Five Books for Food Book Lovers 2021

Here we are, entering another December with countries around the world in various stages of restrictions and lockdowns with the inevitable challenges a global pandemic entails.  At this time, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has found books more important to life than ever.  Here are my top 5 ‘food’ books for 2021.  As usual there are new ones, a book I’ve been wanting to buy for years, and one that has more than earned it’s place on my bookshelf over the, well, decades.  

First the recently published books, only one of which has actual recipes - partly due to the fact that a couple of others I might have bought have not yet appeared in the bookshops I’ve been supporting.  Maybe I’ll find them in 2022:

English Pastoral by James Rebanks

English Pastoral by James Rebanks

James Rebanks' follow up book to his phenomenally successful The Shepherd’s Life, English Pastoral,  takes you behind the beautiful scenery of the Lake District into the raw realities of life in one of our rural farming communities.  It chronicles three generations of a family and their life on a Lake District farm starting with the author’s Grandfather, working in an ancient agricultural landscape with a variety of crops, grazing land, meadows and hedgerows teeming with wildlife.  Rebanks takes the reader through the last days of working the land in harmony with nature, through the post-war decades of intensification of farming and the devastating effect it has had on the natural world.  By the time the author had inherited the farm, rural landscapes were being brought close to collapse and communities were being lost.  On the family farm stone barns had crumbled, birds had disappeared from the sky and wildlife had become a rare sight.  Rebanks looked to the past to try to restore life to the landscape - putting farming and nature back together is how he sees it - and leave a legacy for the future.  By restoring love and pride in a place, Rebanks believes it may still be possible to build a new pastoral, “somewhere decent for us all”.

James Rebanks has very firm views and not everyone agrees with his approach.  He has reintroduced native cattle to improve his pastures and under his stewardship there are wildflowers in the meadows, birds in the skies and wildlife in the hedgerows on a productive family farm.  His Instagram posts can make farming life look wonderfully bucolic, full of beautiful robust Herdwick Sheep and Belted Galloway cattle, but his words on the real state of farming in the UK and beyond can bring you back to earth with a thump.  He believes passionately that with respect for the old ways and understanding of the complexities of farming for the future, change is achievable.  This is a heartfelt cry for a healthier countryside by learning from the past to go forward into the future.

English Pastoral has already won the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2021 and it’s fitting that it was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2021.  An important work, beautifully written and destined to be a classic, I think. 

Eating to Extinction by Dan Saladino

Eating to Extinction by Dan Saladino

Eating to Extinction is subtitled ‘The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them’.  It is very much a book for our times, I feel and has parallels with my first book choice, English Pastoral.  Inspired by Saladino’s look into The Ark of Taste, an on-line catalogue for foods that are considered to be on the ‘Red List’, that is 'endangered/at risk of extinction'.  You may have - as I did - caught Saladino's BBC Radio 4 Series on this subject.  This book highlights how we are losing diversity in all the crops that feed the world and explains how a global food system that relies on a shrinking choice of plants and varieties is at great risk of succumbing to disease and pestilence.  We should all be listening to this.  And, at a time when science is making important connections between what we eat and how it can affect our physical and mental health, it’s a timely reminder that, as Saladino says, farming, food, environment, diet and health are all interconnected.  

It’s a shock to read that of the 6,000 plant species humans are known to have eaten over time, the vast majority of us now consume only 9 – rice, wheat and maize accounting for 50% of all calories we consume.  Fascinating to be informed that the stomach of a 2,500 year old man found preserved in a Danish peat bog showed his last meal had been a porridge made up of 40+ different plants.  And heartening to know that in the present day there is a community of hunter-gatherers in East Africa – the Hazda – who have a link with that peat bog man.  They eat from a potential wild menu of 800 plant and animal species.

Through chapters looking at Wild foods, through Cereals, Vegetables, Meat etc we are introduced to – and there will be foods here you’ve never heard of – Murnong, a nutritious root  from Australia; Kavilca Wheat from Anatolia; the Ugandan Kayinja Banana (how I’d love to eat a tasty banana again); and, Wild Forest Coffee from Harenna, Ethiopia.

Saladino makes it clear he is not calling for a return to “some kind of halcyon past”, rather he’s asking the reader to consider what we can learn from the past to go forward and “inhabit the world now and in the future”.  There is an Epilogue titled ‘Think Like a Hazda’, which poses the question: Are we being good ancestors?  One last quote from Saladino: “In an age in which not just food but the entire human experience is converging into a mass of homogeneity, the Hazda remind us that there are many ways to live and be in the world.”

An A-Z of Pasta by Rachel Roddy

An A-Z of Pasta by Rachel Roddy

First, I have to declare a little involvement in this book, in so far as I know the author, Rachel Roddy, and tested some of the recipes to get this book over the line in these strange and difficult times.  But I love this book and because of that I wanted it on my 'Favourite Books' page, so, what to do?  Put it on, of course.  Now you know my partiality and to continue reading or not is up to you.

This is a book about pasta, that most Italian of foods, written by an Englishwoman who has lived in Rome with her Sicilian partner for 16 years, time spent learning, cooking and eating pasta.  Like her previous two books, An A-Z of Pasta comes out of an inquisitive mind, a love of the food culture of Italy and a passion for pasta shared with its makers and everyone who cooks this staple food pretty much every day.  There are 50 of the hundreds of pasta shapes covered here and over 120 recipes - as the author says, she knows her limitations but she has put in the work and that shows through in this book.  READ MORE ...... 

This book was a gift from the author who is a friend.

The book I finally got round to buying:

Margaret Costa's Four Seasons Cookery Book

Margaret Costa’s Four Seasons Cookery Book

It took a spoonful of sublime Lemon Chutney to wake me up to the fact that although the name Margaret Costa was not unknown to me, there was none of her writing on my bookshelf.  And so I am now the owner of Margaret Costa’s Four Seasons Cookery Book, complete with that particular recipe.  First published in 1970, this was Costa’s only major book.  She died in 1999 but she remains hugely influential with fans like Simon Hopkinson, Nigel Slater and Delia Smith, who wrote the forward to my 2020 Grub Street edition.  

I love that the recipes in this book are presented by season – thinking of what foods are actually available in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter is fundamental to my own cooking. Like Costa I look forward to the first rhubarb and gooseberries of the year, the progression to summer and autumn arrivals, then the winter brassicas and root vegetables of winter.

Margaret Costa became known for her articles and recipes in The Times colour magazine, later writing for other publications like the American Gourmet magazine.  I knew her name mainly from references made by chefs and writers to dishes like Lemon Surprise Pudding (which you’ll find in the section on Winter, of course, when the new season citrus arrives); Sorrel Soup for Spring; Tipsy Cake (for Autumn); and, Kippers cooked in a jug of hot water to keep them juicy and leave no lingering smell (works a treat);

The recipes are straightforward, some classics, some shortcuts, all sound.  The book is already a favourite.  

Lastly, that book from my shelf which continue to be invaluable:

The Roux Brothers on Patisserie
by Michel & Albert Roux

The Roux Brothers on Patisserie by Michel & Albert Roux

First published in 1986, this book by brothers Michel and Albert Roux taught me how to make pastry, for which I will be forever grateful.  The Roux brothers shouldn’t need any introduction, so, I won’t spend time on that.  

The Roux Brothers on Patisserie starts with basic recipes for pastry and dough, sponge and dessert bases, creams, sauces, fruit coulis and jelly and proved to be a great education.  The book is stuffed with recipes for all the classic French Patisserie: tarts, cold and hot sweets & desserts, ice creams & sorbets, canapés & petits fours, tea & picnic cakes, and even a section on sugar work (not really my thing).

I have never come across a better recipe for a Tarte au Citron than the one in this book.  And while I cannot ever see myself making a Croquembouche, I can marvel at the photograph of the spectacular one in here and know it is not beyond possibility.  Invaluable.  

Looking forward to 2022 I have already pre-ordered The Last Bite: A Whole New Approach to Making Desserts Through the Year by Anna Higham (aka Anna at the Table) giving me something to look forward to in late Spring.

Whichever books you choose, happy reading.  

An A-Z of Pasta: Stories, Shapes, Sauces, Recipes by Rachel Roddy

An A-Z of Pasta by Rachel Roddy

First, I have to declare a little involvement in this book, in so far as I know the author, Rachel Roddy, and tested some of the recipes to get this book over the line in these strange and difficult times.  But I love this book and because of that I wanted it on my 'Favourite Books' page, so, what to do?  Put it on, of course.  Now you know my partiality and to continue reading or not is up to you.

Vermicelli with clams, courgettes, almonds  & breadcrumbs
An A-Z of Pasta

This is a book about pasta, that most Italian of foods, written by an Englishwoman who has lived in Rome with her Sicilian partner for 16 years, time spent learning, cooking and eating pasta.  Like her previous two books, an A-Z of Pasta comes out of an inquisitive mind, a love of the food culture of Italy and a passion for pasta shared with its makers and everyone who cooks this staple food pretty much every day.  There are 50 of the hundreds of pasta shapes covered here and over 120 recipes - as the author says, she knows her limitations but she has put in the work and that shows through in this book.

It's hard to think of a more travelled food than pasta.  How many millions of us around the world have a shelf full of packets of pasta shapes I wonder.  This book starts with a quick, practical guide pointing the reader to recipes to suit those shapes most of us habitually have to hand - invaluable for when the direction of dinner needs deciding pronto.  There's also a succinct explanation of fresh and dried pastas and how different flours and treatments produce particular shapes and textures suited to particular sauces.  Launching into the A-Z of Shapes, each starts with a Story which, for me, serves to enhance my appetite for the Sauces and Recipes that follow.  

Making Orecchiette
An A-Z of Pasta

What could be a better start than A for Alfabeto?  One of the tiny pastina that needs nothing but a good brodo to satisfy, be it a child chasing the letters to find its name in a bowl - there's a Story about that - or an adult savouring the delight of a good, simple broth.  I had a moment's disappointment when I saw the the lovely brothy Peas Roman Style with Anelli (little rings) hadn't made it to the final edit, only to find the recipe had shape-shifted to Q for Quadrucci (little squares).  M for Malfade comes with a helping of sobering history as well as tomato sauce and ricotta.  M is also for Maltagliati, the "badly cut" pasta, its lack of uniformity being one that we can all make with confidence and perfect to add to a Chickpea and chestnut soup.  V for Vermicelli evokes a visit to the church of Santa Maria dell'Orto marvelling at the stained glass and mosaics celebrating the Food Guilds of Rome and is simply matched with clams.  But V is also for the voluptuous Vincisgrassi, described by some as a "Baroque Lasagne" for the richness of its ingredients.  The version here is inspired by the dish that Ann and Franco Taruschio used to serve at the the iconic Walnut Tree Inn in Wales.  Having been lucky enough to eat it there once, this makes me very happy.

There's plenty of hand-holding on the subject of matching shapes with sauces and recommendations for the best alternative shapes to stop you chasing around looking for that elusive Mezze Maniche or Trofie when it's not essential to the dish.  The parts played by the geometry of the pasta and the geography dictating ingredients are touched upon.  Fresh and dried pastas all have their place here and tinned or frozen ingredients are not disparaged.  A lot of the recipes are quick and easy, yet you will find encouragement here too to make a time-consuming Tortellini - I've made it, I know - and you'll very much want to when you read about the 'snack' of Tortellini with Parmesan cream on page 314.

Tortellini in Brodo
An A-Z of Pasta

The design of An A-Z of Pasta is a treat, as you'd expect if you know the author's previous work, and Jonathan Lovekin's photographs are beautiful and devoid of artifice.  Saffron Stockers's design is elegant and perfect for the subject, with an egg-yolk yellow cover and delightful endpapers.  The dedication is simple and heartfelt  - 'To pasta makers and pasta eaters'.

Rigatoni/Paccheri with the sauce of Roman-style oxtail stew
An A-Z of Pasta

As I write, July has drawn to a close.  It should feel like high summer, yet the day's greyness wants me to turn to P for Pizzoccheri and make the dish of buckwheat pasta, potatoes, cabbage and cheese that would normally only come to mind in the cold months.  Or maybe the Rigatoni with with the sauce of Roman-style oxtail stew.  This is indeed the strangest of years, in so many ways, and comforting Recipes that come with helpings of Stories weaving in history, culture and everyday life are very welcome.  I'm pleased to have them on my bookshelf and, now, on my Favourite Books page.

This book was a gift from the author

An A-Z of Pasta: Stories, Shapes, Sauces, Recipes by Rachel Roddy

Published by: Fig Tree, Penguin Books

Five Books for Food Lovers 2020

Five Books for Food Lovers 2020

I really wasn’t sure I was going to compile a book list for 2020.  In this strangest of years, new publications have necessarily been rather low-key.  A shame for the new authors in particular.  But I took a look at what had caught my attention this year and thought; well, the stack is pretty damn fine.  So here it is.

There’s a book that will make you think about what is right under your nose; one that is a celebration of ten years of collaboration and friendship through food; and a Classic in a similar vein that was published almost 25 years ago.  There’s a myth-busting book to make you question what you are fed; and a guide to bread-making that will help you perfect that sourdough habit you acquired over the past 10 months when the kitchen took on more importance.

Nose Dive by Harold McGee

NOSE DIVE A Field Guide to the World’s Smells by Harold McGee

The ancient Greek word for smell or odour is Osme.  From this Harold McGee derives his word Osmocosm to describe the thousands of molecules that combine to make up our world of smells.  Smells from the routine - wet pavement or cut grass - through the remarkable - vanilla and truffles - to the challenging whiff of swamplands and durians.  The nice and the not so nice.  In this, his 4th doorstep of a book, McGee’s stated aim is to provide encouragement to become a “smell explorer” and enrich the food life of his readers.  

Most things in the world are made up of a mixture of molecules.  The distinctive smells of different foods come from their different combination of airborne molecules, known as volatiles from the Latin ‘to fly’.  A gooseberry smell is not just one smell but many. McGee lays down these smells as grassy, mushroom, pineapple, apple, and floral, and tells you what those molecule are if you want to know – hexenal, octenol, ethyl etc.  

But first, there’s a meal to be had.  In the Preface McGee recounts the experience of “My First Grouse” as a way of explaining the intense feelings and memories a smell can provoke.  In 600 pages he explains puzzles like why fermented anchovies smell of ham; how orange peel comes to have a waxy, paraffin odour; and why green tea evokes the seashore.  How our response to androstinone - the smell of sweat or pork - depends on our particular gene family and why some people dislike the sulphurous smell of coffee or onions and some don’t (depends on the amount of copper in your nose!)  You may never smell in quite the same way again.  This is a book to dive into if you are curious about “the world aswirl right under our noses”.  

Towpath by Lori de Mori and Laura Jackson

Towpath by Lori de Mori and Laura Jackson

A book of recipes and stories based on more than 10 years of cooking and friendships played out in and around the four tiny canal-side kiosks in north east London that make up Towpath, the cafe.  Co-owners Lori de Mori and Laura Jackson and their team serve up good unpretentious seasonal food in a unique setting with generosity and warmth.  The café is open only from late March to early November as its location is no place to linger after the golden autumn days are done.  The opening and closing of Towpath are seasonal markers for locals, though in this craziest of stop-start years our touchstones are somewhat skewed.  

This is a book a lot of people, in London and beyond, have been waiting for and it was well worth the wait, I think.  But this isn’t just a book for those who miss the cafe for those three months of the year.  There is writing and recipes to relish whether you know Towpath or not.  

Lori de Mori provides the ‘Stories’ in the book, and undoubtedly they will resonate with regulars in particular, but there is a love and appreciation of people on these pages that everyone can relate to.  And then there’s Laura Jackson’s food both comforting and full of interest.  Recipes for Peposo, a three-hour traditional Italian stew; a dish of braised lentils, beetroot and ricotta that is endlessly adaptable; and ones like Mozzarella, pickled radicchio and pangrattato that can be put together in a few minutes if you take Laura’s advice and get organised.  I was so happy to find Rosie Syke’s Egg & Bacon Pie in here, and the Armenian Spice Cake recipe Laura was given by chef Davo Cook (Moro, Bocca di Lupo and 40 Maltby Street) who I’ve missed so much since he returned to Australia.  Then there’s the Towpath breakfast dish of Fried eggs with caramelised sage and chilli butter which I intend to cook more than once over this strangest of Christmases.  Oh, and Asparagus with Ajo Blanco to dream about making come spring.  There’s a lot to love in this book.

Lulu’s Provençal Table by Richard Olney

LULU’S PROVENÇAL TABLE by Richard Olney

First published in 1994, Richard Olney’s ‘Lulu’s Provençal Table’ probably needs little introduction.  It’s a book most people interested in food and food books know about and speak of with fondness, some with reverence.  Well, it’s a Richard Olney, after all.  An American who moved to France in the 1950s, Olney studied and documented all he learned of the French cuisine and wines he loved so much in several books regarded as culinary classics. The book is Olney’s love letter to Lulu and the whole Peyraud family, owners of the Domaine Tempier Vineyard in Bandol, close to where Olney lived in Provence from 1961 until his death in 1999.  

Starting with an introduction to the Peyraud family, the vineyard and the wines, Olney soon moves on to the food cooked, at their home by Lulu Peyraud, from an appetising list of seasonal Provencal menus to Lulu’s Recipes – surely an influence on Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse menus. Waters was a friend of both Richard Olney and Lulu Peyraud and she wrote the Forward to this edition.  As the flyleaf states, “This is classic French country cooking, featuring everyday ingredients cooked with respect for their nature and flavour.”  The method and ritual of a dish of Bouillabaisse takes up 6 pages but all the simple classic dishes are here from Endives Braissées (Braised Endives) to Lapin à la Moutarde (Rabbit Stew with mustard).  At the heart of Lulu Peyraud’s kitchen were local ingredients – some grown, some found in the surrounding countryside, and those bought straight from the fishermen’s landings or butchers’ slabs.  

It’s a book for romantics but could also be a book for our times, I think.  It was a huge omission from my bookshelf, and one I was determined to correct this year.  Lulu Peyraud died in October this year at the age of 102.  

Spoon-Fed by Tim Spector

SPOON-FED by Tim Spector

The sub-title of this book, “Why Almost Everything We’ve Been Told About Food is Wrong”, makes clear this is a myth-busting work.  Here, Tim Spector, Professor of Epidemiology and expert in personalised medicine and the gut microbiome, examines the lack of good science behind many medical and government food recommendations.  He also looks at the enormous influence the food industry has over our food policies.  

Starting with the myths around food we grew up with – fish is brain-food, meat gives you big muscles, never skip breakfast, etc – which are not backed-up by science.  He goes on to explain why calorie-counting doesn’t add up, examines our obsession with vitamin supplements, the rise in sugar-free (artificially sweetened) foods, and the demonisation of coffee, meat and alcohol.  There’s a chapter on the importance of food for mood as well as physical health; one on why veganism isn’t the healthiest choice; and another on why local food isn’t always the best choice (a tough one for me to face up to).  

The conclusion is a chapter on How to Eat – a mere 10 pages plus a 12-point plan that takes up a whole page and ends with the encouragement to ‘educate yourself and the next generation in the importance of real food’.  The book covers a lot of ground in about 240 pages and recognises not everything is black and white.  However, by informing ourselves and questioning what we are told, we are better equipped to make our own choices rather than swallow those food fads and myths we are spoon-fed.

The Sourdough School by Vanessa Kimbell

THE SOURDOUGH SCHOOL

When I started making my own naturally leavened bread I relied completely on the Tartine Bread book – yes I did make the starter, which took 9 days.  I put my faith completely in Chad Robertson’s uncompromising method of bread making.  And the results were mostly pretty good.  But, as with most subjects, one book and one point of view is not enough.  I needed another to help me understand better what was going on - why a loaf didn’t always turn out the way I expected it to and what I could do to achieve consistency.  This led me to Vanessa Kimbell’s The Sourdough School book – published in 2017 and the book my fellow-bakers invariably recommended.  Not only does the author go into plenty of detail about Starters, Leaven, Mixing, Proving and Baking in step-by-step sections but also she tackles digestibility and nutrition issues that have a bearing on our gut microbes and health.  The recipes take you from the basic Classic white sourdough boule through to much more interesting bakes like Smoked kibbled rye & wild cherry.  There are also plenty of ideas for using ‘discard’ starter, which no bread baker likes to waste.  Helpful and inspiring.  

Happy reading, whatever books you choose this year.

NB. All books were bought

Strudel, Noodles & Dumplings

Caraway Dumplings with spiced carrot
from Strudel, Noodles & Dumplings

I’ve followed Anja Dunk’s Instagram site for quite a while and, like many others, have been charmed by the posts of her cosy, sometimes chaotic kitchen and dining table.  This is no temple to marble and stainless steel, but a true home kitchen.  Jam pans bubble on the stove; sturdy shelves are a backdrop, packed to capacity with hand-made bowls and jars of essential nuts, dried fruits, pulses and grains; tiny hands reach across the table for another helping of Schmarren (baked pancake).  Anja is warm and engaging on social media and this comes across in this, her book, Strudel, Noodles & Dumplings and it’s good to see that her own photographs illustrate the book.  

She tells of a nomadic childhood, where the food that came out of family kitchens was the constant in daily life, in particular the “pared-back” and “do-able food” of her German Mother.  And now, with her own children to care for, it’s this food with a warm sense of family that she brings to her kitchen to instil the association between food and home in them too. But don’t think this is a book about ‘food for children’ - whatever that means.  The recipes are laced with flavours of caraway and cumin, tarragon and dill, peppercorns and juniper, allspice and anise.  Ferments and pickles have their place too.  This is food served up to an appreciative audience of children, family and friends.  Each section comes with a short story or anecdote to set the scene to chapters including Simple Comforts, Food for  the Soul, Anything Goes, and Something for the Weekend.

Merguez sausage with butter beans & roasted red peppers
from Strudel, Noodles & Dumplings

The book is subtitled The new taste of German cooking, making the point that, as with many other European cuisines, German food has been influenced over time by migration and trade.  In parallel with Britain, German food has also had to shake off an unfair 20^th century reputation for poor food caused by wartime food rationing and the introduction of new, usually American, processed foods that followed.  Both countries have, thankfully, regained their culinary equilibrium.  Germany has also remained true to its strong sense of food seasonality, its love of baking and myriad ways of preserving from smoking to bottling.  Anja sums up home-cooked German food as “gently spiced, smoky, buttery, yet sweet and sour”, as “warm and hearty and vinegar-laced”.  All of this is in the book, along with a sprinkling of inspiration from three enthusiastic little eaters.  

Reibele in a herby pea broth
from Strudel, Noodles & Dumplings

So what have I cooked?  An unusually good (for me) carrot harvest led me to Caraway Dumplings with spiced carrot.  With such a basic main ingredient I made sure I used a good passata that became lusciously thickened by the topping of floury dumplings.  A small amount of Speck, or smoked bacon in my case, and a good dose of sweet paprika added deep savour.  As I’m a sucker for broths,  Reibele in a herby pea broth was an obvious choice.  Any recipe that calls for frozen peas and lots of herbs is going to get my attention too.  But what is Reibele, you may ask?  A tiny grated noodle that cooks in a minute.  I made the egg-less version and can’t say I found grating the noodles easy (I suspect I didn’t knead the dough enough) but they cooked up just as the writer said they would.  Such a simple recipe does rely on a good vegetable stock and not stinting on the herbs.  Merguez sausage with butter beans and roasted red peppers has been on the menu several times already, which says it all.  The main ingredients are further spiced up with cumin (optional but not in my case), black pepper and sweet paprika and piled on toasted bread then tempered with a herb yogurt.  Only one sweet dish so far, though a couple of jars of rum-laced Not Just a Strudel Filling has saved the day several times.  Used as a filling for buckwheat pancakes, a topping for Pain Perdu and simply topped with vanilla ice cream.  And I still haven’t made Apple Strudel with it.  But then there are four other Strudel recipes to consider, including a Spiced Plum and Walnut at some point.

My Pain Perdu with 'Not just a Strudel filling'
from Strudel, Noodles & Dumplings

It’s so obvious that the dishes in this book have been made over and over again.  This is no-nonsense home cooking by someone with a great understanding of flavours and how spices work together.  Every recipe I’ve tried so far has worked perfectly.  Other recipes I have bookmarked include Beer Dumplings with creamy juniper mushrooms, Chestnuts with mushrooms and marjoram, Baked Buckwheat with cinnamon sugar and cream, Steamed Dumplings with plum jam and poppy seeds, Strawberry and cinnamon soup, Blueberry Buttermilk and that Schmarren, of course.  And I look forward to a Four O’Clock Cocktail of Black Tea with Rum after a long walk “in the depths of winter when the air is crisp and bodies are drawn to each other in a huddle”. 

Strudel, Noodles & Dumplings
by Anja Dunk

Strudel, Noodles & Dumplings: The new taste of German cooking

By AnjaDunk

Published by 4^th Estate

Anja very kindly sent me a copy of this book.  

Buckwheat pancakes filled with autumn

Buckwheat pancakes with apple and raisin compote - add walnuts if you like

 One of the joys of taking on an allotment plot is the things you find not only on other plots but in the unworked spaces around them.  I’ve written before about the walnut tree, discovered thanks to the unearthing of a squirrel's larder, but it remains one of my favourite finds.   Clearly a young tree, untamed by any human hand, once again this spring I watched soft buds emerge from grey branches that, through winter, looked and felt iron-hard and unyielding.  Within a few weeks the lower branches began to drape into the surrounding long grass like the elegant arms of a dancer reaching for the ground.  The beauty of the tree is not only in its looks.  Those low-hanging branches make for easy harvest of its fruits.  Around the end of June, when the outer casings were a smooth, bright green and still releasing a resinous aroma.  I harvested just enough young walnuts to fill a large Kilner jar.  *Quartered, they showed themselves to be at the perfect stage - the inner sweet nut soft and not quite formed.  They relaxed in a bath of cheap vodka, some sugar, lemon peel and a few spices for six weeks on my balcony.  Passed through muslin, the deep brown liquor now sits in the deepest recess of my larder, not to be touched before Christmas arrives.  Then a rich vanilla ice cream will be calling for an anointment of luscious, sticky, bitter **Walnut Liqueur. 

Green (unripe) Walnuts

The walnut tree seems so quintessentially English, yet it’s a non-native tree.  Brought by the Romans, the tree Juglans regia is here at its most northerly reach.  The common name of 'English Walnut' for the tree is used here to distinguish it from the American 'Black Walnut' but it originated in China and south-east Europe.  Our recent warmer summers have seen the trees fruiting better than ever.  This week I took another bagful of walnuts from the tree.  Their casing now a softer, rougher green but not yet peeled back exposing the hard, brown under-layer we are more familiar with.  These are at the 'wet' stage.  Peeling back their green jackets and cracking them open now reveals a fully formed, slightly tacky nut.  We will eat some over the next couple of weeks, enjoying their sweet, almost milky taste which pairs so well with salty sheep's milk cheeses.  If there are any left I will dry them for storing by leaving the husk-less nuts spread in a single layer in a warm, dry place for two weeks.

Wet Walnuts

I promise, while I've been doing this squirrelling-away, I've made sure to leave plenty of walnuts for the birds, and the squirrels.

Here's one of the dishes I'll be using the dried nuts in:

Buckwheat pancakes with apples, raisins & walnuts

(pancake mixture makes around 12 x 20cm thin pancakes)

For the pancakes:

120g buckwheat flour
50g plain flour
pinch of salt
1 medium egg
175ml full cream milk + 175ml water
30g melted butter

For the filling:
About 500g of warm apple compote and a handful of raisins
(peeled and chopped apples cooked down with a knob of butter and sugar to taste depending on the type of apples, then add the raisins while the apple is still hot)
a handful of shelled walnuts, roughly chopped

Combine the flours and salt.  Make a well in the centre and add the egg and a little milk then start to draw in the dry ingredients to the wet, adding more of the milk and water gradually until you have a smooth batter.  Add the melted butter and mix in.
 
Lightly butter a 20cm heavy-based frying pan and heat to medium-hot.  Keep the heat at this level throughout.  Pour in enough pancake mixture to quickly swirl it around the pan and lightly coat it and cook until the underside is lightly browned. This is a sacrificial one as the first pancake is always poor so discard it.  Add just a little butter before cooking each pancake.  Pour about 2-3 tablespoons of batter into the pan and quickly swirl it around the pan to coat it thinly.  Brown lightly and turn the pancake to lightly brown the other side.  Repeat the process and when each pancake is light browned on both sides add it to a plate and keep warm in a low oven until you have used up all the mixture.

Spoon some of the warm apple and raisin compote onto each pancake and add some of the chopped walnuts folding the pancakes over.  Serve with cream.

Note:
*Always wear gloves when handling walnuts that have their green outer casings intact as the tannins are highly staining.

**David Lebovitz has a recipe on his website for Liqueur de Noix.  In Italy it is known as Nocino and my go-to recipe can be found in Kitty Travers's brilliant book on the subject of ice cream, La Grotta Ices.

Fresh India by Meera Sodha

Fresh India
by Meera Sodha

My bookshelves are light on Indian food books.  I love Indian food and relish it when someone who really knows what they are doing cooks it for me.  However, I've always been unconvinced that I can get the spicing right.  I think I do a reasonable Lamb Rogan Josh. This, I feel sure, would qualify as one of those dishes "swimming in brown sauce" which is far removed from the "fresh, vibrant and seasonal" Gujarati ones in this book.  I have a more than acceptable Chicken Biryani in my repertoire, thanks to the cook and food writer Sri Owen (yes, I know Sri Owen is Indonesian but she knows her way around a number of cuisines).  It comes with a long list of spices and yogurt for saucing and made me appreciate how subtle Indian spicing can be.  But it's the incredible range of vegetarian dishes which have come out of India that I most enjoy, and most want to be able to cook. My copy of Madhur Jaffrey's, admittedly weighty, World Vegetarian can only give me a glimpse of India.

Finally, I've found a book that is giving me the confidence to cook Indian vegetarian food myself. Fresh India by Meera Sodha is a follow-up to her well received first book Made in India.  It is informed by her family's Gujarati background, which is still a strong influence even though she grew up in a farming village in Lincolnshire.  Ready access to fresh, locally-grown seasonal vegetables and the Gujarati way of "creative, fresh and always vegetables first" when cooking chimes with my own way of thinking and cooking - goodness knows I have access to enough vegetables.  In line with the Gujarati cuisine ethos, born out of necessity, of using what is fresh and grows nearby meant a life in rural England offered up potatoes, leeks, corn, chard, cauliflower and more greens.  These ingredients are what Meera Sodha's mother turned to for her "vegetable-first" way of cooking and many take a starring role in Fresh India.

I'm not a vegetarian, but like so many others now, meat plays a small roll in my, and my family's, diet.  There's an emphasis on seasonality, a desire to "honour the seasons" which I am personally committed to - irritatingly so to some, I suspect.  I am lucky enough to be able to grow vegetables on my allotment and, when you grow, you can never have enough recipes for vegetables.  There's even a roundup of recipes here "for allotment gluts".  The recipes are also presented as "quick" and "easy". So, on flipping through the pages in the bookshop, Fresh India appealed to me on so many levels.

There are 'Starters + Snacks' based around irresistible Indian street food dishes expertly prepared by the 'one-man' stallholder - like New Potato and Chickpea Chaat, and Beetroot Pachadi.  There are really simple dishes: Smashed Jerusalem Artichokes with butter, pepper and garlic, perfumed with cumin, ginger and coriander stems and Gujarati Corn on the Cob Curry with peanuts for taste and texture.  I subscribe entirely to the writer's view that when you want to eat simply, "not much beats a tangle of soft buttery cabbage with sweet caramelised onions and crisp potatoes ..".  Savoy Cabbage, Black Kale + Potato Subji with a suggestion to serve with a fiery pickle and hot chapattis, dal or rice in the chapter 'Gloriously Green' is right up my street.  There's a chapter on Salads, despite the fact 'Kachumbar' (generally chopped cucumber, tomatoes, green chilli and lime) until recently was almost the only Indian idea of salad.  Here the writer uses her imagination for what Indian salads could be with appetising ideas like Fennel + Apple Chaat with caramelised almonds or a Hot Green Bean, Cashew + Coconut Salad.

Maharajah's Rice
cooked from Fresh India by Meerha Sodha

Eggs + Cheese (mostly in the form of paneer) are major sources of protein and here we are offered Akoori - the Parsi take on scrambled eggs; a Mumbai classic, Eggs Kejriwal - which brings to my mind a kind of Welsh Rarebit topped with a fried egg; and Sticky Mango Paneer Skewers.  Of course there are chapters on Pulses and Rice with recipes like Pumpkin, Black-Eyed Bean + Coconut Curry; sweet and creamy Bengali Coconut Dal; a Daybreak Kedgeree (kitchari) which I very much want to make; and a Maharajah's Rice which I have made - beautifully, subtly spiced, pretty as a picture and delicious.

There are recipes for all those moreish Indian breads - Roti, Paratha, Naan, and Dosa - and guidance for what each is best with; and a lovely sounding recipe for breakfast Banana and Cardamom Buns.  In a section on Pickles, Chutneys + Raitas, Mysore Lemon Pickle sits happily with Rhubarb + Ginger Chutney.  Puddings that particularly appeal are Pan-fried Pineapple with Cardamom Ice Cream and Salted Jaggery Kulfi with Bananas.

At the moment, I'm working through the book one dish at a time, excited at the prospect that one day soon I will manage to produce the bread, pickles, chutneys and raitas that I'd like to accompany them.

I love that Fresh India carries none of the usual blurb from others.  For me, this is a confidently written book that stands on its own merit.

Fresh India by Meerha Sodha
Publisher: Fig Tree London

Two Kitchens

Peaches poached with rosé and honey
Two Kitchens - Family recipes from Sicily and Rome
by Rachel Roddy

First things first; I know the author of Two Kitchens - Family Recipes from Sicily and Rome.  I also tested some of the recipes in the book before publication.  This review is, naturally, informed by both.  I hesitated to write it but how could I not when Simon Hopkinson, no less, says "Rachel Roddy describing how to boil potatoes would inspire me.  I want to live under Rachel's kitchen table.  There are very few who possess such a supremely uncluttered culinary voice as hers, just now".  I agree completely, so, here is my review.

Born and raised in England, Rachel Roddy took flight to Sicily 12 years ago with a vague idea of finding a Caravaggio, a volcano and a degree of equilibrium.  Needing to learn the language, she went to Rome.  Here she found her balance in an area of the city called Testaccio - in the day to day life of its people; in learning more than just the language but the habits and traditions; in finding love with Vincenzo, a Sicilian no less; and in becoming a mother to Luca.

Panelle di Fabrizia made to the recipe in
Two Kitchens - Family recipes from Sicily and Rome
by Rachel Roddy

Rachel Roddy's second book, Two Kitchens - Family Recipes from Sicily and Rome is a closely linked follow-up to her award winning Five Quarters - Recipes and notes from a kitchen in Rome and, again, you get so much more than just recipes.  This time we join her in both Rome and Gela, the little town which guide books advise you to drive straight past.  To Rachel it is "... full of disrepair and despair but quietly beautiful and intriguing if you give it time ...".  It is Gela that blew away any romantic ideas about Sicily for the author - the utopian Mediterranean holiday island is a far cry from real life in the south east corner of the island.  Poverty, dilapidation and bad agricultural practices are a fact of life that are not glossed over in the book.  Yet the way of life in Gela has captivated her.

Pesce alla Ghiotta made to the recipe in
Two Kitchens - Family recipes from Sicily and Rome
by Rachel Roddy

"Ask someone to show you how to cook something and there's a good chance you will get more than just a recipe.  Recipes live in stories .....".  It's this approach to everyday life that enables Rachel Roddy to bring her Italian and English food worlds together.  In Five Quarters it was the lives of her friends and neighbours in Rome that inspired her writing as she got to grips with cooking Roman food.  Here, in Two Kitchens, she immerses the reader once again in her Roman life interweaved with the kitchen in Gela which for so many years was the domain of Sara, Vincenzo's Nonna.  Each year now the family returns for sojourns in Sicily to unlock the house, pull up the blinds, and stand at the faded, slightly sunken marks in the kitchen, testimony to Sara's long hours at the stove preserving the harvests of Sicily.  In this tiny space she made bread, preserved the tomatoes, reduced wine dregs to must, and salted ricotta into a hard grating cheese that would keep.

Much of the book is devoted to life on Gela, even though the town's central market is long gone. These days the produce borne out of hard work on the land is sold on street corners and pavements, at front doors and from garages.  It is available for what seems like a pittance to a non-Sicilian.  Here, the food they eat is the food they grow - intensely flavoured tomatoes, dense and creamy aubergines, cucuzze squash greens,  onions "the size of frisbees", honeyed figs, peaches that go from perfectly ripe to mush in hours, and grapes "that burst in your mouth and taste almost drunken".

La torta salata di Carla made to the recipe in
Two Kitchens - Family recipes from Sicily and Rome
by Rachel Roddy

So, what of the recipes?  This is straightforward, family cooking that follows the seasons and the author is generous in crediting sources and influences.  They are rich in vegetables, pulses and fruits, are adaptable and need little in the way of equipment to prepare.  This is reflective of the way the author lives and cooks in a small flat in Rome and a little ramshackle house with a tiny kitchen in Gela.  Whilst respecting the traditional ways of both, the recipes are her own interpretations of what she has learned - "anarchic, resourceful and personal".

The book is structured as: Vegetables & Herbs; Fruit & Nuts; Meat, Fish & Dairy; and Storecupboard.  Within these chapters lies the essence of the food of Rome and Gela.  A Sicilian dish of Pasta chi vrocculi arriminati (Pasta with cauliflower, anchovies, saffron, pine nuts and raisins) is high on my list of 'must cook'.  Peaches poached with rosé and honey is the dish I prepared just before sitting down to write this review.  With skins removed, in the Sicilian way, they were as soft and pink as a baby's bottom, luscious and lightly perfumed with bay leaf.  It's a recipe I know I'll reach for every time those first irresistible, though not quite ripe, peaches of the season arrive.  I'm already hooked on Pesce alla Ghiotta (Fish in spicy tomato sauce with capers and olives), a dish from Messina which was traditionally made with swordfish but which is adaptable and, in my experience, particularly good made with salt cod.  Oh, a and I badly want to make Salsiccia alluvia e cipolla (Sausages with grapes and red onions) straight out of Middle-Eastern influenced Sicilian cuisine.

Pesce al forno con le patate made to the recipe in
Two Kitchens - Family recipes from Sicily and Rome
by Rachel Roddy

In the Meat, Fish & Dairy chapter you'll find Pesce al forno con le patate (Baked fish with potatoes) with a method straight out of the kitchen of the wonderful Carla Tomasi; and a recipe for Brutta ma buoni (Ugly-but-good) biscuits which are great for using up leftover egg whites and feed my love of hazelnuts.  From the Storecupboard chapter I would bring to your attention Zuppa di lenticchie e castagne (Lentil and chestnut soup) - sweet, nutty earthiness in a bowl which I will be eating through the coming winter; and Pasta, alici e cipolle (Pasta with anchovies and onions) because it's an irresistible combination.  

I urge you to start cooking from this book with the first recipe I tried: Panelle di Fabrizia (Fabrizia's chickpea fritters) - "Ideally the first one should be so hot that it sizzles in your mouth".  Just the best thing to get you into the rhythm of this book.   The very last recipe comes as a surprise as it's the very English Queen of Puddings.  It's there not just as a gratuitous link to the author's Englishness but an example of how she sees the connections that are constantly bringing her Italian and English Food worlds together.  In this case, a Sicilian ricotta, lemon and breadcrumb cake brought this classic English pudding to mind and provides a sweet ending to the book.

Brutta ma buoni made to the recipe in
Two Kitchens - Family recipes from Sicily and Rome
by Rachel Roddy

The introductions to each chapter, and to each of the sections within, are evocative and full of warmth, wit and understanding.  Every chapter makes you feel you are there; chatting with Filippo at his stall on Testaccio market and sampling the peas he has grown on his farm near Scauri; reassuring Rosa that whatever her husband Giuseppe is growing and hauling back to her garage shop is exactly what you want to buy; glimpsing private lives through the ubiquitous 'curtain doors' in Gela; or teaching English to enthusiastic five year old Romans using the language of food.  If I use this book half as much as I use Rachel's first, Five Quarters, it will have earned its place in my little kitchen.

Peaches poached with rosé and honey made to the recipe in
Two Kitchens - Family recipes from Sicily and Rome
by Rachel Roddy

Read Two Kitchens and you too will "want to live under Rachel's kitchen table".  As I said, I have a little partiality about this book but can such respected food voices as Simon Hopkinson, Anna del Conte and Jill Norman be wrong?