This silly pun came into my head the other day for some reason, but it made me think – old Proust was right wasn’t he ? The taste of madeleine biscuits transported him to his youth and there are so many foods that trigger memories of my past.
One of my first memories of food – and indeed anything – was when we lived in the flat above a bank on Ramsden Square in Barrow-in-Furness, when I said “that meat is very bloody Daddy”, playing with what I knew was a swear word even at the age of 6, but that it was OK because the raw joint was exactly as described. Cooked meat was never bloody in those days 😊 I don’t recall how that roast tasted but I do remember many other meals that Mum cooked regularly:
- breast of lamb, a young, tender, boned (mainly but some small ones got through occasionally) piece of meat that was laid flat, smeared with sage and onion stuffing, rolled and roasted. Very rich, but also crunchy bits on the outside and absolutely delicious
- heart, usually lamb, but occasionally pig, well cleaned out and tubes removed, stuffed with sage and onion again, placed on a square of foil with a knob of lard, seasoned and then a rasher or two of streaky bacon wrapped round of it before being wrapped and roast. A strange texture, but again, delicious.
- We had other offal too, Dad liked chitlings (best with added straw – ugh), faggots and tripe that I hated, but I enjoyed kidneys in steak and kiddle-i pie (don’t you mean kidney ? I said kiddle-i diddle-I ?) or even better S&K pudding made with suet pastry; liver, usually over-cooked but it laid the foundations for my enjoyment later of Fegato alla Veneziana; kidneys on their own, particularly chicken, either in pate or fried (I remember a spectacular dish of chicken livers fried and topped with a fried egg in a hotel in Vienne after a long day’s drive across France) and regrettably, foie gras.
- Sunday roasts of all sorts, usually small and never pink – but there were always leftovers that served for Monday and if there was a bone that would go into a stockpot. 70 years ago chicken was far too expensive but gradually became more affordable – but it always had a hint of the sea about it though from the cheap fishmeal they were fed, so not that nice.
- Sometimes the leftovers were served as curry made with curry powder and a few fried onions and always raisins for some reason – not authentic at all but very enjoyable and laid the foundations for more exotic versions (once I’d got past the Vesta dehydrated versions).
- There were other stews and casseroles – Lancashire hotpot was particularly good – all starting with cheap pieces of meat and vegetables cooked very well, long and slow with the aforementioned stock.
- When we had Sunday lunch at 81 Bull’s Head Lane (maternal grandparents Fell) Grandma Ada (Sussex born and bred) always had to do Yorkshire Pudding for Granddad Lionel who hailed from Dronfield and that was served ahead of the main meal with gravy to fill you up, just as pasta does in Italian cooking. I can smell it now and hear Billy Cotton’s Bandshow on the wireless.
- Tinned tuna served hot with home made parsley sauce and mash, cheap, but filling and tasty.
- Proper home made fish cakes with salt and malt vinegar and slabs of bread and butter to make sandwiches – a favourite for Saturday tea on our laps with Doctor Who. An alternative would be sausages with tinned tomatoes.
- All sorts of sweets and desserts, especially bread and butter pudding and of course Mum’s legendary mince pies that nobody can come close to. Her pastry was so short it crumbled as you looked at it but tasted divine.
Dad also cooked, but usually only breakfast at weekends. I especially remember one morning before Jon was big enough to come with us, just the 2 of us went out early to pick field mushrooms which we then had for breakfast. A feast ! Funnily enough I picked a big flat mushroom in the garden today (Aug 3, 2023) and had it fried with bacon and some butter and that was almost as good as the memory. Back in Coventry we had various forays to find mushrooms – once memorably at Avon Dassett where as we were driving home I saw some white objects in a field so we stopped and looked and they were mushrooms the size of dinner plates – we had one each for tea – epic ! I also found a spot near Stoneleigh that often had them so I would cycle there (only 30 minutes each way, thought nothing of it) at the end of the summer holidays when everyone else had gone back to school except us Grammar School boys, and come back with a basket full.
Dad always grew vegetables, in the back garden at the house in Ormsgill and in his allotment at the end of the street when we moved to 104 Strathmore Ave. He often chose quantity over quality though so the broad beans were very strongly flavoured and we didn’t know to peel the outer layer off – it was a revelation to try the Ceriana specialty of young tender fave shelled and eaten raw with salami as an antipasto. What a treat as all the best seasonal foods are for example asparagus bought at the farm gate (or briefly from the garden when we had our own asparagus bed). Similarly Dad’s runner beans tended to be a bit too old and stringy, but they are still a favourite vegetable to grow myself as there is nothing like them picked fresh and not too big. Similarly for purple-sprouting broccoli (not Calabrese Vib) and early potatoes.
Dad also astonished me one morning when I was about 10 and we were staying in a hotel when he ordered smoked haddock with a poached egg. Fish ? For breakfast ? Now a firm favourite as well as kippers (that love passed on to Vic), and a appreciation of fish generally including skate which we also had today and other seafood. If I had to choose between fish or meat for the rest of my life it would be a tough decision.
Once I left home I started to broaden my tastes and was always willing to give new things a try, first on holidays to Spain although I only really remember the Sangria and churros on the beach at Estartit on a Club 18-30 holiday. Then when I worked in the South of France for 2 months in the early 70s I discovered bouquet de crevettes, at the Neptune on the beach at Cagnes-sur-Mer – a bunch of lovely cooked prawns, served cold with properly crusty baguette, butter and mayonnaise just made with fresh eggs and olive oil. My god what a treat. Snails too with garlic butter and fish soup with aioli. I also found the Auberge de Vieux Cagnes, where Berle would turn you away if she didn’t like the look of you, but I was introduced by a regular and advised to come on a Friday night which I did for the next 8 weeks. It was always paella (I hadn’t discovered it in Spain and have never had as good out since anywhere). A huge pan just to myself, washed down with lashings of white wine. Dessert was a sorbet, either lemon or orange, served frozen into a scooped out fruit. And then blue cheese and walnuts with brandy. I have no idea how I got my MGB to the place through the narrow streets, or indeed how I drove home either. There was another restaurant at the top of that village that made a classic Coq au Vin too and later I discovered l’Oursin (sea urchin which I tried) in ANtibes with wonderful seafood, especially seiches a l’Armoricaine.
Having tasted Nice, I really wanted to work there full time so kept asking for transfers and finally in 1975 I landed a job at TI HQ. Just before I was due to leave though I was asked if I’d divert to Rieti “just for a couple of months” to stand in for the DP manager who’d resigned and while they found a replacement for him. Inevitably it lasted much longer for which I am eternally grateful.
I didn’t think so at first though. I moved there in January ’76. There was no snow on the mountains and I really didn’t like the food as I had no background of eating pasta and really didn’t like tomato based sauces (and still don’t much). The food in the canteen at lunchtimes was awful and I subsisted on thin soup with bread and lost a lot of weight – Mum wore one of my shirts from those days for many years afterwards and it wasn’t too big for her. Eventually though I fell in love with the place, initially through skiing and found the dishes I did enjoy
- Abbachio arrosto at the Calice d’Oro (Golden Chalice) restaurant at the Miramonti hotel – a very small lamb roasted so crisp outside but still juicy in the middle
- Roast suckling pig that of course led to my love of porchetta and the offerings of the Incubo da Peppa man (Peppa’s nightmare).
- Any number of dishes at Mariachi’s restaurant, but especially Linguini alla Monte Rosa – only done when Mamma could get the freshest ricotta which also had sausage in it and something else I don’t recall possibly a dribble of tomato paste to make it pink. I’ve never found it anywhere else or online. Also pappardelle with ham, pea and mushroom or pasta with just a blue or white cheese sauce. Meats were a pork chop, saltimbocca or scallopine always with spinach and saute potatoes. Always finished with a caffe Livronese – hot espresso spiked with San Marzano liqueur It had a reaction with the spinach sometimes so you couldn’t delay getting home – another reason for weight loss maybe 😊
Another favourite restaurant was Valentinos at Vazzia crossroads where the eponymous owner had a huge open fire that he’d grill meat on, all kinds of sausages, chops and steaks. We often went from work on a Friday lunchtime esp. in the colder months and there would be a table of us expats and a table of Romans next door on the way to skiing in Terminillo and Valentino would always charge them twice what he did us ! We went back to Valentino’s a few years ago and amazingly he was still there, very old and tucked into a corner next to the fire. We said hello and I’m sure he didn’t recognise us after 30+ years, but he recommended the spaghetti carbonara dish to me which was a favourite of mine there too, so maybe…
Another Friday lunchtime favourite in the summer was Il Grottino where Paul and I used to like to have trout and a bottle or 2 of wine. We also liked to drive out to Isola del Giglio in his little Alfa – 3 of us squeezed, in, but my legs worked back then and bent in the right places. There I discovered the wonderful seafood of Italy including spigola, fritto misto, octopus and squid, spaghetti vongole and cozze impepata.
Paul had always said it was a shame I hadn’t been in Rieti earlier when an English girl had worked there as he thought we’d have got on. I followed in this girl’s footsteps in many respects, starting out at the Miramonti and then living in the same little flat in Lisciano. Eventually this girl rejoined TI in Rome and was sent by her boss to meet me to discuss automating his reports and that’s how I met Vib !
She was my introduction to Roman cooking (and nightclubs and Negronis) including deep fried artichokes and pizzas near Piazza Navona. Eventually we moved into a house together in Rieti and a fond memory was a lunch we would have at least once a week, scrambled eggs on bread toasted on the gas hob and hard unsalted butter, eaten on a little terrace in the sun outside the kitchen. Vib also introduced me to cinnamon toast, the first time I’d had anything like pain perdu – stale bread soaked in a milky mixture (no eggs she tells me), sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon powder and fried in butter. Luxury from humble ingredients and quicker than pancakes.
Then I experienced a Clark traditional Danish Christmas Eve – sild and schnapps, roast pork with crackling, red cabbage, roast potatoes and gravy and lots of wine, followed by rice pudding with one hidden almond and a marzipan pig to the person who found it (always the newcomer amazingly). What nights they were. And still are as we continue the tradition with our children and grandchildren and her siblings and neplings.
A brief interlude in Texas where about the only thing to enjoy food-wise was the beef, chicken fried steak and surf and turf – still the best lobster ever with the warm clarified butter and lemon.
I also used to enjoy the Taco basket at the Spring Creek canteen with all the Mexican foods mixed in, but I was never that keen on that cuisine even when introduced to the real enchilada by a Mexican girlfriend on a visit in 1973. Wasn’t so keen on the Thanksgiving dinner that year though – some weird combinations for an English palate.
Back home we stole from all these recipes and either cooked them as we remembered them or modified them slightly to our own tastes. My steak pie now has no kidneys in, and uses beer rather than red wine as the cooking liquid. Long and slow is still the secret and I even taught this to Italians at the informal occasional Ceriana cookery classes in the Vecchia Fattoria, showing them my method for preparing the meat etc and putting it in the oven from which I whipped out two I’d prepared earlier. It seemed to go down well – Italians are always polite about your food, but all the plates were cleared too which was a good sign. While preparing the two-I-made-earlier at the restaurant, Fabio (the boss, although Maura might disagree) returned with a haul of porcini mushrooms which he proceeded to clean and slice and cook breadcrumbed – ambrosia.
We loved several dishes there although they were sometimes hit and miss – the pizzas of course, stinco (a pork knuckle cooked while the pizza oven cooled down overnight and even better than the schweinshaxe that I loved in Munich), ravioli in a sage and butter sauce and their hot and cold antipasto from sea and land.
Simon and Rach had their wedding reception there and we had 8 courses, not including the antipasti that were ready when we arrived. Everything was delicious and spread out over several hours with speeches between courses (not inter-course speeches) it was not too long. Well lubricated too of course with Pimms and prosecco to start with and then red and white wine. When doing the planning with them we chose the wines and then asked how many bottles per table. They didn’t understand the question. We explained. What do you mean – we replace a bottle when it is empty. But these are English people. No matter, they said and did what they promised and it was all extremely reasonable.
Specialties of the Liguria region which we love include deer, rabbit and wild boar. The first time I cooked the latter I asked Daniele our builder (most men in Italy are good cooks too as well as their womenfolk) for advice. There was lots of stuff about making sure it was dry before sealing the chunks of meat but it was basically my stew recipe. “Make sure though to put in walnut as it takes away any bitter taste”. I followed instructions and D. asked me the next day how it was. “Delicious, thanks for the advice, and the chopped walnut disappeared completely”. “Chopped ? You’re supposed to put a whole walnut in it still in its shell !”.
I also experimented with paella on an open wood fire and it is the best way as Thomasina Miers said. And then I built an outdoor wood oven and we perfected the art of pizzas with lots of advice from Dami’s family and friends. One of the best meals though was cooked the next day in the still warm oven when we put a joint of veal in first thing in the morning and it was perfectly cooked for lunch.
Vib also learned how to make excellent farinata which we still enjoy, but not torta verde so that’s a treat for when we go back.
So much delicious food – no wonder I am overweight especially as I love potatoes: roast, boiled, new slathered in butter, jackets, mash – are you noticing a butter theme here ? (a bit of mash fried and added to a fried bread, egg and bacon sandwich really makes a difference too), shepherd/cottage pies, chips, saute, boulangere, lyonnais, pommes anna and also potatoes in moussaka using the Patrick Leigh Fermor recipe.
Very little processed or ultra-processed ready-meal type food. Mainly prepared from scratch with lots of fresh veg, ideally grown ourselves, either simply prepared or more elaborate such as melanzana parmigiana or the aubergine crisps that Vib is cooking as I type that we loved at Lithero in Lourdas. And of course the ‘cellos, starting with the standard limoncello, but then adapted to use limes, oranges, raspberries and the best of all cherrycello that we made again this year with wild fruit from our old garden.
And still so much I’ve left out – Rijstaffel in the Netherlands, authentic Malay food in Borneo, Thai, Japanese and Indian dishes, Ottolenghi, Hungarian food and esp. roast goose first eaten one Christmas with Jon and Sheila. I’d have it every year if it just went a bit further than 4 people 😊
Cake, fruit, mmm cake.
Bon appetit !
rtilbury 