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Osaka: the world’s greatest food city

July 13th, 2009 | No Comments

There are at least a dozen very good reasons why author and blogger Michael Booth rates Osaka number one. Which city would you rate your gourmet great?

Simple question: what’s the most greatest, most exciting, most dynamic food city in the world today, the culinary It City of our age?

Paris is past it (going to a restaurant shouldn’t be like going to church). London isn’t quite there yet (where’s the street food?). Hanoi, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Shanghai and most major Indian cities will all have their advocates, but is the refinement there? New York is always going to be in with a shout but its great strength is its immigrant cuisines: it lacks an indigenous food culture. Sydney is stuck in the 90s, Lyon in the 1890s, and, as far as I’m concerned, to be a real contender the food roots have to go deep, so that rules out places like Vegas and Cape Town. The market’s nice, but I’ve never had a good meal in Barcelona and though Copenhagen may be flavour of the month, a couple of good restaurants do not a global food capital make.

At the risk of alerting John Crace, I have a new book out, ‘Sushi and Beyond – What the Japanese Know About Food‘. So you’d probably expect me to go with a Japanese city, but it’s not Tokyo or Kyoto that I pine for on a daily basis, but Japan’s often overlooked third city, Osaka.

I originally went to Osaka on the recommendation of Anton Ego – the restaurant critic in Ratatouille (or rather François Simon of Le Figaro, on whom, rumour has it, Ego was based). I interviewed him a few years back for one of those ‘Can Paris Still Cut the Mustard?’ type pieces (answer – ‘no’) and was surprised to hear this most chauvinistic of food writers dismiss my adopted home city out of hand, and plump for Osaka instead.

I booked my flight soon after and found a city fit to burst with incredible places to eat, from the dazzling depichika basement food halls (the greatest food shows on earth), to the exuberant restaurant quarter of Dotonbori, to the top end places like Kahala, a tiny, exclusive counter restaurant beloved of Tetsuya Wakada.

This is a city entirely at ease with its culinary identity but open to foreign influences (in this case, largely Korean), with several unique dishes, and a population possessed of an admirable gluttony for life. They even have a word for their insatiable gluttony, ‘kuidaore’, meaning ‘eat until you burst / go bust’.

The city has an irresistible triumvirate of highly addictive, indigenous fast foods: okonomiyaki (thick, filled pancakes, made with yam flour batter, seafood, pork and kimchi); tako yaki (octopus doughnuts); and kushikatsu (deep fried, breaded skewers – invented at the restaurant Daruma, and much loved by Ferran Adrià, so the chef there told me), each of them slathered in a sweet, savoury, mahogany-coloured sauce. And let’s not forget that kaiten sushi and instant ramen noodles were both invented in the city in the same epochal year (1958 – the latter are rather better than Pot Noodles, I should add).

This is also where you’ll find the world’s greatest (largest, most expensive, best equipped, toughest etc) cooking school, the Tsuji Culinary Institute; and a fish and produce market to rival Tsukiji.

Beat that, Ludlow.

So, I’ve nailed my culinary colours to the mast. Which city would you rate your gourmet great?

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds


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Osaka: the world’s greatest food city

July 13th, 2009 | No Comments

There are at least a dozen very good reasons why author and blogger Michael Booth rates Osaka number one. Which city would you rate your gourmet great?

Simple question: what’s the most greatest, most exciting, most dynamic food city in the world today, the culinary It City of our age?

Paris is past it (going to a restaurant shouldn’t be like going to church). London isn’t quite there yet (where’s the street food?). Hanoi, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Shanghai and most major Indian cities will all have their advocates, but is the refinement there? New York is always going to be in with a shout but its great strength is its immigrant cuisines: it lacks an indigenous food culture. Sydney is stuck in the 90s, Lyon in the 1890s, and, as far as I’m concerned, to be a real contender the food roots have to go deep, so that rules out places like Vegas and Cape Town. The market’s nice, but I’ve never had a good meal in Barcelona and though Copenhagen may be flavour of the month, a couple of good restaurants do not a global food capital make.

At the risk of alerting John Crace, I have a new book out, ‘Sushi and Beyond – What the Japanese Know About Food‘. So you’d probably expect me to go with a Japanese city, but it’s not Tokyo or Kyoto that I pine for on a daily basis, but Japan’s often overlooked third city, Osaka.

I originally went to Osaka on the recommendation of Anton Ego – the restaurant critic in Ratatouille (or rather François Simon of Le Figaro, on whom, rumour has it, Ego was based). I interviewed him a few years back for one of those ‘Can Paris Still Cut the Mustard?’ type pieces (answer – ‘no’) and was surprised to hear this most chauvinistic of food writers dismiss my adopted home city out of hand, and plump for Osaka instead.

I booked my flight soon after and found a city fit to burst with incredible places to eat, from the dazzling depichika basement food halls (the greatest food shows on earth), to the exuberant restaurant quarter of Dotonbori, to the top end places like Kahala, a tiny, exclusive counter restaurant beloved of Tetsuya Wakada.

This is a city entirely at ease with its culinary identity but open to foreign influences (in this case, largely Korean), with several unique dishes, and a population possessed of an admirable gluttony for life. They even have a word for their insatiable gluttony, ‘kuidaore’, meaning ‘eat until you burst / go bust’.

The city has an irresistible triumvirate of highly addictive, indigenous fast foods: okonomiyaki (thick, filled pancakes, made with yam flour batter, seafood, pork and kimchi); tako yaki (octopus doughnuts); and kushikatsu (deep fried, breaded skewers – invented at the restaurant Daruma, and much loved by Ferran Adrià, so the chef there told me), each of them slathered in a sweet, savoury, mahogany-coloured sauce. And let’s not forget that kaiten sushi and instant ramen noodles were both invented in the city in the same epochal year (1958 – the latter are rather better than Pot Noodles, I should add).

This is also where you’ll find the world’s greatest (largest, most expensive, best equipped, toughest etc) cooking school, the Tsuji Culinary Institute; and a fish and produce market to rival Tsukiji.

Beat that, Ludlow.

So, I’ve nailed my culinary colours to the mast. Which city would you rate your gourmet great?

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds


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Kidney’s Law: Broad beans

July 11th, 2009 | No Comments

Sonya Kidney picks the jewels of the UK summer and shows you how to cook them


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Take your pick

July 11th, 2009 | No Comments

There’s a fresh fruit tart to suit all tastes in summer, says Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Last week, I shared my foolproof pastry shell for the perfect savoury summer tart. This week, I’m giving you a beginners’, intermediate and advanced guide to sweet tarts, with an easy galette, grated sweet pastry and the classic sweet pastry we use for most fruity tarts at River Cottage – and I’m afraid that last little showstopper breaks a lot of the rules I mentioned last week.

You can create a fruit tart for every season – stored apples and pears in winter, roasted rhubarb in spring, plums back to apples in late summer/ autumn … But it’s summer when we have an embarrassment of choice, with ripe raspberries, strawberries, apricots, cherries, currants of all colours and blueberries, so make the most of them while you can. And just as I like adding herbs and cheese to pastry for savoury tarts, there are a few extras you can add to sweet crusts to make them even more delicious – vanilla seeds with just about anything; orange or lemon zest for summer fruits; a pinch of nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon or even cardamom adds an extra dimension to autumn tarts.

You know last week, when I said the butter had to be as cold as possible? Forget that for a moment – for the raspberry tart case, I cream together softened butter and sugar for a meltingly tender crumb. I hope you’ll give it a try, and have a stab at making pastry cream, too, though if you’re in a hurry, simply fill the shell with lightly whipped cream, perhaps with some lemon curd folded in, and pile the fruit on top.

As an added extra, let’s have a little competition: send me a tart recipe of your own devising, along with a picture, and if I really like it I’ll put it on the menu at the River Cottage Canteen in Bath (full details on rivercottage.net). The winner and a friend can then come to see if it’s up to scratch. Let the baking begin …

Blueberry galette

Try this with the first tart blueberries of summer – due any day now – and adapt for sliced dessert apples in early autumn. Serves six to eight.

For the pastry

200g plain flour
1 tbsp caster sugar (or vanilla sugar)
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1 good pinch salt
100g unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small cubes
1 tbsp double cream, chilled
2-3 tbsp iced water

For the filling

400g blueberries
3 tbsp caster sugar (or vanilla sugar)
8-10 large leaves lemon verbena, finely shredded (optional)
25g unsalted butter, chilled and cut into chunks
1 tbsp cream or milk
1 tbsp granulated sugar

In a food processor, pulse the flour, sugar, lemon zest and salt until well combined. Add the butter and pulse until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add the cream and just enough water so the dough holds together; form into a ball, wrap in clingfilm and chill for two hours. Place between sheets of baking parchment lightly dusted with flour and roll out into a circle of about 32cm diameter. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and chill for 15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5.

Put the blueberries in a bowl, toss with the sugar and lemon verbena, and leave to macerate for 10 minutes. Pile the berries in the middle of the pastry, leaving an 8cm border around the fruit. Scatter the butter over the berries and fold over the pastry to envelop the fruit. Lightly brush the pastry with cream, sprinkle over the sugar and bake for 25 minutes, until light golden. Serve at once.

Cherry tart

A wonderful variation on an apricot tart we made when I worked at the River Cafe. Makes one 28cm tart.

For the pastry

350g plain flour
1 pinch salt
175g unsalted butter
100g icing sugar, sieved
3 egg yolks, lightly beaten
1 vanilla pod, split
Egg yolk, to glaze

For the filling

200g unsalted butter, softened
200g caster sugar
4 medium eggs, lightly beaten
1 tbsp kirsch (optional)
250g ground almonds
50g plain flour
450g cherries, stoned

Pulse the flour, salt and butter in a food processor until they resemble coarse crumbs. Add the sugar, then the egg yolks and vanilla seeds. Pulse until just combined and pulling away from the edge of the bowl. Wrap in clingfilm and chill for two hours. Preheat the oven to 180C/ 350F/gas mark 4.

Coarsely grate the pastry into a 28cm loose-bottomed flan tin that’s at least 4cm deep, and press evenly into the sides and base. Line with clingfilm or greaseproof paper, fill with baking beans and chill for 15 minutes. Bake for 20 minutes, lift out the paper and beans, brush the base with a wash of egg yolk and a little water, and bake for five minutes. Remove and set aside to cool.

Turn down the oven to 150C/300F/ gas mark 2. To make the filling, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add the eggs a bit at a time, beating after each addition, then stir in the kirsch. In a separate bowl, whisk the almonds and flour, then beat into the butter mixture.

Spread the almond paste in the tart shell and arrange the cherries over the top. Bake for a further 40 minutes, until puffed up and golden.

Raspberry tarts

If you really want to channel your inner pâtissier, finish these with a glaze of sieved raspberry jam warmed with a few drops of framboise. Makes one 28cm tart or six 10cm ones.

For the sweet tart case

125g unsalted butter, softened
90g caster sugar
1 vanilla pod, split
1 egg, lightly beaten
250g plain flour, sieved
1 good pinch salt
1 egg yolk whisked with a little water

For the pastry cream

4 egg yolks
65g golden caster sugar
1 tbsp corn flour
200ml whole milk
200ml double cream
1 vanilla pod, split

For the filling

500g raspberries (or mixed berries)

To make the pastry, beat together the butter, sugar and seeds from the vanilla pod until smooth. Gradually beat in the egg, then the flour and salt. As soon as you have a crumbly dough, tip it out on to a lightly floured surface and form into a smooth, round ball. Wrap in clingfilm and chill for a couple of hours. On a lightly floured surface (or between two sheets of greaseproof paper), roll out the pastry so it’s large enough to line, with some overhang, a 28cm loose-bottomed flan tin that’s at least 4cm deep; alternatively, divide it into six and use to line six 10cm loose-bottomed flan tins. Don’t trim too closely at this stage, but do reserve a little pastry for patching. Lightly prick the base(s). Line with clingfilm or greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans. Chill for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.

Place the flan case(s) on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove the clingfilm and beans. Using a sharp knife, trim the edges. Patch any tears with leftover pastry. Return the flan case(s) to the oven for five to eight minutes, or until just taking on some colour.

Lower the heat to 140C/275F/gas mark 1, remove the tart(s), brush with the glaze and bake for another three to five minutes. Remove and set aside to cool.

To make the pastry cream, whisk the egg yolks, sugar and corn flour in a bowl. Heat the milk, cream and vanilla pod until small bubbles appear around the sides of the pan, set aside to infuse for 10-15 minutes off the heat, then bring to a simmer again. Stir the hot cream into the egg mix, pour into a clean pan and gently heat, whisking constantly, until it gets quite thick. Strain into a container and chill for a couple of hours, covered with a disc of greaseproof paper to stop a skin forming. When the tart case(s) are cool, pour in the pastry cream, pile the raspberries on top and dust with icing sugar.

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What I love about restaurants

July 10th, 2009 | No Comments

What do you love about good (and perhaps endearingly bad) restaurants?

As an unhealthily regular visitor to restaurants good, bad and indifferent, I was recently asked to contribute to a feature on critics’ bugbears. It was all too easy to work myself into a righteous frenzy about thumping house soundtracks and the barefaced expectation of two sets of tips.

Even at the top end, few restaurant experiences are perfect. Now more than ever, minor irritants – Mrs Sturgess is my mum, not me, and no, we wouldn’t like to sit next to the bogs – can accumulate to make a dinnerly treat feel like money wasted.

But, for all the easy gripes, restaurants are great. You’ve got to love cracking open a new menu, or discovering somewhere that’s run with dedication and integrity. And then there’s a Murray mint with the bill. Ooh, buttery. Here are some of the things I like about restaurants.

The passion

The term has been brought to its odious nadir by MasterChef; during the last civilian series Gregg observed, deadly serious, that a contestant had ‘good passion’.

Nonetheless, I’m wont to get a bit teary when faced with some restaurateurs’ obsessive love of their art. At The Sportsman in Seasalter, Stephen Harris makes his own butter and his own salt. From the sea!

But the chef most likely to brew those happy tears in his customers is Marc Wilkinson, of the Wirral’s Fraiche. He works alone, very hard, producing intelligent, delicate food in courses that come at you in lovely waves. Even in this weather, I’d bet my Kenwood he doesn’t have a tan. He never leaves his restaurant.

The little people

No, not kids, although it’s nice when they’re welcome. The independent operators who, virtually unnoticed beyond their patch, understand their customers, know great food and put the two together to devastatingly good effect. It helps if they know enough about business to stay in it.

Brent Castle and his family, who run The Three Crowns in Herefordshire, are the perfect examples. On a cold night, faced with only two customers (thankfully, a rarity) many chefs would close the kitchen. He’s been known to produce an impromptu tasting menu instead.

The familiarity

When a waitress knows how you like your eggs, that’s a restaurant at its best. The quality of the egg cookery is secondary. I’m mildly jealous of the WOM-ers who happily recommend their regular haunts. We moved house six months ago, and what with all the new restaurants, the nearest I get to one of those reassuring, life-affirming Cheers-style moments is tagging along to someone else’s favourite place with them. Susan Smillie salutes The Yellow House, in an unpromising corner of Surrey Quays, and so do all who go with her.

The service

Good service is a glorious thing, and there are many ways of getting it right. The most seamless service dance – think the subtler work of Pan’s People – I’ve ever witnessed was at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago. Our water glasses were always full, and we barely saw the pourer; across the room, 12 main courses were being served simultaneously in one graceful pincer movement.

But you don’t have to spend a fortune to bask in the attentions of the switched-on waitress who knows her shallots, or to enjoy the peculiar brand of brusqueness that goes well with salt beef sandwiches.

The petits fours

If the Murray mints are off, the next best thing is a silver tray of petits fours. Apart from a recent encounter with a fruit jelly that had accidentally been rolled in salt, not sugar, here, I love them. They’re sweet and miniature, like babies, some places bring them even when you haven’t ordered coffee, and they’re compensation for a crap dessert, or choosing cheese. Peanut butter ice cream lollies at Purnell’s? You don’t get a finish like that at home.

What do you love about good (and perhaps endearingly bad) restaurants?

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Top 10 budget Birmingham eateries

July 9th, 2009 | No Comments

The Taste of Birmingham food festival starts tomorrow, so we sent Tony Naylor to track down the city’s best value scoffs.

Share your Brum eating tips on our Word of Mouth blog

1. Urban Pie

How far would you walk for a good pie? It’s a pertinent question, because, while a visitor may struggle to find this place in the bewildering maze that is the Bullring Shopping Centre, its pies are certainly worth the hassle. Generous, handmade, all-butter-pastry creations, the Guardian’s steak and mushroom sampler was packed with good, chunky meat in a hearty gravy. You can get mash, beans or superb, fresh mushy peas on-the-side (all served in a cleverly designed box which folds flat, like a plate), to takeaway or eat at communal counters in the warm, woody store. Fresh, honest fast food and neat packaging to boot, this could catch on. Bargain hunters note: 5pm-8pm Mon-Fri, all pies are half-price.

• Pies £3.95. 124 The Bullring Shopping Centre, +44 (0)121 643 0040; urbanpie.co.uk

2. Great British Eatery

It looks very sharp and modern, but, in one crucial area, this new-wave chip shop is ultra traditional. In time honoured fashion, and in sharp contrast to those chip shops which cook in bulk and then leave their fish to sit around going limp, everything is cooked-to-order in beef dripping at very high temperatures. The effect is dramatic. The fish is first-rate – properly steamed within its crisp, golden batter casing – as are the dense, fluffy chips. Wash it all down with a Freedom lager (from £2.20) or a beer from local brewery, Holden’s.

• Meals from £2.50, cod and chips £6. 13 Broadway Plaza, Francis Road, +44 (0)121 456 5955; greatbritisheatery.co.uk

3. Opus

Good value doesn’t necessarily mean dirt cheap. For instance, the £17 two-course lunch menu at Michelin-starred Purnells (55 Cornwall Street, +44 (0)121 212 9799; purnellsrestaurant.com) is arguably Birmingham’s best bargain. Just across the road – this is the business district, hence this cluster of high-end restaurants – Opus has won much praise for its rigorous seasonal British cooking. At lunch, price-sensitive gourmets can join the suits, and enjoy one of the daily market specials, such as warm quail, crispy bacon and carrot risotto, or rabbit and wild mushroom broth.

• Specials from £8.50. 54 Cornwall Street, +44 (0)121 200 2323; opusrestaurant.co.uk

4.Handmade Burger Co

You’ll find an in-depth essay on each table, which explains the key tenets of the Handmade Burger Co’s philosophy. Beef comes from traceable, traditionally reared cows, all food is cooked fresh. The wisdom of all this is born out by their creditable burgers: thick, tasty chargrilled hunks, served on substantial sourdough buns with fresh salad, mayo, and an interesting raisin chutney.

• Burgers from £5.55. 14 The Water’s Edge, Brindleyplace, +44 (0)121 665 6542; handmadeburger.co.uk

5. Asha’s

This is a serious Indian restaurant, but don’t be put off by that 2009 Michelin guide sticker in the window, or the swish interior. Certainly at lunchtime (curry, rice, raita and soft drink, £5.95), you can still afford to eat here. The simple choice is between unspecified chicken, lamb or vegetable curries, but the quality is high. A sensitively spiced, tomato-based curry is packed with vegetables, and arrives with a veritable mound of perfectly cooked white rice, and a pot of zingy, thick sour cream.

• Evening mains from £10. Edmund House, 12-22 Newhall Street, +44 (0)121 200 2767; ashasuk.co.uk

6. Canalside Cafe

Going by its herby, homemade vegetable soup (£3.95), the food at this semi-veggie daytime cafe is serviceable, but it’s the place itself that’s inspirational. All clutter, character and mismatched furniture, this whitewashed former lock-keeper’s cottage is an idiosyncratic refuge from the chain hell that is nearby Broad Street. Sat outside, nursing a pint of Pardoe’s Entire (£2.80), watching the barges putter past, it feels like the place to be.

• Meals from £3.95. Canalside Cottage, 35 Worcester Bar, Gas Street Basin, off Gas Street.

7. Cafe Ikon

It’s part of the Ikon contemporary art gallery, but this cafe enjoys a strong reputation in its own right. The Good Food Guide, among others, has praised a Spanish menu that takes in a broad swathe of tapas and larger raciones dishes. However, the budget traveller may be better going for one of the toasted bocadillos – tortilla with tomato salsa perhaps; or Serrano ham with Manchego cheese.

• Bocadillos £4.45; main tapas from £2.25. 1 Oozells Square, Brindleyplace, +44 (0)121 248 3226; ikon-gallery.co.uk

8. The Warehouse Cafe

Yes, Allison Street looks drab and (light) industrial, but press on, and you’ll come across the Birmingham Friends of the Earth HQ, a prettily painted building that houses several “green” businesses, including this casual vegetarian restaurant. A bright, open-plan space, it’s popular with everyone from new mums to creative types from the nearby Custard Factory complex. Mains, like vegetable balti or goat’s cheese arancini with pea puree, sugar snaps and parmesan crisps, hover around the eight quid mark, but the Warehouse also does cheap, filling “light meals”. The falafel is recommended: delicately spiced with a good “nutty” texture, they’re served with decent tabbouleh, pitta bread, tahini and cumin-dressed carrots. Drink tap water: it’s free and green.

• Meals from £5.50. 54-57 Allison Street, +44 (0)121 633 0261; thewarehousecafe.com

9. The Lord Clifden

One of the Jewellery Quarter’s real gems, the Lord Clifden is best known for its collection of urban art, including pieces by Banksy, Blek and D*Face. However, there is much more to this contemporary boozer than stencils and paint. Its real ales (six in all, four guests) have won it CAMRA approval; its music events run the gamut from indie to jazz; and its beer garden – complete with table football, all-weather table tennis and bright pink post box – is one of the best in Brum. As for food, the brunch and “quickie” menus offer sandwiches and jacket spuds from £1.75, while the main menu features dishes of surprising sophistication. A salad of bacon and wood pigeon (£4.95) is fantastic. The sweet-tart flavours of the marmalade dressing are beautifully restrained, and the yielding, gamey pigeon is cooked to a precise, perfect dark ruby.

• The Lord Clifden, 34 Great Hampton Street, Hockley, +44 (0)121 523 7515; thelordclifden.com

10. The Balti Triangle

A cooking style, rather than a dish, balti, Birmingham’s best known culinary export, was created by Pakistani Kashmiri chefs in the Sparkbrook area of the city in the mid-1970s. Rather than cooking large batches of curry, en masse, using lots of ghee and pre-mixed curry pastes, balti chefs started to cook and serve their curries, individually, in thin, pressed-steel balti pans. Onions or tomatoes are cooked quickly over a high heat, with a little vegetable oil. Meat is then added, and, finally, fresh herbs and whole spices (cardamom, cassia bark, cloves etc.) to season the dish. A good balti-style curry should be flavourful rather than hot, and is traditionally served with naan bread, not rice.

There are over 50 restaurants in the Balti Triangle, but, among aficionados, two names crop up again and again. Adil (353-355 Ladypool Road, +44 (0)121 449 0335; adilbalti.co.uk) is well into its fourth decade, and claims to be the original Birmingham balti house; while relative newcomer, Al Frash (186 Ladypool Road, +44 (0)121 753 3120; alfrash.com) – a slick, minimalist space compared to many restaurants in the Triangle – is renowned for its vibrant, authentic balti cooking. Main dishes from around £5 at both.

• Share your Brum eating tips on our Word of Mouth blog

• The Taste of Birmingham festival, 9-12 July, Cannon Hill Park. See taste.visitbirmingham.com for details. Standard tickets cost £10

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Great meal, but ditch the soundtrack

July 8th, 2009 | No Comments

Music may be the food of love, but it’s an annoying distraction in restaurants. What’s your idea of musical hell while you eat?

There has been a noisier response than usual to my review at the weekend of Blackfriars restaurant in Newcastle. It had nothing to do with what I said about the food (pretty good, actually) or the service (charming). No, all the abusive, complaining, whining emails I have received have been about one thing and one thing only: my comments on those tedious folk rockers Lindisfarne and the way they were played at me for two hours.

Over on the Lindisfarne chat forum the massed ranks of the band’s fans – all six of them – have been up in arms. Most of the emails I have received have been along the lines of: you’re a food critic; stick to writing about food, not the music of a legendary band who gave pleasure to millions. There was a similarly hurt tone to an email from the family of the late lead singer, Alan Hull.

I can’t help but be surprised by this. Bands like Lindisfarne tend to encourage love and hate in equal measure. Few people are ever take-it-or-leave-it about their music. I am very much of the leave-it tribe. As in leave it in a mountain cave, then dynamite the mountain, then contaminate said mountain with killer radioactivity so no one can go near it for 10,000 years. Honestly, I find it hard to believe that the loved ones of those in Lindisfarne haven’t had to read that sort of stuff before.

The point, I think, is that it turned up in a piece about food, and that’s what they find objectionable. I’m afraid they’ll just have to live with it. I’m not a food reviewer. I’m a restaurant reviewer and that means I write about the whole experience and anything that is notable about that experience. In this case it was back-to-back bleeding Lindisfarne. (Cue Lindisfarne flame wars in the comments. Will it really make you feel better if you tell me that I’m just a useless, waste-of-space food writer, and that Fog on the Tyne is a song that stands comparison to Beethoven’s Fifth? Will it?)

Intriguingly the one Lindisfarne fan who took my comments on the chin was Andy Hook, owner of Blackfriars restaurant. In a marvellously magnanimous email that made me like him and his restaurant even more, he told me that a renovation had been planned before my review came out “when we will sort out the decor and the staff will finally be able to ram my Lindisfarne CDs up my proverbial”. Good on you, Andy.

Anyway, Lindisfarne aside, there is a bigger issue here that was summed up by one correspondent who asked me what music I expected to hear in a Newcastle restaurant. My answer? None. Absolutely None. Piped music only turns up in restaurants where the restaurateurs do not have confidence in the place generating its own atmosphere. If a room is not full of happy chatter, if it’s just the clink of silverware on porcelain and deep pools of morose silence, something is seriously wrong and no amount of Katie Melua on the sound system is going to solve it.

And it often is Katie bloody Melua. Or Norah sodding Jones. Or Diana buggering Krall. For a while it was Sinatra’s truly awful Duets album. Then there were the Robbie Williams Swing While You’re Winning years, which felt like they lasted longer than the era of swing the album was pastiching. As it happens, I liked that album. But not over lunch. Or dinner. Let alone back-to-back lunches and dinners.

The point is it always seems to be some slick, inoffensive, bland piece of don’t-scare-granny jazz. If I wandered into a restaurant and they were playing Carmina Burana or Smack My Bitch Up, I might think I’d found my way to somewhere vaguely interesting. I wouldn’t stay, but at least I’d feel they were trying to be themselves.

Or am I wrong? Is this just me sliding into Grumpy Old Man-dom before my time? Does piped music have its place and if so, what works? Better still, what doesn’t? Tell us about the very worst piped music you’ve been subjected to while eating, or anywhere else for that matter. We won’t want to listen to it, but we will want to know.

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Food writing on the hoof

July 7th, 2009 | No Comments

What do you look for in food and travel writing, and which books demonstrate it best?

I imagine that for many of us WoM-ers, an essential consideration when planning a holiday is the gastronomic experiences it may provide. When I go away my choice of destination is informed by exhaustive reading and I arrive eager to sample the local cuisine via markets, producers, and restaurants. I may be on holiday, but my taste buds will be hard at work experiencing as many new flavours and dishes as possible.

The food writing that I enjoy the most transports the reader from the humdrum to somewhere altogether more exciting – it also enhances my experience if I’m lucky enough to go there for real. The books I read if I do actually visit fall into two broad categories – those which have already whetted my appetite, and those I seek out while I’m there.

So it stands to reason that my holiday preparations consist of lots of browsing of bookshelves and little else. Luggage allowances being what they are, each book I take has to fulfil several criteria.

Primarily, they need to make me hungry. I want information, so the writer has to be knowledgeable and authoritative. The atmosphere of the place should jump off every page through personal anecdote but also through the history and culture of the food and dishes described. I want to be drawn into the author’s gastronomic journey as this will hopefully enable me to eat much more like a local when I arrive (of course, I will try to talk to as many local people as possible too, but a little extra knowledge is no bad thing and besides, I am often hampered by my atrocious lack of languages). I want poetry: a market description should make me greedy to experience the scents and the vibrancy of colours for myself. The inclusion of recipes is a bonus, especially if I’m self catering – always my preference as it can be so frustrating seeing so much wonderful food on offer but with no way to cook it.

One of the best examples I can give which does all of the above in spades is the Guardian – and Word of Mouth’s – very own Matthew Fort’s Eating Up Italy in which, despite his failing to pass his test in the UK for “failing to maintain sufficient forward momentum”, sees Matthew take an epic road trip on a Vespa from the south to the north of Italy. The pages groan with glorious descriptions of the food he eats along the way, and his numerous encounters provide endless scope for wit and insights into the traditions of Italian cuisine.

A recent discovery also fits the bill perfectly – I had already come across Paul Richardson via Indulgence: One Man’s Selfless Search for the Best Chocolate in the World which is a wonderful book, particularly if you are anywhere tropical. His A Late Dinner: Discovering the Food of Spain is a disparate and delicious read – on one page he is laughing with childish delight at the theatricality of a 30 course extravaganza at El Bulli, on the next he’s elbow deep in blood, taking part in a pig slaughter. It doesn’t matter to me that I’m unlikely to experience either – my own culinary adventures will still be enhanced by learning about modern Spanish gastronomy on the one hand and going right back to basics by gaining an understanding of the traditional relationship with the pig on the other.

I also have a fondness for obsessive and eccentric histories of single ingredients, dramatic voyages of discovery with food at the centre. Giles Milton’s Nathaniel’s Nutmeg is one such epic. The food memoir offers more of the same from a more personal view, especially if you steer clear of the saccharine A Year in Provence variety. Finally, even fiction has a part to play, although a sense of place and its atmosphere is probably more important than the food. Nevertheless there is still plenty of scope – have you ever read Joanne Harris in France, or Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s series about bon vivant detective Pepe Carvalho in Spain or Argentina?

Travelling also provides an opportunity to add to the food book collection. On one hand are the restaurant cookery books – some with perfectly usable recipes, and some, such as Anne-Sophie Pic’s book (Hotel Pic, Valence), with daunting and unattainable dishes, but are exquisite souvenir of unforgettable meals nonetheless. At the other end of the scale are the cheap books often put together by local women’s groups for charity. I have a particular soft spot for these and own many, mainly from the US and Caribbean, like a pair I picked up in in San Antonio, one was devoted to beans, the other to chillies – perfect! Such simple, practical books give you a real sense of the everyday cooking of a region – the Caribbean ones, for example, have proper recipes for mannish water, pudding ‘n souse (black pudding with pig’s head meat pickled in lime juice), and cow heel soup.

So, when contemplating a holiday, what sort of food writers do you turn to for inspiration and guidance? Judging by the cries for help coming from our editor Susan Smillie in the past week, I’m thinking she is firmly in my camp. Suse is abandoning ship to travel round France, Italy and Spain for six weeks in a camper van. She will, of course, be tasting, sampling, imbibing and no doubt gorging herself throughout, so if anyone has any book recommendations to help her on her way, please shout. Although, please, don’t limit your recommendations to Europe – I at least am always hungry for more.

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What’s that party out in the street?

July 7th, 2009 | No Comments

Have you heard about the Big Lunch? It’s a return to the roots of the street party and it could be happening on your doorstep …

I have structured my entire working life around one goal: avoiding meetings. I hate them. The word ‘agenda’ brings me out in a cold sweat. The thought of ‘pitching in’ and ‘brainstorming’ makes me feel a little bit sick. Tell me I have to go to a meeting and all I can think about is double physics. I would rather stick my tongue in a Dualit toaster than be forced to sit through one. Really. I have a Dualit toaster. I know my tongue would fit.

So the fact that, last week, I not only didn’t dribble over the shiny electric goods in my kitchen but went voluntarily to sit in a neighbour’s garden for a meeting, suggests the subject under discussion was something very worthwhile indeed. And it was, indeed is. We were gathered to talk about arrangements for a street party we are going to be holding in our corner of South London on July 19th as part of the Big Lunch. If you haven’t heard about the Big Lunch you should have done; it’s an excellent idea.

The idea is very simple: on that day communities across the country will sit down to lunch together in their streets, simply as a way of getting to know each other and to have a bit of fun. So far around 7,000 streets have registered their intention to hold a party, involving upwards of a million people. Ours is open to a set of surrounding streets and right now, we’re collecting donations for the small overhead and going door to door to see who wants to come, and most importantly find out what they can bring to the party, literally.

Because this is about mucking in. For example, I will be subjecting the crowds to my piano playing. People also will need to bring food, which is part of the fun: this will, if we get it right, be one of the biggest communal picnics since that bizarre summer of 1977 and the Silver Jubilee.

Although we need people to bring stuff, we’ll also be doing a bit of communal cooking. Or at least, I will. Because, before hitting the keys, I’ve volunteered to barbecue enough animal for 40 or so people. Which means I have a huge cookery project. Hurrah! My idea of fun.

The plan is built on my belief that one of the best uses for a barbecue is as a way of finishing a dish, in this case braised beef short ribs. Recently my favourite south London butcher, Moen’s in Clapham, has been selling rare breed beef, which they’ve had to buy in as whole sides and then take down. The result is they’ve had some unusual cuts. A few weeks back they had whole, foot long ribs, which they had cut with four or five inches of meat around them.

I seared them off, then braised them in a dense liquor of red wine, chorizo, a little chilli and some brown sugar, for a full four hours. At the end of that, the bone slipped out of the now soft meat with a satisfying slurp. I reduced the sauce down to something sticky and intense and used that as a marinade for the cooked meat, before slicing it up into chunks and searing it on the barbecue for a few minutes each side. It was, if I say so myself – which I do – fabulous.

And so, this week, I phoned my butchers and ordered roughly a dozen and a half of their ribs; a major cookery project by anybody’s standards. Now I just have to hope that the people who keep threatening to come and fix the oven on my cooker keep their word and get here in time. Otherwise it’s not just the party that will be a community affair, but the cookery too. That could be fun I suppose.

But what would you do if you had to feed 40 or so people at a street party? More to the point what are you going to be doing? With the number of people already signed up for the event some of you are bound to be holding your own street parties on Big Lunch day, and those of you who now want to, can find out where there’s a party near you, or indeed, how to organise your own, here. (Annoyingly enough, they’re on twitter too. And no, since you ask, I’m not.) Let us know what plans you are making. Tell us what you are cooking. I’ll be taking pictures of our event (luckily for you, they won’t be accompanied by any piano playing) so, please take pictures of your own – preparation, before and after shots of the street, and, of course, embarrassing (though not libelous) pictures of your neighbours. If you add them to our Flickr site, and/or post a link back on this blogpost to wherever else you’ve uploaded them, we’ll pick a selection to showcase on the site.

Meanwhile, I hope my neighbours won’t be too offended if I only communicate with them by phone and email from here on in. You are fine, lovely people. And I promise to do all the things I said.

I just REALLY HATE MEETINGS.

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The new vegetarian

July 4th, 2009 | No Comments

Lentils, aubergines, tomatoes and herbs – what’s not to like, says Yotam Ottolenghi

I am willing to bet this will turn into one of your favourites. Serve warm or at room temperature – and taste before serving, because lentils tend to “swallow” flavours. Serves four.

Lentils with grilled aubergines

2 medium aubergines
Salt and black pepper
2 tbsp top-quality red-wine vinegar
200g small dark lentils, such as puy or castelluccio, washed and drained
3 small carrots, peeled
2 celery sticks
1 bay leaf
3 thyme sprigs
½ white onion
3½ tbsp olive oil
12 cherry tomatoes, halved
1/3 tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp each roughly chopped parsley, coriander and dill
2 tbsp crème fraîche (or yogurt)

Put the aubergines on an oven tray lined with foil and place under a very hot grill for 45 minutes, turning them a few times, until the skin cracks and dries in places and the flesh is cooked through and tastes smoky – don’t worry if they burst. Remove from the oven and, once cool enough to handle, scoop the flesh into a colander, avoiding the black skin. Leave to drain for at least 15 minutes, then season generously and mix in half a tablespoon of vinegar.

Meanwhile, put the lentils in a medium saucepan. Cut one carrot and half a celery stick into large chunks and throw them in. Add the bay, thyme and onion, cover with plenty of water, bring to a boil and simmer for up to 25 minutes until the lentils are tender – skim the froth off the surface from time to time. Drain into a colander, discard the carrot, celery, bay, thyme and onion, and transfer to a bowl. Add the rest of the vinegar and two tablespoons of oil; season generously. Stir and set aside.

Set the oven to 150C/300F/gas mark 2. Cut the remaining carrot and celery into 1cm dice and mix with the tomatoes, a tablespoon of oil, some salt and the sugar. Spread in an ovenproof dish and roast for 20 minutes, until the carrot is semi-cooked. Add the cooked vegetables to the lentils, followed by the fresh herbs, and stir gently. Adjust the seasoning to taste, then spoon on to serving plates. Pile some aubergine in the middle, top with a dollop of crème fraîche and finish with a trickle of oil.

• Yotam Ottolenghi is chef/patron at Ottolenghi in London.

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How to eat a giant snail

July 3rd, 2009 | No Comments

The first video in a new series of challenging culinary experiences sees our award-winning food blogger learn how to tackle the African Land Snail

I consider I’ve been pretty lucky in the genetic lottery. Sure, I’m as near to ovoid as an erect hominid can physically manage but, while my parents gifted me with male pattern baldness, the capacious eyebags of a dolorous spaniel and a two-inch lateral scoliosis, I also have a resonant baritone singing voice and an excellent memory for trivia. Best of all I seem to have missed out two traits that trouble normal mortals: I don’t do guilt and I’ve yet to find a food that disgusts me. This is good news for a food writer – pretty much anything from Japanese natto to recently smothered ortolans are going to be fair game.

Which is why I was so sanguine when Guardian Films asked me to eat snails. C’mon guys. Try harder. I’ve done the lot. Mum says I ate them raw in the garden at two; I can hoik down a couple of dozen petits gris without pausing to suck the garlic butter out of my moustache; hell I’ve even foraged my own garden snails and fed them to my daughter. Ah yes, said the director, but what if they weighed about a kilo each and were as big as two clenched fists? Have you tried Giant African Land Snails?

I suppose the most remarkable thing about African Land Snails is how much they resemble the rest of the family. Physiologically they appear identical, just, frankly, sodding huge. The ‘foot’, the rubbery appendage with which your average garden snail can cling to a rock or, we are told, slide unharmed along the edge of a razor is at least as big as the palm of your hand. This is important because this is the bit that, according to my expert guide Abiodun Olawunmi of the admirable A2 Delicious restaurant in London’s glittering Catford, was the only part we were going to eat. I’d gladly fill you in on the whole process of shell smashing, guts removal, washing with alum rocks and boiling for ages but you’d be better off watching the video above for the full, rather astonishing effect.

So the final and most important question is, how did it taste? Well it didn’t, exactly. Like whelks, boulets, garden snails and pretty much the rest of the edible gastropodia, there’s not a chance that any evanescent snailish essence could survive the rigmarole of desliming and rendering edible – but that’s not the point. The remaining texture was utterly unlike anything else I’ve ever put in my mouth. Abi’s hot pepper sauce was a gently brewed assault of flavours that would have converted a well-worn espadrille into a worthwhile meal. In fact I’ll go on record saying that I’m prepared to eat a McDonald’s hashbrown thingy if Abi’s sauce is to hand, but the snail’s foot adds a textural matrix somewhere between an undercooked artichoke heart and the cartilage from a premiership footballer’s knee – with just a tad more disquieting crunch.

Did I enjoy it? Hell yes. It’s rare to find a totally new combination of flavour and texture and it was privilege to be shown how to prepare it properly. Will I be knocking up land snail at my next dinner party? I’m ashamed to say, no. I’m not sure I could find anyone to share it, but do try Abi’s sauce with a less challenging protein – I did chicken thighs last night – and I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

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How are you keeping your cool?

July 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

Hot tea? Chillies? What are you eating and drinking to keep cool during Britain’s heatwave?

Victoria Moore’s How to Drink: iced coffee

So it’s hot enough here in Britain that the Met Office has officially declared a heatwave. Yes, apparently heatwaves get declared, and there’s even an alert scale in place to deal with the merciless onslaught of what in some other countries might simply be called “summer”.

But here at WoM we’re issuing our own alert. With 32°C looming, the time is ripe for the nitwit sitting next to you to roll out that claptrap about drinking a cup of tea to cool down.

The idea is that a hot drink makes you sweat, and the evaporation of sweat helps lower the body temperature. Right, so by extension in winter we should stand in the nuddy outdoors drinking iced Pimm’s to induce goosebumps and shivering to force our bodies to warm up.

It’s that sort of counter-intuitive rubbish that gains traction simply because it sounds implausible. Similar stories goes round about eating spicy food or chillies in summer. You could argue there is something in the chilli idea, if eating them does indeed make you sweat. Because you’re not actually ingesting something that is a source of heat, the net effect might be to cool you down.

In my submission, though, a mouthful of chillies in the middle of a hot day in July will do nothing except make you want to punch the person next to you (with a bit of luck, the same person who told you to drink the tea). And anyway, the effects have got to be marginal, especially if it’s humid. Surely.

But above all else, why would you forgo the obvious pleasures of a hot summer’s day – ice creams, a perfectly mixed Pimm’s, a bowl of fruit salad, a shaved ice cone drenched in red E-number juice from a park vendor …

To beat the heat we Australians like our iced coffee, but much of it is made with a sickly-sweet flavoured syrup or instant coffee rather than proper espresso. See drinks doyenne Victoria Moore’s post on proper, portable iced coffee for a novel method for making the real stuff.

A cut-down version is the fantastic affogato, which in Australia has come to mean a shot or two of espresso with a scoop of ice cream (ludicrously there’s an actual ‘recipe’ for it here – only someone really suffering from the heat needs this sort of instruction … ). Any decent barista in most parts of the world should be able to knock one up bespoke (that’s because a “decent barista” in most parts of the world is usually an Aussie or Kiwi).

So what are you eating and drinking to keep cool during Britain’s heatwave? And is there an instant cure for brain freeze if you go a bit overboard? (Don’t you dare say a cup of hot tea …)

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Ten best budget restaurants in Leeds

July 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

As the Leeds Loves Food festival kicks off today, Tony Naylor picks the city’s 10 best value eateries

Food blog: know Leeds? Share your tips on the best places to eat for under a tenner

1. Piazza By Anthony

Widely regarded as the city’s best restaurant, Anthony’s is an expensive, esoteric experience. However, chef-owner Anthony Flinn has wasted no time in launching a number of affordable spin-offs. The latest, Piazza, has transformed the ground floor of Leeds’ iconic Corn Exchange into a day-time cafe, restaurant, bar and gourmet food store. You may bemoan such gentrification (this building previously housed a grungy Camden-style market), but you can’t quibble with the quality. Good meat and cheese platters (£7.50/ £8.50) are served with excellent bread from the on-site bakery, while, in their precision, the best restaurant dishes – pork rib chop with good gravy, fondant potato and a dainty roasted apple (£8.95) – reflect Flinn’s high standards, without the hefty price tag.

• Cafe dishes from £2.99; restaurant mains from £8.25. Corn Exchange, Call Lane, +44 (0)113 247 0995; anthonysrestaurant.co.uk

2. Nation of Shopkeepers

This newcomer is one of those thoroughly modern multi-purpose bars. Late-night, it hosts DJs and live bands, and attracts the indie/art school set. By day, it serves creditable food, good imported beers and real ales, and keeps an older generation of urban hipsters happy. The artisan pies are regional favourite, I’s Pies; there’s a selection of “homemade comfort food classics”, like macaroni cheese, on the menu; and NoS do a pretty decent handmade burger (from £4.90). Breakfast is served until a civilised 1pm.

• Meals from £4.60. 27-37 Cookridge Street, +44 (0)113 203 1831; anationofshopkeepers.com

3. Hansa’s

Open since 1986, Hansa Dabhi’s vegetarian Indian is a Good Food Guide regular, widely praised for its cleverly spiced Gujarati cooking. Try the channa, a complex, flavoursome dish of whole red chickpeas with red chillies and cinnamon, washed down with a bottle of the ale-like beer, Bangla. Takeaway available.

• Mains from £5.25. 72-74 North Street, +44 (0)113 244 4408; hansasrestaurant.com

4. Salvo’s Salumeria

Salvo’s, a buzzy, family-friendly Italian, has been turning Leeds on to proper pizza and authentic pasta for over 30 years. Enthusiastic owners John and Gip Dammone keep the concept fresh, and, in 2005, they opened a neighbouring deli-cafe, Salvo’s Salumeria, where they delve deeper into regional Italian cooking. With its piadine (flatbread) wraps, hot daily specials, like pappardelle with venison ragu, and its wide selection of deli treats (such as roasted artichokes, Neapolitan pickles, numerous cured meats and cheeses – any four for £6.95), the Salumeria is a boon for the budget gourmet, and well worth the short schlep from the city-centre.

• Salads and hot dishes from £5.95. 109 Otley Road, Headingley, +44 (0)0113 275 8877; salvos.co.uk

5. Salt’s

With its solid wooden counter, cake stands and high, packed shelves, this deli has the feel of an Edwardian fine food store. Equally, in its ethos, Salt’s harks back to a time when things were done properly. Soups and specials are cooked fresh daily; all meats, eggs and vegetables are quality Yorkshire produce. Near to several hotels (Malmaison, Jury’s Inn, Travelodge), Salt’s breakfast menu may be particularly useful to travellers. Skip the Ferme des Peupliers yoghurts, and try their sausage butty: fat, moist, well-seasoned pork and leek bangers on a terrific home-baked ciabatta (£2.35).

• Sandwiches from £2.45; salads from £3.65. 14 Swinegate, +44 (0)113 243 2323; saltsdeli.co.uk

6. Art’s Cafe Bar

More Paris than Pudsey, this relaxed bar-bistro is a popular spot with local young professionals. Mains on the à la carte generally top £10, but the lunch menu (12pm-5pm) offers sandwiches, salads and platters for £6.50. The Yorkshire Plate includes Wensleydale with a terrific sweet tomato chutney, a leaf salad with a good, sharp mustardy dressing, bread, marinated beetroot, a robust venison terrine and slices of a similarly gutsy pork pie.

• Lunch plates, £6.50. 42 Call Lane, +44 (0)113 243 8243; artscafebar.co.uk

7. The Cross Keys

Locally sourced, seasonal British food – ” … not some generic, homogeneous ‘gastro pub’ menu offering Thai spiced fishcakes … ” – is the remit at this handsomely refurbed 19th-century pub. While not cheap per se, there are bargains to be had if you choose carefully. The daily chef’s specials – such as a coarse rare breed pork and prune terrine, with slices of spiced and pickled pear (£5) – are substantial snacks; while some mains, such as the sausages with bubble ‘n’ squeak (£8.95), are good value at under a tenner. Each Sunday, the Keys also offers various sharing roasts with all the trimmings, such as leg of lamb (six people, £85). Good beer selection, too.

• Mains from £8.95.107 Water Lane, +44 (0)113 243 3711; the-crosskeys.com

8. Fuji Hiro

There is a Wagamama in Leeds, but if it’s fresh, zingy noodles you’re after, then savvy locals will point you towards this Japanese favourite. Local super chef and fan, Anthony Flinn, swears by the yaki-udon (thick noodles with shitake mushrooms, prawns, chicken, vegetables and sliced Japanese fishcake, in curry oil), while the beef ramen comes with flash-grilled, still pinkish steak and a tasty stock that really comes to life as a fiery chilli sauce melts into it.

• Mains from £7.25. Merrion Centre, 45 Wade Lane, +44 (0)113 243 9184

9. Box Pizza

A takeaway pizza joint of Michelin star provenance – co-owner Henry Vigar has headed starred kitchens, and currently runs Notting Hill’s Kensington Place – the stone-baked pizza bases are authentically thin and properly charred, while the fresh dough has a lively spring and good chew to it. They’re huge 13-inch jobs that could easily feed two, if not three, particularly if you chuck in one of BP’s side dishes, say, rocket salad or panzanella (£3.45). Choices range from a basic margherita to a ‘Mexican’ (grilled chicken, jalapenos, smoked chilli salsa etc.) that would raise eyebrows in Napoli.

• Pizza from £4.95. Unit 3, The Triangle, 2 Burley Road, +44 (0)113 244 5544; boxpizza.co.uk

10. Pickles & Potter

This deli-cafe’s modus operandi is simple. Where possible, everything is done in-house, from home roasting all meats to making their own chutney. Where they can’t do something, making bread, say, they ask an expert, in this case Leeds-based French baker, Thierry Dumouchel, to do it for them. At lunch, there’s a queue for P&P’s hefty eight-inch torpedo-rolls, and salads like chickpea, halloumi and sweet potato. Next door, people sit around (think: a Leeds version of Friends’ Central Perk), reading or chatting over tea and cakes. P&P’s almost fudge-textured chocolate brownie (£1.95) is a seriously delicious adult treat. Notably friendly, helpful staff.

• Sandwiches from £3.40; hot dishes from £5. Pickles & Potter, 18-20 Queens Arcade, +44 (0)113 242 7702

• Leeds Loves Food festival (2-5 July)

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‘The most revolting dish ever devised’

July 1st, 2009 | No Comments

Elizabeth David was the doyenne of food writers. But, says Tim Hayward, the bitchy annotations she wrote in her cookbooks reveal another side of her

Food blog: what do you think is the world’s worst recipe?

If Britain ever produced a deity in the world of food it was Elizabeth David. Chefs cling to her books and recipes as holy writ, collect old volumes and inhale her biographies like the scent of fresh bread. So I was intrigued when I got a call from Peter Ross, librarian at London Guildhall library and custodian of the vast collection of cookbooks that David bequeathed.

“I think you might find this interesting. According to a note I’ve found, Elizabeth David thought she’d discovered the most revolting dish ever devised.”

Now I should be quite clear from the outset that I’ve always been a little ambivalent about David. She famously moved food writing out of the dark didactic corners of domestic science and began to write beautifully and poetically about food as a sensual experience, but she also in her early career wrote unashamedly for the posh and focused attention away from British cuisine and on to Mediterranean food. I find it hard to read her work without enjoyment but it also defines a kind of “holidays-in-Provence” middle-class elitism.

David was never a simple character. She was extremely private, almost impossible to interview and showed a truly patrician disregard for social niceties. Even her best friends have said that her high standards and plain speaking sometimes made her difficult.

She amassed a vast collection of food books during her lifetime and was an assiduous annotator. When she died in 1992, her personal effects and cooking equipment were auctioned off to fans and collectors, but few knew about the confusing litter of notes, in pencil in the book margins, scrawled on receipts and scraps of paper and latterly on buttercup-yellow sticky notes. It has taken years for Ross to quietly and diligently file every single annotation in preservative envelopes with a cross-reference to the volume and page where they were found.

These scribbles were personal, written purely as aides-mémoire or occasionally as expressions of joy or outrage. Still unpublished, they were written with no view to posterity yet they reflect her erudition, her humour and her legendary waspishness. But to a David agnostic such as me they are also little short of an epiphany. Trawling through her notes is like reading an undiscovered stash of pornography by Charlotte Bronte or a long-buried draft of early chick-lit from Ernest Hemingway.

There’s a light dusting of yellow stickies with general comments to set the tone: “p166 This is NOT a tian [a Provencal mixed-vegetable gratin]“; “This is a useless book”; and “Chocolate in the Renaissance?” There are comments that should be engraved on every modern food writer’s heart: “Why say crispy when crisp is more expressive?”

Then, suddenly, you find yourself deep in sedition and heresy. Inside a copy of The Cooking of Italy (1969) by an American journalist Waverley Root: “Waverley Root is a pitiful phoney.”

On the legendary 1969 French book Ma Gastronomie by Fernand Point, regarded by a generation of chefs as the bible of modern cuisine: “This is a really awful book.”

In a carbon copy of a private letter dated October 1983: “I have to tell you that really I never did care very much for the John Minton illustrations for my books. They are so cluttered and messy. They embarrass me now as much as they did in 1950.”

On a copy of Full and Plenty, a mercifully forgotten volume by Maura Laverty: “The kind of pretentious rubbish that has brought French cooking into disrepute as a snobs preserve.”

I have an uncontrollable urge to shout and punch the air. Yay Elizabeth … you GO girl!

And finally, there it is. A tersely worded Post-it attached to the bottom of a discarded invoice. “Italian salad p50. Sounds just about the most revolting dish ever devised.” It was found folded inside Ulster Fare, published in 1945 by the Belfast Women’s Institute Club, which David bought secondhand in 1974.

A pretty little hardback with a cheery yellow cover enlivened with woodcuts, it is a deceptively innocuous object as it sits on the library table. The Guildhall library has an open policy – anyone can walk in and handle the books once owned by our greatest food writer. There are no locked cabinets, no security clearance, no armed guard to stand over you as you crack open what might be the most dangerous recipe since gunpowder (see panel above Hands trembling, I turn to p50 and read with mounting horror. There it is, in all its minced and dressed awfulness, each constituent element rendered grim by unnecessary prep, preservation and poor presentation, all uniting to create a whole vastly more repellent than the sum of its parts.

Dammit, Ms David, you were right. It is the most revolting dish ever devised.

Do not try this at home

Italian salad
1 pint cold cooked macaroni
½ pint cooked or tinned pears
½ pint grated raw carrot
French dressing to moisten
2 heaped tablespoons minced onion
½ pint cooked or minced string beans

Mix the chopped macaroni and vegetables; moisten with French dressing, flavouring with garlic if liked. Serve on a dish lined with lettuce leaves. Decorate with mayonnaise and minced pimento or chives.

• Think you’ve seen an even less appetising recipe? Tell us about it at guardian.co.uk/wordofmouth

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Which UK town has the best food?

June 30th, 2009 | No Comments

If we’re all to be holidaying in the UK this summer, where should we go for the best all-round eating?

With the pound weak and Britain counting every penny, this year – it’s predicted – will be a boom year for British holiday destinations.

Consequently, the media will soon be scouring Britain for new, foodie-friendly locations to profile, and inevitably dub ‘the new Ludlow’. Forget the sunscreen this summer, it’s all about the Zantac.

The perfect gastro-destination, however, is a complex organism. It’s not just a matter of food. For all its Michelin stars and local ‘slow food’ culture, Ludlow, like the Ribble Valley, wouldn’t be half as appealing if it wasn’t located in the lushest of lush countryside, with all that offers. Whitstable wouldn’t work if it was a suburb of Swindon; and Abergavenny doesn’t because while it may have the Walnut Tree and a great food festival its centre is an identikit British high street. It’s just like being at home.

It’s not just a matter of restaurants, either. Cartmel has a newsworthy one, and a good deli, but little else to recommend it, certainly in food terms. Likewise, Bray is home to two of the best restaurants in the world, but, in all other respects, it’s a small, dull home counties housing estate; and an eye-wateringly expensive one at that. For a place to thrive as a foodie destination, it also needs good pubs, good hotels and B&Bs, good food shopping and plenty of places to fritter away the time around the one blow-out meal of the weekend.

In the north-west, the tipsters are putting their twopenn’orth on Ramsbottom, and not just because – and what a gift this is to the marketing wonks – its name is said to mean ‘valley of the wild garlic’. Rugged rather than pretty, this West Pennine town nonetheless has the views; the local attractions; the farmers’ market; an annual chocolate festival; decent independent food shopping; and even – make sure you’re sitting down for this – its own steam railway.

More than that, it also has a clutch of cafes and restaurants doing admirable, even award-winning things. In the Chocolate Cafe; the Cultured Bean (Lancashire Life’s readers’ choice, 2007/8); and The Lounge – a spin-off from Rawtenstall’s excellent Dining Room – there is a solid casual dining strata. Sanmini, meanwhile, a new South Indian restaurant in an old gatehouse, is currently the subject of much excited chatter.

Top of the heap, however, is Ramsons. As a restaurant, it is the definition of idiosyncratic. The most recent refurbishment saw it decorated with incongruously racy wallpaper, made up of fragmented nude photography; while opinionated owner Chris Johnson revels in his dictatorial reputation – see below on this link. Unfashionably, he does not believe the customer is always right. Guests are refused table salt or well-done meat, and vegetables (in keeping with Ramsons’ broadly Italian culinary ethos) are served only as an intermediate course. As Johnson once told Restaurant Magazine: “Do you go into Gucci and tell them how you want a handbag made? No.”

If Johnson wasn’t so passionate about sourcing exquisite raw ingredients (from wild garlic foraged locally to salad leaves from Milan’s markets); and did not employ a chef as talented as Abdulla Naseem, then his strident formula might not work, but it does. Almost 25 years in, Ramsons is the current Good Food Guide readers’ choice, and crucial leverage in attempts to establish Ramsbottom as a true gastronomic destination.

But what about you? Where will you be stuffing your face this summer? Is Topsham the hidden gem we should be talking about, or is the Isle of Wight too easily overlooked? Does Marlow really cut it for a foodie weekend away (it has two or three good restaurants, but little else), and where do we all stand on the Rick Stein retail outlet previously known as Padstow? Oh, and whatever happened to all that talk about Alnwick?

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Home and dry

June 30th, 2009 | No Comments

If you’re too hot to move, you could just try one of these perfect thirst-quenchers

Citron presse

Citron presse is proof that ritual vastly increases the amount of pleasure a drink gives. It is sharp and reviving, and the business of putting it together makes it feel almost like drinking a cocktail. There are three ingredients here and, if the fun is not to be spoiled, they must all be served separately. First, the juice of one lemon (two if they aren’t very juicy) must arrive at the table in a tall glass. Second, there must be a jug of cold water so the lemon can be diluted to the required strength. Thirdly, there must be a bowl of sugar and a long metal spoon, or a carafe of home-made sugar syrup (mix equal parts sugar and water until the sugar dissolves) for sweetening. For some reason the separate arrival of these things, and the mixing and jangling as everyone measures out their drinks, makes it taste so much better than if the same thing had been done in the kitchen.

Vodka-free Moscow mule

This drink is usually made with ginger beer and lime cordial, but I’ve replaced those with sparkling mineral water, ginger cordial and fresh lime juice for a sharper, more modern taste. I have quite a dry palate and like the burn of Thorncroft’s pink ginger cordial best. If you use another brand, say Bottlegreen ginger and lemongrass, which is juicier, sweeter and more rounded, you may need to adjust the amounts slightly – even half a teaspoonful can make a major difference. The trick is not to let the fierceness of the ginger, which varies tremendously in strength from one cordial to another, overpower the lime.

30ml fresh lime juice

2tsp Thorncroft’s pink ginger cordial

Sparkling water to fill

Mix the first three ingredients in a tall, thin tumbler. Add 4 ice cubes.

Top with sparkling water, stir, add a slice of fresh lime and serve.

Strawberry grog

Fresh strawberry puree, ginger beer and lemonade: lots of flavour and a bit of fiery bite. It’s important to use the old-style Jamaican ginger beer that tastes of spicy gingerbread, which you find in cans at the newsagent, rather than one of the neo-old-fashioned (and more expensive) brands from British cordial producers, which tend to be too fiery for this, and lack the growl that grounds it so nicely. The result is more moreish than I can say.

Strawberry puree freezes well, so you can make a batch when there is a glut and defrost it as you need it. This recipe makes enough for about five glassfuls. Oh, and one last thing, the name. Grog to sailors is rum, but to Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons it’s ginger beer; and the idea of messing about on a lake in a boat seemed to fit in with the uplifting taste of this drink.

400g punnet of strawberries

150ml ginger beer, chilled

450ml old-fashioned, cloudy lemonade, chilled

Puree the fruit with a hand blender. It should make about 350ml of puree. Mix three parts of lemonade to one part of ginger beer, then add the strawberry mixture. Combine all the ingredients in a jug, then pour into glasses over ice.

Lime soda, the Indian way

Along with the smell of wood smoke, sandalwood and spices, the taste of a fresh lime soda provides an instant mental wormhole back to India. There you are offered it more times a day than you can count, and when you accept, there is always a follow-up question: salt or sweet? Thus in the dusty heat, lime soda becomes almost medicinal, replacing salt and sugars as well as liquid.

I like it with salt, which, because it reduces your perception of acidity, takes some of the sting out of the lime without sweetening it; some prefer both salt and sugar. The drink barely needs a recipe: simply squeeze the juice of half to one lime into a glass, top with still or sparkling water, and salt or sweeten to taste.

Virgin pina colada

Having spent a long, sticky time in the kitchen hacking at pineapples, I have concluded it’s not essential to use fresh fruit to make a decent pina colada, though it certainly adds to the drama if you do. The more crucial detail is that the drink is thick. The best way of achieving the right consistency is to use crushed ice, which makes it so gloopy you can practically spoon it into your mouth with a couple of straws.

3 slices fresh pineapple or tinned pineapple rings

4tbsp coconut milk

Whizz the pineapple in a blender so it goes pulpy but don’t overdo it – try to retain some texture without any lumps. Give the tin of coconut milk a good stir to mix the watery liquid with the solids before measuring out four tablespoons. Stir the coconut milk into the pineapple puree and pour into an ice-packed glass.

Pineapple and lime

This isn’t a recipe so much as a suggestion, but when you’re bored of cordials and water, fill a glass with ice, pour pineapple juice in and then add the juice of half to one freshly squeezed lime. The jolt of the lime works beautifully with the yellow pineapple.

Elderflower and tonic

The astringency and wildness make this more of a sipper than a glugger – a fine early evening aperitif. Use more cordial than you would if diluting with water, and serve over plenty of ice with a slice of lemon and sprig of borage from the garden.

Virgin Cuba libre

Coke, rum and freshly squeezed lime is glorious. But minus the rum, it still works and is a perfect sundowner for hot, sticky days. Coca-Cola (full sugar, always full sugar) with a thick slice of lemon and a couple of jangly ice cubes is almost more enjoyable than alcohol in hot weather.

Juice of one freshly squeezed lime

Full sugar Coca-Cola to the top of a tall glass

• Taken from How to Drink, by Victoria Moore, published by Granta Books at £15.99.

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Books cooked rare

June 29th, 2009 | No Comments

Unusual cookery books can be a recipe for mild obsession. WoMer and Taste of London festival fringe tweeter Catherine Phipps, aka Catlily, talks shop with the experts. What’s your greatest pleasure when it comes to cookery books and food writing?

I have two obsessions in life: books and food. Put the two together and I’m in heaven (and here amongst fellow Word of Mouthers I know I’m not alone!). I trawl cookery books for inspiration and love being carried off to far-flung times and places. One minute I’m barefoot in the rainforest, transported by the scent of exotic spices, the next I’m immersed in the nineteenth century when suet was king and the poor feasted on oysters.

I devote hours to seeking out undiscovered titles both old and new, but I am selective. I don’t want something generic or an untested slebchef glossy, and I care about the quality of the writing. I get almost as much pleasure from Fergus Henderson’s gentle wit as I do from his recipes; I reach more often for Jane Grigson than Elizabeth David, because I find in the former a motherly instructor who always tells you why, and in the latter a hectoring and prescriptive personality.

Seeking the books out is all part of the fun and is made all the better if you find a bookseller who knows their stuff, loves the subject matter and is prepared to impart their enthusiasm to their customers. I found this singular combination in two people last weekend at Taste of London. Being the cookery book junkie that I am it was no great trauma to drag myself away from the tasting frenzy to spend an hour or so talking about the business of book selling with Jonathan Tootell, a rare and secondhand cookery book specialist, and the manager of the cookery book department at Foyles, Veronica Leek.

I was interested to know what people buy and how that influences their stock. As this was Taste, the books Jonathan had brought along were quite chef-centric – Richard Olney’s Simple French Food and Anthony Blake’s Great Chefs of France are unsurprisingly sought after, but it was a delight to hear that one of my own personal favourites, Lindsey Bareham, is popular, particularly for her Big Red Book of Tomatoes. More off the wall are the crime/food books of Nicholas Freeling, who apparently inspired Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential”. Having read the latter, I’m not altogether sure whether this is a good thing.

It seems that many of Jonathan’s less cheffy customers have similar tastes to mine – they want to browse quirky, amusing titles as well as find that elusive, out of print title. I’ll buy a book purely on the strength of the title, such as Elizabeth Robins Pennell’s A Guide for the Greedy by a Greedy Woman, a collection of writings from the late 19th century.

I was recently entranced by the ferocious sounding Beatrice Clay (House Matron and Home Ec lecturer, Glossop) who divides her foods into “nitrogenous” and “non nitrogenous”, has “wet” and “dry” cooking methods for meat, and who under the beverage section gives this exhortation: “My advice to you about alcohol is: Leave it alone. O God, that men should put an enemy into their mouths To steal away their brains.” This type of book is bedtime reading and doesn’t often make it into the kitchen, but many others I possess are food splattered.

I asked Jonathan about this, and he said that splatterings will devalue a book but annotations won’t. I was pleased about this, as one of the delights of looking in old books is to find the handwritten amendments, complaints (“Beware! Doesn’t work!”), and recipes cut out from other sources.

One way I differ from some of Jonathan’s clients is that I care more about the words in the book than the book itself – some collectors objectify the books. His strangest example of this came when he was invited to someone’s house to value their collection – 2000 pristine, untouched books on cookery and a kitchen which had never been used beyond making the odd cup of tea.

Jonathan has a concession at Foyles, which means that they still have a stock of secondhand books alongside the new – a system popular with many independents (such as the wonderful Books For Cooks) and one I heartily agree with. I tend to avoid the major chains unless I want something very new and mainstream which is being discounted, but I’m thinking of revisiting Foyles in particular, as they assure me that they try to keep everything that’s in print, and see much value in holding titles which fill out their collection even if they don’t expect to sell more than the occasional copy (the example they gave me was Constance Spry; the value of having her books on the shelves is that discerning and knowledgeable customers expect to see them).

I found the whole buying policy intriguing, because the booksellers have to be clued in enough to spot trends (the reasons for an emerging trend are often obvious, but sometime they come out of nowhere, such as the recent craze for canapés) and listen to their customers enough to know what will sell. This means taking risks at times. Veronica Leek told me was that she sometimes takes books on spec from self-published authors, because her instinct tells her it will sell. These sometimes attract publishing deals, so would-be food writers, take heart!

As I said above, knowing the WoM crowd I’m sure I’m not alone in my obsessions. What is your greatest pleasure when it comes to cookery books and food writing? And where do you go to feed your habit? Do the virtual shelves of the internet and the pile ‘em high displays on the high street fulfil your needs, or are you frustrated by the what’s on offer? Perhaps you regularly haunt a certain second hand bookshop – if you can bear to reveal your sources, then please tell us.

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