all superb, followed by delicious puddings. Perhaps it was the freshness or the way they were prepared; they were undoubtedly the stars. My husband said they were the best vegetables he’d ever had, better than mine (you could hear the gauntlet crashing down) so it’s back to the Riverford cookbook for me. 

After lunch I crossed the ‘No unauthorised personnel beyond this point’ line and went for a nose around the packing sheds. A nice woman not unreasonably stopped me and asked me what I was doing, then explained to me where all the produce came in; where it was chilled, sorted, packed and then sent out in the boxes. I’m sad I didn’t get a picture of one of the huge Riverford articulated lorries as they were rather splendid. 

It was everything I expected it to be (and the food more so) and yet I felt slightly underwhelmed as I left. Why? Perhaps because it’s not such a mystery after all – a bit of land, a lot of hard work, a big shed and some lorries – it all seemed rather prosaic. But then maybe that’s a cause for celebration. After all, if there’s no big magic or mystery to it, and it’s a business like any other, they could be leading where others soon will follow.

It’s Sloe Time

As Bob Fosse almost said. Last weekend we went for a good forage in Sussex. We were overwhelmed by nature’s bounty – hedgerows literally bursting with blackberries, hips, haws, sloes and elderberries.

Elderberries

Blackberries

Sloes

A bunch of sloes hanging like grapes

 

We limited our harvest because I was too busy this week to do much with it – we ate the blackberries as we went along, and collected about a kilo of sloes. The more challenging hips, haws and elderberries I left for the birds. 

At home, I made half the sloes into jam. I haven’t tasted it yet, but I fear it will be quite bitter – no wonder I couldn’t find a recipe. (I suspect that, if they were any good for jam, someone else would have discovered this before me, hence no recipe). The rest went into gin. I decided that the orange-peel experiment of April wasn’t a success (it just tasted like Cointreau), so I went for the pure recipe: 450g of sloes and half their weight in sugar for every litre of gin. Pricked, sealed, inverted, labelled, left: perfect. 

 

This year's sloe gin

Starbucks: The Way I See It

This morning, I was on the phone arranging a meeting for Friday. We agreed to meet near St Paul’s tube, where there is a run of coffee shops: Starbucks, Pret a Manger and a few others. We have a problem in that I won’t drink Starbucks coffee and he won’t drink anything else. He said, that’s ridiculous; I said, how can you? It tastes like pencil sharpenings. We resolved to meet in Starbucks for the WiFi, but I would buy my coffee in Pret first. 

Anyway, the point is this: my dislike of Starbucks is based on more than the taste. I was once in Des Moines, Iowa, and I saw something on the side of a Starbucks cup that summed it up for me. I kept the cup and brought it home and it’s been sitting at the bottom of my desk for several years. Here it is. 

 

Read that small print. What does that say to you as a customer?

It say to me “Here’s a quote from a musician. If you like it, support Starbucks further (by listening to our radio station and increasing our audience numbers.) If you don’t like it, it’s simply the author’s opinion and has nothing to do with us.” 

Isn’t this the problem with big food corporations? They’re jolly enthusiastic about the positives (happy customers, good music, big profits) but refuse to take responsibility for anything negative – even something as small as someone objecting to what you print on your cups.

Julie & Julia

To the cinema to see the eagerly-awaited Julie & Julia. Well. It’s a lovely film. Lots of food, France, New York, writing – all my favourite things. And refreshing to see good marriages and supportive husbands depicted for a change.

But I feel a bit self-conscious. It’s not just the slightly obsessive cooking and photographing of food, or the delight in visiting Julia Child’s kitchen at the Smithsonian in Washington. It’s the bit where Julie wonders if anyone is reading her blog, then gets very excited when she gets a comment: “Julie, this is your mother. I am your only reader.”

Damson Cheese

Despite my enthusiasm for damsons, by Wednesday they were starting to go mouldy in their dish. 

I found a recipe in the River Cottage Seasons cookbook for damson cheese – essentially quince cheese (membrillo) but with damsons. It’s the same procedure as for jam-making (cook the whole fruit down to a purée with a few tablespoons of water, then push through a sieve to remove stones and skin, return to the pan with 350g sugar for every 500ml of purée and cook down till gelling) except you just cook down for longer until it’s really thick and sticky. I then poured it into a small Tupperware tub to set, and apparently it keeps in the fridge for up to a year. 

It has the same grainy texture as membrillo, but I can’t tell you much about the taste as I have a stinking cold and can’t taste anything. It looks pretty. 

 

Harvest Festival

Or, a super-market sweep. Today, at the farmers market, more cobb nuts, plums, damsons and lots of apples including Worcester Pearmains, Spartans, Red Windsors and Bramleys. 

Also, at The Mushroom Table, there was some wild Chicken of the Woods; a completely different muchroom to Hen in the Woods, apparently more like breast meat than the brown meat. 

Me & Jane

The only problem with box schemes and farmers (I’ve given up trying to decide about the apostrophe) markets is that cooking and eating can get a wee bit monotonous. I end up doing the same things over and over again. So, inspired by the idea behind the forthcoming Julie & Julia, I thought I might try cooking my way through Jane Grigson’s English Food, in the hope of expanding my repertoire.

First up tonight: unlikely sounding white soup. I used the end of the cobb nuts supplemented by a few blanched almonds. 

 The result: delicate, pale, quite creamy and rich, old-fashioned. Good, but I don’t know that I’d rush to repeat it. 

Cobb Nuts

Quelle excitement – yesterday there were cobb nuts on the Perry Court stand at Notting Hill Farmers Market. Never having had one before, I had to buy a bag. I looked them up and apparently they’re related to hazelnuts. They come in fat four- or five-fingered stars, and, once peeled and bashed open with a pestle, they yield a deliciously fresh creamy pale soft nut. V.G. 

Two Cork markets

Last Monday, we went provisioning in Cork, and headed straight for the English Market. I used to get really excited by this market when I first went there, about five years ago. It’s true that the southern-most aisle, the fish aisle, is similar to the great Spanish city centre markets. It’s not as beautiful as the Eiffel-built fish market in Jerez, for example, but the range and freshness and presentation are excellent. And then there’s Kathleen Noonan selling pigs’ tails and trotters (corned crubeens), along side more normal cuts of pork. 

I wasn’t quite brave enough to buy these (all that fat and cartilage puts me off) but I did have a normal ham and a couple of ham hocks from her, both of which were excellent. There is also the fabulous, fabulous butcher O’Mahony, from whom we have had excellent lamb (their own) on several occasions. The man in my picture is the fourth generation O’Mahony on this stall. It’s just by the southernmost of the Grand Parade entrances, and really worth seeking out. 

O'Mahony Butcher, English Market, Cork

But with those notable exceptions, I’d say this market is not quite as excellent as I used to think it was. There are several vast chicken units, none of which look anthing but industrial, and an awful lot of alarmingly red beef. All the fruit and veg look fairly shabby, with more Kenyan French beans in evidence than Ballycotton potatoes. There is one organic stall near the Princess Street entrance, but in another place I asked where their free-range eggs came from and they couldn’t tell me. Hmm. I don’t shop here often enough to know if it’s cheap or good value, but I bought much less here than I was planning to, simply because lots of it didn’t appeal. 

No such disappointment at the Mahon Point Farmers Market on Thursday. Unlike the English Market’s vaulted halls, this market takes place in a windswept shopping centre car park, just off the N25 as you drive east from Cork airport. Glamorous it isn’t.

 

But this is the real deal. There were many stalls I recognised from the Midleton market, including Dan Ahern’s beef, Arbutus breads and the Gubbeen smokehouse, as well as two fresh fish stalls, some people just selling tomatoes, or courgettes, or spinach and lettuce, a man from Ballycotton selling ducks, chickens and duck liver pâté (I bought one of each), fresh pasta, lots of cheese, Ó Conaill chocolates, a basket of chanterelles, an organic veg stall where they could tell me what was Irish and what was imported … I could go on. Everyone I spoke to could tell me where the stuff came from, how it was made, how long since picking / packing / baking / making / catching / slaughter. We’ve been eating it all weekend and it’s all been great, with no exceptions. 

I tracked down Rupert Hugh-Jones who runs the market, and he told me that there was a waiting list of 300 people who wanted stalls in the market. He said that footfall in the shopping centre was up 40% on Thursdays because of the market, and he reckons 80% of the people who shop there are regulars (not holiday makers like me). They try to get enough of a mix in the market so you could do you whole weekly food shop there. Even better, he said they didn’t think the recession was having much of an effect, as people were keener to shop locally and support local producers in the down turn. 

All fabulous news; long may it last.

Mackerel Fishing (1)

Yesterday we tried to go mackerel fishing. We bought a feathered line of hooks and a rod in Youghal, assembled them, and set off for the beach. We noticed some depressing nylon netting washed up on the beach – it this the stuff they call gill nets and causes so much damage? 

We found a big rock and cast off. 

The line snagged on something; Mr Donald was dispatched to investigate. 

It was stuck fast; we had to return at dead low tide with a pair of scissors and cut the line free. 

We are going to work on our technique.