Crumbs on the Table -- stories about food

South African malva pudding with coconut and rum

November 18, 2019 Leave a Comment

Malva pudding is a ubiquitous winter pudding in South Africa, filling the same kind of niche as sticky toffee pudding does here in England. It was offered to us almost everywhere we ate when we visited last May, from Grahamstown to Cape Town, and was so deliciously more-ish that we invariably took up the offer, and thus had the chance to sample at least six variations in people’s homes, casual eateries and a slightly fancier place or two. What they all had in common was a down-home comfort-food quality, thanks to a richly gooey sauce that’s poured over while the pudding is still warm, to soak into the spongy cake-like pudding, which is itself light, sweet, and always, always, we were told, made using a spoonful or two of apricot jam.

The version of malva pudding we enjoyed the most was made with the addition of coconut and a little rum, so I worked at re-creating it once we were home in England, despite the fact it was summer in our hemisphere. I took it up in earnest again recently when the cold, wet weather rolled in, and I have to say, it helps…. [Read More…]

Bonfire Night: food cooked over fire

November 2, 2019 Leave a Comment

[This story was one of the series of Food Essays I wrote and broadcast this year for the food programme, Flavour, on Cambridge 105FM Radio. You can hear the whole programme here; my 15-minute Bonfire Night essay starts about 26 minutes in. It tells something of the colourful history of this British holiday, and ponders the connection this celebration has with our evolution and learning to cook over fire. The full text of my story is re-printed here.]

When I first came to England many years ago, I confess to finding Bonfire Night, with its typically drizzly fireworks and cold burgers on soggy fields — not to mention the burning of a Catholic effigy – rather uncomfortable and bewildering. It seemed to bear little relation to the Halloween revelries I was accustomed to, though it occupied a similar place in the calendar; and though I understood that it meant something special, I couldn’t quite fathom what.

A couple of years ago we joined friends in the countryside for Bonfire Night, and it was the first time this strange English ritual really touched me, and I did not expect this.

[Read More…]

Tuscan-style grape and walnut harvest bread — and a batch of grape jelly

October 20, 2019 Leave a Comment

We inherited a grape vine that has produced a few small clusters of grapes most years, which have mostly stayed hard and green, not even attractive to the birds. Thanks to our extraordinary summer last year, we actually had a harvest of ripe, dark purple grapes, which deserved some kind of attention, even though they were still not sweet enough for table grapes. We also had a bumper harvest of walnuts for once, getting a fair share with the squirrels, who normally scoff the lot. This year too we managed a decent harvest of both, despite a disappointing August. Maybe last year’s turbo-charge of heat gave both tree and vine enough encouragement to stretch themselves and try again. [Read More…]

The British apple and its orchard heritage

October 5, 2019 Leave a Comment

[This year I’ve had the pleasure of doing a series of Food Essays for the food programme, Flavour, on Cambridge 105 Radio. You can hear the whole programme here; my 15-minute apple essay starts about 13 minutes in.

The full text of my apple story is reproduced below, along with some of the apple photos I’ve taken at apple days, roadside stands, and local orchards.]

New Jersey apples at a Gloucester County roadside farm shop

In rural south New Jersey, where I mostly grew up, apple orchards surrounded us with miles of fruitfulness and roadside stands. I remember the openness of the space where they grew, and the smell of apple — of Winesap and Macintosh, and the cool mustiness of what we called the Cider Place, where we’d get gallons of dark juice, and apples by the bushel: how good it tasted to drink down icy cold; how joyful it was to crunch down to the core. We grew up with the beauty of apple blossom, and the life of the orchards: old wood crawling with beetles and rich with mosses and lichen; wildflowers, bees and birdlife, and of course the excitement of seeing those hard green pippins plump and ripen into autumn, when their appley scent was carried in the air with leaf mould and wood smoke, and the deer would get drunk on fermenting windfalls.

When I moved to England many years ago I learned that the British lay claim to the apple as their own in a way as elemental to them as my childhood ownership of apples was to me. The apple runs deep in the national psyche, and while most of the world has a claim to the apple, Britain can make a convincing case for a distinctive, if not exclusive, relationship with this immensely varied fruit. [Read More…]

Mint sorbet

July 26, 2019 Leave a Comment

Phew, it’s hotter than something that’s really hot. Cambridge reached 100F yesterday, and had the distinction of being the hottest place in the UK, on a day that had its own dubious distinction of being the hottest July day on record.

It’s a little cooler today, so I am able to venture safely into my rather stuffy study (we don’t do air-conditioning in this country) and tell you how we got through yesterday. It was all thanks to regular scoops of this life-saving tissue-restoring mint sorbet. Thank you, thank you to this glorious herb, and to the freezer. [Read More…]

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