March is upon us. Time to get mad as… that most mercurial and magical of native species. It’s all down to this being the month when hares appear to ‘box’ each other in the fields. Not even the equivalent of macho stags rutting; the proactive pugilist is the female fending off unwanted males in the mating season.

I’ve never witnessed such a bout on the Pennine moors above my home, though I have thrilled to chance upon a solitary hare on its tensile guard before launching itself into the distant tussocks. So glorious. You are more likely to see them in relative abundance in the eastern counties, particularly Norfolk and Suffolk. As with badgers, their domain is nocturnal. Poet John Clare captures the moment of their daylight startling: “Till milking maidens in the early morn/jingle their yokes and sturt them in the corn/through well-known beaten paths each nimbling hare/sturts quick as fear, and seek its hidden lair.”

My latest encounter with the creature that has perenially attained mythical status was in the mundane setting of my kitchen, then on the plate. Sean, the most game-friendly of our local butchers, had acquired a trio from out in Lincolnshire; their provenance I hope was from a legal shoot, not the long forbidden coursing.

I selected mine from a tray of the already prepared 3kg carcases, huge compared with cousin rabbit and definitely a bargain at £8. I’ve peeled the pelt off one before. Never again. Even dissecting in the kitchen is a messy business, bound to bloody your apron. 

Ironically the absence of blood is a hindrance to my plan to jug my hare. The fresh stuff is the key to the authentic flavour of this particular recipe, first published in Hannah Glasse’s Art of Cookery (1747), though a similar treatment dates back to 1390 and Forme of Cury, recipe book of Richard II’s master cooks (manuscript now lost).

Big-hearted, the hare certainly is. Its vital organ weighs in at between 1 per cent and 1.8 per cent of the total body compared with the rabbit’s mere 0.3 per cent. The oxygen-rich haemoglobin pumped fuels its legendary, near uncatchable speed. Mrs Glasse is always misquoted as writing “first catch your hare” when it was “first case your hare” with case meaning take off the skin. Jugging is what it is literally; cooking in a jug inside a pan of boiling water as a kind of bain-marie, as opposed to the French civet, which is stewed. A London game-themed gastropub called The Jugged Hare serves its signature dish of Norfolk wild hare ‘in a jug’, so the jug jury’s out there.

How hare was served at the gourmand court of Richard II

“Take hayrs, and hew hem to gobbettes, and seeth hem wyth the blode unwaished in brothe of fleshe, and when they buth y-nouh, cast hem in colde water. Pyle and waish hem clene. Cole the brothe, and drawe it thurgh stynnor. Take the other blode, and caste in boylyng water, seeth it, and drawe it thurgh stynnor. Take almanndes unblanched, waishe hem, and grynde hem, and temper it up with the self brothe. Cast al in a pot. Take oynons and parboyle hem. Smyte hem small, and cast hem into the pot, cast thereover powderfort, vynegar and salt, temper with wyn, and messe forth.” [those Chaucer lessons finally came in handy]

Hannah Glasse’s more sedate Jugged Hare 

“Cut it to Pieces, lard them here and there and with little slips of bacon, season them with a very little pepper and salt, put them into a earthen jugg, with a blade or two of mace, an onion stuck with cloves, and a bundle of sweet-herbs; cover the jar, you do it in so close, that nothing can get in, then set it in a pot of boiling water, keep the water boiling, and three hours will do it; then turn it out into the dish, and take out the onion and sweet herbs, and send it to the table hot. If you don’t like it larded, leave it out.”

Following Ferguson Henderson’s way with a hare

No jugs to hand I followed the great man’s Nose To Tail Eating method, also taking his advice to separate the fillet for searing for a separate dish. That wouldn’t do for the rest of the flesh, which is unlikely to err on the tender side. Fergus sensibly recommends you add a splash of red wine vinegar to the blood draining from your freshly hung hare to prevent it coagulating…

Ingredients

1 hare gutted and jointed, blood reserved

1tsp each of crushed mace, cloves and allspice

sea salt and pepper

1dsp butter

3 red onions and 3 carrots. peeled and chopped

1 stick of celery, chopped

2 leeks, cleaned and chopped

½ bottle red wine

mixed bundle of fresh herbs

2 garlic cloves, peeled

2 bay leaves

2 litres chicken stock

1 large glass of port

Method

Mix spices, seasoning and flour and roll your hare pieces in ths. Brown the floured hare gently in the butter, then remove meat and add the vegetables to the pan. Cook to a nice colour but not burnt. Retrun the hare to the pan with the wine, herbs, garlic and bay leaves, season cautiously, add chicken stock. Cover, place in a low oven for three hours.

When cooked, remove the hare from the mixture and strain the liquor. Discard the veg. Return hare to the sauce and let it cool. To serve, return the sauce to the heat, add the port and boil quickly for five minutes. Reduce heat, add blood, allow to thicken. Again return your hare to the sauce and serve. He suggests with mash; I went for parsnip puree and home made redcurrant jelly.

It had been a long wait to source a hare again. Even without the blood thickener – and  I also left out the port –  it was a handsome, substantial winter dish. Handsome too, is the living hare, in either of the two forms found on the British mainland – Brown Hare and Mountain Hare (native to Scotland where it is known witchily as the ‘maukin’). I’ve been engrossed in two studies of this feared and worshipped animal. The reissued classic The  Leaping Hare by George Ewart Evans and David Thomson explore’s its presence across nature, poetry, folklore, history and art. More concise, and less likely to stray into the territory of old countrymen’s lore and Jungian archetypes is The Private Life of the Hare by current nature writer John Lewis-Stempel (Doubleday, £10.99). Not be confused with his The Running Hare, a wider exploration of the changing eco culture of his hill farm.

The hare is inevitably the hero, a unique presence throughout the ages. Has it all persuaded me that I should resist the temptations of jugging and forgo cooking one again? I think it has.

There’s a traditional Irish hunting song, On Yonder Hill There Sits A Hare, a favourite track of mine on folk tyro Sam Lee’s Ground Of Its Own album. Fingers crossed he’ll be singing it when he plays Hebden Bridge Trades Club a week on Sunday. I will sing along softly. It will be my swansong for the maukin.

Consider the Rag Pudding? I never had until a decade ago when I was doing the words for chef Robert Owen Brown’s Crispy Squirrel and Vimto Trifle (MCR Books £12.99). Among 50 recipes celebrating the traditional food of the north, this speciality of Oldham millworkers was one of Rob’s less glamorous dishes. Just mince and onions in a suet crust steamed inside a ‘rag’. No need even for a pudding bowl, just freely available muslin or cotton cloth. Poor folk’s food, dispensing with even herbs or spices. 

This Saturday on our beloved Bracewell’s butcher’s stall on Todmorden Market there were  rag puddings on sale, sourced from the sole surviving commercial producer – Jackson’s Farm Fayre of Milnrow, who sell direct boil in the bag (or microwave) eight packs for £12.80. They are made by hand but using a hi-tech material instead of the original `rags’.

Suet remains essential also to more ambitious meat puddings and two high-profile specimens were mine to compare two days apart. First up was Ox Cheek and Guinness at The Devonshire pub in Soho, then Braised Short Rib with Red Wine and Somerset Cider Brandy at the Manchester outpost of Hawksmoor

This was hardly thrifty fare. The Devonshire pudding in its pool of jus cost £26, but duck fat chips were £6 extra and other veg sides a fiver;  the Hawksmoor came in at £25, but it was more substantial and the whole deal included beef dripping chips, mushy peas and extra gravy. Very chippy tea – in a restaurant. Pubbier than the Devonshire, which has arrived in the capital to great fanfare as the epitome of an old school dining hostelry.

Two of its co-founders bring impeccable food skills. Heston Blumenthal acolyte Ashley Palmer-Watts, once of the Fat Duck and Dinner, is there to elevate gastropub staples, Charlie ‘Flatiron’ Carroll to ensure the live fire cooking in the Grill Room does justice to the in-house butcher’s sourcing. But it is the the third of the Devonshire trio that has sparked all the social media attention. Oisin Rogers created the legend that is the Guinea Grill Mayfair, deservedly so. 

He has a thing about Guinness. In the Devonshire downstairs bar I witnessed the unbelievable amount of the dark stuff pouring through the pumps. Quite a buzz about the place. Maybe I prefer the pint you’ll get at the less manic Cock Tavern in Phoenix Street near King’s Cross, but it’s great to see Oisin’s well-tended stout playing an essential role in the ox cheek filling for the Devonshire’s suet pudding. Tasty, yet perhaps the reduction was too sticky for me, just as the chips were too dry and flakey. Collapse of all those Metropolitan stout parties bigging them up up.

The chips were better, fluffier inside, at Hawksmoor as I sampled their new lunchtime specials, which include that – superior – slow-braised short rib and root veg pudding. What tickles me about this total triumph on a plate is Oisin Rogers’ own accolade for it. When my fellow Manchester Food and Drink Awards judge and committed carnivore, Louise Rhind-Tutt Tweeted about the Three Year Aged Somerset Brandy twist to the filling he replied: “I wished we’d thought of this. Kinda genius.” And it is.

Suet and its savoury secrets

The distinctive blue, yellow and red packaging of Atora is the supermarket standard bearer for beef suet. From it tumble pellets of the shredded stuff, base for “for fluffy dumplings, pastries, puddings and pies”. Plant-based alternative on the shelves is vegetable suet, but there are issues with the presence of environmentally unfriendly palm oil. 

Nothing for me, though, is as satisfying as the real deal – the soft fat from around the kidneys that protects them from damage. Deep yellow in colour, it is rich in vitamins and essential fatty aids. Order it fresh from a proper butcher’s; they can remove impurities and mince it for you. Or you can grate it yourself. It keeps in the freezer. The umbrella term is tallow but that includes dripping, which is rendered fat from across the beast. 

Fresh beef suet has a bland taste (the mutton variety is more challengingly sheepish) and a dry, crumbly texture. When it’s incorporated into sweet dishes – think traditional Christmas Pudding – it brings a richness, yet somehow avoids making them taste meaty. For pie crusts, it creates a flaky and crispy texture that absorbs filling juices beguilingly.

Introducing the other new Hawksmoor lunchtime specials

Rump steak and chips keeps its place on the menu and is joined by, alongside the suet pudding, at prices ranging from £16 to £22…

Shortrib au poivre 

Slow-cooked for 10 hours until tender, brushed in mustard, dipped in cracked pepper and coated in peppercorn sauce then served with buttery mash or our beef-dripping fries.  

Flat iron steak

This tender shoulder cut  is char-grilled and served in the style of the hottest restaurant in 1930s Geneva: Café de Paris – with beef dripping fries and a salad of watercress, shaved radishes and cornichons in a mustard dressing. 

Charcoal-roasted hake

With slow-cooked peppers, onion, garlic, thyme and olive oil and finished with fresh basil leaves. 

Tunworth Royale patty melt

This burger/toasted cheese sandwich hybrid was invented in 1950s LA by William Wallace ‘Tiny’ Naylor (nerds note: he’s on the cover of the Beastie Boy’s 1994 album, Ill Communication). Hawksmoor makes theirs between slices of Texas Toast. with their stalwart burger patty, plus unctuous Tunworth and mozzarella for ‘maximum string factor’.  

Salt-baked celeriac

The veggie option, served with Hen of the Woods mushrooms glazed with soy and whipped ricotta celery leaves, capers and fresh marjoram.

A boon in life to have always been well fed. The same goes for my extended family. Far too many are not so lucky. It has been on my mind a lot of late as, at my stove, I enjoy the privilege of cooking for pleasure, not for hard-pressed subsistence. I’ve just prepared a herb-fragrant keema pau of minced mutton with a kachumber salad. It’s a favourite recipe from the ravishing Dishoom: From Bombay With Love cookbook, celebrating the Irani cafes of Old Mumbai and promoting the nine-strong Dishoom UK restaurant brand.

This huge success story is the creation of cousins Shamil and Kavi Thakrar, whom I first met on a press trip to their London bases in advance of their branching out to Manchester in late 2018. It proved to be more than just the usual junket.

What struck me in their establishments was their mastery of authentic style alongside an accessible menu that still felt a refreshing antidote to curry house cliché. Also, thanks to a kind invitation to a family gathering in the presence of Shamil’s mother Rekha, I began to understand the ethical undertow to all they do. It was most evident in their determination to run their restaurants without barriers of prejudice. 

Their website offers a mission statement: ”We get Muslims and non-Muslims to celebrate Eid, and Hindus and non-Hindus to celebrate Diwali. We tie Knots of Protection on each other. We bring people from all cultures and all walks of life together in our restaurants, and we feed millions of children.”

That last commitment sounds staggering, but it is true. So far, they have donated the cost of 20 MILLION meals for charities – supporting in the UK Magic Breakfast, dedicated to providing meals so children don’t go hungry before school starts, and in their Indian homeland the The Akshaya Patra Foundation. This is a behemoth of an operation that has so far served up a staggering 3.5 BILLION free school meals. That’s healthy hot nourishment to 2.2 million children in 20,000 schools daily, dished in tiffin boxes out from 68 mega kitchens across the sub-continent. This remarkable video shows how they do it, mass producing sambar and rice for southern states, dal and roti for northern. 

Since 2020, separate from the Dishoom tie-in, Akshaya’s remit has also covered meals to children and vulnerable groups in North London The reason? 800,000 children in the capital alone are at risk from food poverty, while across the UK 1.7 million children of low income families are not eligible for free school meals. The figures I’m quoting are from Akshaya Patra’s own annual report, but I have no reason to doubt they are true. This is Marcus Rashford territory.

Their London hub is based, with unconscious irony, on Imperial Way, Watford, but a new pilot venture also takes in Nottingham, providing a hot meal for after school clubs. These are aimed at youngsters who have no surface at home where they can do homework and, possibly, parents with no educational confidence.

The importance of food charities for education

‘Akshaya’ means limitless and ‘Patra’ means a bowl of food. The guiding principle in India is to encourage kids to continue in education rather than forced to go to work too young or even beg. Across the sub-continent at least 35 million children aged 6-14 years do not attend school. And for those who do lack of nutrition seriously hinders their attention in class.

Let Ashkata UK Ceo Daniel Adams explain: “When hunger is a barrier to education it also becomes a barrier to social mobility. A child that is not fed can become a teenager that did not learn and an adult that stays in poverty. We care deeply about breaking down these barriers. It’s a social justice issue with long term benefits. To quote Nelson Mandela: ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’.

“Dishoom are an extremely generous corporate patron who help power our programme. We make natural bedfellows through a love of for and nutrition with shared Indian roots. We are so grateful to them.”

Stalwart campaigner Jamie Oliver is on the case, too: “I truly believe that if every child had access to good, nutritious food, they would concentrate better in school, giving them a far greater chance at a better education, which in turn helps create a much stronger future generation. Akshaya Patra  is an incredible organisation, and their dedication, passion to make this happen is inspiring.” 

Dishoom’s pact with them came into being at Ramadan 2015. The Muslims have a name for it: Zakat. It’s a form of obligatory charity that has the potential to ease the suffering of millions. The literal meaning of the word is ‘to cleanse’; the belief is that paying Zakat purifies, increases and blesses the remainder of their wealth. The Thakrar family fortune originally sprung from their Tilda rice empire. For their Zakat Dishoom chose Akshaya and Magic Breakfast. At the Hindu Diwali the same year they made this joint partnership permanent.

For every meal (or home meal kit) Dishoom serves, they donate a meal to a child who would otherwise go hungry. More recently in Manchester they have also contributed handsomely to Eat Well, the restaurant and chef collective that delivers up to 1,000 meals a week to support people sidelined by poverty. 

Dishoom, Manchester Hall, 32 Bridge St, Manchester M3 3BT. 0161 537 3737. To donate to Akshaya Patra visit this link.

All the images are courtesy of Akshaya Patra, except for the two for Dishoom.

I’ve lost count of the number of Manchester Food and Drink Awards gala dinners I’ve attended, but this celebration of the region’s hospitality industry remains joyously upbeat despite the perils that still threaten to torpedo so many independent operators.

The Awards themselves had been pushed back from their usual October slot when the mothership Festival foundered. Hopefully, it will return in 2024. Meanwhile these 2023 Awards flew the flag in a fresh venue that really worked – New Century Hall – and opened with a defiant political edge. 

In person on stage Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham. En route to Depeche Mode at the nearby Arena, he rallied the 350 hospitality troops gathered for the occasion. On film Sacha Lord, his night-time economy adviser (I reserve ‘czar’  for Russian potentates), and a clutch of North West chefs demanded the Government slash VAT on the industry back down to 10 per cent. Lord kicks off the challenging This is an Emergency video chillingly: “I know people staring at the cliff edge.”

After the dinner sourced from traders in the New Century Kitchen, down to the main business of the night. The 18 award winners announced reflected the city’s current high global profile. 

Last week the The Edinburgh Castle in Ancoats debuted in 24th place in the Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs; now its kitchen dynamo Shaun Moffat followed up by scooping Chef of the Year. A huge double also for Higher Ground. On the same day they won a Michelin Bib Gourmand they were named MFDF Newcomer of the Year. They are also in the frame for the national Best New Restaurant at the Good Food Guide Awards 2024. I was also delighted that Ancoats small plates and natural wine stalwart Erst finally won Best Restaurant.

Across the evening there was strong recognition for Manchester’s unrivalled craft beer scene. Track won best independent drinks producer, the Marble Arch best beer bar/pub, Bundobust best plant-based offering for the Gujarati-inspired small plates that accompany the beers it brews in town and James Campbell received the Outstanding Achievement Award for two decades as the driving force behind cutting edge breweries Marble, Cloudwater and, currently, Sureshot. 

Sign of the difficult times, one of the nominees for best drinks producer, Squawk Brewery, has just been forced to close. So high jinks celebrating an amazing food and drink scene tinged with sadness at the steady drip of closures. Time to make a stand on that crucial VAT drop issue. Watch the Sacha Lord film, also featuring the likes of Simon Wood, Michael Clay, Mary Ellen McTague and and emotional Simon Rimmer, who was forced to close his flaship restaurant Greens recently, and sign the associated petition.

All the fantastic winners at Manchester Food and Drink Awards 2023

Here is this year’s awards list in full (for addresses visit this link)…

Restaurant of the Year – Erst

Shortlisted: Higher Ground, Climat, Another Hand, 10 Tib Lane

OSMA, The Spärrows. mana, Erst.202

Chef of the Year – Shaun Moffat (Edinburgh Castle)

Shortlisted: Joseph Otway (Higher Ground), Danielle Heron (OSMA), Luke Richardson (Climat), Julian Pizer (Another Hand), Patrick Withington (Erst), Seri Nam (Flawd Wine), Mike Shaw (MUSU), Shaun Moffat (Edinburgh Castle)

Newcomer of the Year – Higher Ground

Shortlisted: Climat, Restaurant Örme, Fold Bistro & Bottle Shop, The Jane Eyre Chorlton, Madre, New Century Kitchen, Stretford Canteen, Higher Ground

Plant-based Offering of the Year– Bundobust

Shortlisted: Lily’s Indian Vegetarian Cuisine, Bahn Ví, The Walled Gardens, Maray, Speak in Code, Flawd Wine, The Mekong Cat, Bundobust.

Takeaway of the Year – Burgerism

Ad Maoira, Unagi Street Food & Sushi, Ciaooo Garlic Bread, Fat Pat’s, Wright’s Fish and Chips. Maida Grill House, Al Madina, Burgerism.

Independent Drinks Producer of the Year – Track

Shortlisted: Sureshot Brewing, Stockport Gin, Cloudwater Brew Co, Tarsier Spirit, Pod Pea Vodka, Manchester Union Brewery, Squawk Brewing Co, Track.

Independent Food Producer of the Year – Pollen Bakery

Shortlisted: Cotton Field Wharf, Great North Pie Co, La Chouquette, Gooey, Yellowhammer, The Manchester Smoke House, The Flat Baker, Companio Bakery, Pollen.

Foodie Neighbourhood of the Year – Stockport

Shortlisted: Levenshulme, Altrincham, Urmston, Prestwich, Monton, Sale, Stretford, Stockport.

Coffee Shop of the Year – Grapefruit Coffee

Shortlisted: Cafe Sanjuan, Another Heart to Feed, Idle Hands, Bold Street Coffee,  Smoak, Ancoats Coffee Co, Siop Shop, Grapefruit.

Food Trader of the Year – Fat Pat’s

Shortlisted: Baratxuri, Chaat Cart, Triple B, Tawny Stores, Yellowhammer, Little Sri Lankan, Pico’s Tacos, Oh Mei Dumplings, Fat Pat’s.

Affordable Eats Venue of the Year – Ornella’s Kitchen

Shortlisted: Nila’s Burmese Kitchen, Great North Pie Co, Cafe Sanjuan, Noodle Alley, Tokyo Ramen, Lily’s Deli, House of Habesha, Ornella’s Kitchen.

Food and Drink Retailer of the Year – Cork of the North

Shortlisted: Ad Hoc Wines, Out of the Blue Fishmongers, Littlewoods Butchers, Wandering Palate, New Market Dairy, Petit Paris Deli, La Chouquette.

Pop up or Project of the Year – Platt Fields Market Garden

Shortlisted:  Our Place, Tawny Stores at Yellowhammer, SAMPA, Little Sri Lankan, Suppher, Fare Share, Micky’s, Platt Fields Market Garden

Pub or Beer Bar of the Year – The Marble Arch

Shortlisted: Track Brewery Taproom, The City Arms, Runaway Brewery Taproom, Fox & Pine, Reddish Ale, Station Hop, Heaton Hops, The Marble Arch.

Bar of the Year – Schofield’s Bar

Shortlisted: The Jane Eyre Ancoats, Blinker, Red Light, Sterling Bar, Hawksmoor, 10 Tib Lane, Flawd Wine, Schofield’s Bar.

Neighbourhood Venue of the Year – Stretford Canteen

Shortlisted: Restaurant Örme, OSMA, Ornella’s Kitchen, The Oystercatcher, Yellowhammer, Fold Bistro & Bottle Shop, The Jane Eyre Chorlton, Stretford Canteen.

Great Service Award – Hawksmoor

Shortlisted: Higher Ground, Schofield’s Bar, Where The Light Gets In, Climat, Wood Manchester, Sterling Bar, Tast Catala, Hawksmoor.

The Howard and Ruth Award for Outstanding Achievement – James Campbell

Recognising people who have contributed something outstanding to the hospitality industry in Greater Manchester.

Edible thistles? What a faff. I’m happy to be served globe artichokes in a restaurant. Especially when given the Carciofi alla Romana treatment, a spring speciality of the Roman capital, where they are stuffed with a mixture of garlic, parsley and mint, then braised in olive oil and white wine. Delightful. especially since all the fiddly preparation, especially choke removal, has been done by someone else. And I, with my negligible knife skills, have not nearly chopped a finger off. 

There is another thistle that’s not half the hassle, except with the sourcing. The Cardoon is quite a looker with Its thorny, silver-grey leaves and pompom-like purple blossoms, standing up to six feet tall. Alas, you won’t find this cousin of the artichoke any time soon on a supermarket veg counter or even from a specialist UK greengrocer. 

The cooked stalks may have been a treat on a plate for 17th century diarists such as Pepys and Evelyn (the latter a gardening expert who grew his own) but Cynara cardunculus has fallen from grace on these shores, compared with the Med, where the green lunghi variety still thrives. Italy’s Piemonte region is ‘cardone centrale’. Growers there cultivate the ‘Gobbi’ (Italian for hunchback), where the plant is bent over and covered in soil. thus protecting it from the light and creating a paler, tenderer stalk. Think forced rhubarb.The Italians dip them with other crudités in the addictive, garlicky sauce, bagna cauda. The heads are also gathered to make a vegetarian rennet for certain types of cheese.

In Britain the more accessible celery gradually took overt the cardoon’s mantle. Still in certain heritage gardens you may chance upon it in season (November-February), which happened to me at a certain Cheshire property I was a guest at. I took a sample home, sans thistle heads,  with the intention of testing their toothsome mettle in a cheesy gratin. Alas, the stalks (the part you eat, not the thistle as with artichokes) were at the end of their tether, so I chucked them.

The big plan now is to grow my own and I‘ve got the perfect source – Otter Farm in Devon. I‘m a devotee of its creator, Mark Diacono, once of River Cottage. He’s both a brilliant author (Sour and Spice are stand-outs; he’s currently publishing follow-up Abundance in instalments via his substack The Imperfect Umbrella) and a grower of rare and wonderful plants at his 17 acre farm. They sell the cardoon in seed or pot form; whatever, I’ve got a substantial wait while they swell in our raised beds.

What should I expect? Let me take the Otter Farm advice: “Cardoons look very similar to globe artichokes – they can get to at least 2m tall with their downy green-grey leaves and amazing flower heads. Both inner and outer stems are edible,  though oddly the inner are more bitter. Take a potato peeler to the ribs to remove stringy bits and blanch before using as the main ingredient to a gratin or as a crudité vegetable.

“Sow seed in March or April under cover and plant out after frosts have passed leaving 80cm (annual) and over 100cm (perennial) between. Then on a dry day in early autumn gather together the leaves and tie then up with string (including the stake if you have one) into a bundle. Then wrap a collar of card or thick newspaper around your cardoon bundle and leave it for around four weeks to blanch. 

“Lift plants as required from October. They’ll be happy like this until any hard frosts and will store in a cool place until December, if you do need to lift them all before the cold sets in. Tolerant of poor soils and grows well in shade, but happiest in full sun (the former is more likely at ours).”

Speaking of shade, or more specifically ‘chiaroscuro’, Caravaggio, arguably Rome’s greatest artistic son, paid his own homage by including cardoons in his Still Life with Flowers and Fruit. The veg is more centre stage in Still Life with Francolin by Spanish food still life specialist Juan Sanchez Cotan and The Prado’s Still Life with Cardoon, Francolin, Grapes and Irises by the virtually unknown Felipe Ramírez.

All these images are of cardoons au naturel, but cooked, what recipe shows this bitter veg off at its best? Step forward Jennifer McLaglan, who has penned the definitive account of “A Taste of the World’s Most Dangerous Flavour” – Bitter (Jacqui Small, £25). The Canadian-based author devotes an entire chapter to the cardoon in the ‘Surprisingly Bitter’ section (chocolate and tobacco star in ‘Dark, Forbidden and Very Bitter’).

She’s an advocate of its valuable health properties: “Like other bitter plants, thistles support the liver, gallbladder, spleen and kIdneys, and aid digestion. They contain good amounts of folic acid and  minerals, notably copper, manganese, magnesium and iron.”

The taste, she describes as having, through the bitterness, “an earthy, meatiness and mild artichoke-and-mushroominess that will seduce you.” 

This, I‘m sure is shown to great effect in creamy gratins where the blanched stalks are enhanced by ample amounts of cheese. As with celery, whose leaves are also surprisingly bitter, the outer, more fibrous cardoon stalks will in tandem with dried porcini and garlic, make a fine, if rather beige, soup. Hardcore fans will lap it up in bitter leaf salads or braised greens.

I’ll get back to you on all this when I’ve sowed my own Cynara cardunculus seeds this spring and harvested them in late autumn.

Name your favourite pasta. If it’s spaghetti hoops I suggest you’re reading the wrong blog. For brothers Michael and Alex de Martiis it has to be rigatoni. That’s why they’ve invested in a state of the art extruding machine to create daily batches of this ‘pastasciutta’ (dry, a bronze die giving it a useful rough texture) to be sauced up and served at their back to basics new project called, naturally, Rigatoni’s.

That’s the rebranding for all four pasta-led eateries formerly known as Sud, which originated as Sugo in Altrincham back in 1915. Reviewing it then I was wowed by the sugo, just like Nonna used to make – a dense sauce of beef shin, pork shoulder and spicy Tuscan sausage that felt like it had been simmered for days, if not decades. It coated a substantial bowl of that ear-shaped pasta called orecchiette, fresca (ie fresh) as in the de Martiis family’s native Puglia.

Unfortunately, nonnas are thin on the ground in the pressured world of eating out Italian style 2024 and change is necessary.

At a launch for the new menu at Rigatoni’s Ancoats Michael defends their decision to concentrate on a single basic, if adaptable, pasta treated with simple fresh sauces. “The days are gone when we could a spare a member of the team to stir rich meat sauces for hours or roll out a variety of pasta shapes. Our starters too are simpler, yet no less delicious.”

On this first acquaintance i can’t see what all the dumbing down accusations on social media are about. A selection of focaccia toasts, topped with grated tomato, garlic and salt or black olive and caper spread splendidly partner a carafe of fruity house Barbera. Even better at a quid more (£6) is the whipped gorgonzola and honey topping.

But the pasta is the thing and my sharp topping of brown crab, vodka sauce, and tarragon at £12.50 is 50p less than that ragu of eight years ago. A FAZOOL! white beans, garlic, fresh chilli & parm is just £9.50 and a cacio e pepe take with lots of extra-virgin is a remarkable £7.50. Amatriciana and Puttanesca options cost a tad more.

Tasty food for straitened times; I get it. Only the Italophile foodie in me seeks something a little more adventurous. Which brings me to that divisive Roman rigatoni speciality you’ll never find in the UK, let alone Manchester – Con La Pajata.

Not for the squeamish – a classic quinto quarto dish

Just as I always associate rigatoni with that great Sicilian speciality Pasta alla Norma, so ‘when in Rome’ it’s essential with traditional rib-tickler Carbonara. But the Eternal City also offers a classic offal-based rigatoni sauce that was banned in 2001 in the wake of Mad Cow Disease and only allowed to be reinstated on menus in 2015.

You’ll mostly come across rigatoni con la pajata (rigatoni con la pagliata in Standard Italian) in the old school trattorie of the Testaccio (it even sounds like balls) district. Until 1975 this was home to the city’s main slaughterhouse and the nose-to-tail culture lives on. The Italians call it quinto quarto (the fifth quarter) cooking, ie using leftover bits such as oxtail, feet, tongue, testicles, intestines and tripe.

Pajata is the name for the intestines of an unweaned calf (one fed only on its mother’s milk, never grass). They are cleaned and skinned but left inside is the chyme – the pulpy acidic fluid consisting of gastric juices and partly digested food. Stay with me.

The intestine is cut in pieces 20–25 cm long, that are bound together with thread, forming rings. A long cooking progress, allied to the enzymes present coagulate it, forming a creamy, ricotta-like sauce.The rings can be simply grilled or stewed with tomato, aromatics, lardo and spices to make a classic sauce for rigatoni. Top with oodles of pecorino romano, per favore.

So out of reach, but maybe not. In Florence I was wary of trying lampredotto (the stewed fourth stomach of a cow in a bread roll) and loved it. Now I’m scanning the schedules for air tickets for Rome. Will the suckling veal soon be in season?

Rigatoni’s, 46 Blossom Street, Ancoats, Manchester M4 6BF. Also in Altrincham, Sale and Exhibition Manchester.

The Rhubarb Triangle is calling. As images of the first vibrant pink shoots of the season filter onto social media I get the urge to head 30 miles east east to the forcing sheds of West Yorkshire. More specifically to the acclaimed early rhubarb fiefdom of one Robert Tomlinson. His Pudsey farm is arguably an outlier of the Triangle, which purists confine to a nine square mile area bounded by Morley, Rothwell and Wakefield, but chefs and foodies flock to order from ‘Rhubarb Robert’. The product is that good.

Alas, my M62 trek is in vain. Early days for the harvesting by candlelight that is de rigueur in the sheds and the few bundles emerging have been snapped up in the farm shop before my arrival. “Next week we’ll have lots, luv.” The season lasts until March.

I console myself five minutes up the road with a visit to the Fulneck Moravian Settlement. This is a planned village built in 1743 by Protestant Brethren from Bohemia whose denomination pre-dated the Reformation by 60 years and later influenced John Wesley. I followed the ‘Meditation Walk’ around the buildings of the still active community and pondered the ghosts of its past – actress Dame Diana Rigg, who boarded at (and hated) Fulneck School and, from the village, Sir Leonard Hutton (364 not out still the highest Test innings by an England cricketer).

A legend in a different sphere is Kaushy Patel, whose family restaurant Prashad, serving Gujarati vegetarian food in unglamorous Drighlington, is handily placed on my homeward journey back down the A58. This converted pub, now with    son Bobby and his wife Minal at the helm, holds two AA stars, a Michelin Bib Gourmand, came second in the 2010 Channel 4 cook-off for Ramsay’s Best Restaurant and was more recently visited by Gordon’s fellow telly perennials, The Hairy Bikers.

A dish chef Minal served up to Ramsay in the semi-final remains on the menu. It transferred with the restaurant in 2012 when it moved from Bradford and showcases a green vegetable you won’t find in common or garden Indian restaurants.

Step forward the colocasia plant, also known as elephant-ear leaves, taro or cocoyam. As a tuber it is edible but the leaves are the favourite in the Patels’ native Gujarat state in India. It was from there that Kaushy moved with husband Mohan in the Sixties, setting up a deli that later became a hugely popular eaterie. 

In her debut cookbook, Prashad: Indian Vegetarian Cooking (Salt Yard, £25) Kaushy offers genuinely authentic recipes. I’ve used it a lot, but never been able to source the colocasia to make the two Patra dishes featured. Apparently you can buy it online and Indian-born US scientist/cook Nik Sharma, in his wonderful new book Veg-Table (Chronicle, £26), substitutes collard greens. Chard might do. Colocasia’s green arrowhead shaped leaves can grow up to 150cm long (above left), but the smaller leaves (10cmx15cm) are what you need for cooking, Steaming an stuffing is the way to go.

And they are good for you – containing dietary fibre, potassium, Vitamin E, Vitamin C, magnesium, and folate. So how could I resist ordering a warm starter of Bafela Patra (£9.20)? So as not to scare off the uninitiated, it is described on the menu as ‘star anise and jaggery pasted chard parcels’. It arrived on a flourish of beetroot pure and topped with coconut shards, yet it looks not immediately appealing, like a portioned out olive green stick of rock. Yet it turns out to be utterly delicious, with a deep earthiness… and substantial. (see the recipe below from the excellent Prashad website).

For my main I’ve greedily ordered the Maharani Thali, giving this solo diner a rundown of a range of dishes on the one platter. At £27.50, with rice, rotis and raita all part of the package, it could easily be a sharer. Stand out components? Choli (chick peas with cinnamon and star anise), paneer masala with fenugreek and onion/tomato base, chatta palkya (cinnamon and bay leaf infused spinach and mushrooms) and a gloriously creamy shrikand for pud. All washed down with a Kernel Porter from a beer list curated by Bobby’s brother Mayur, who co-owns Bundobust.

There is Cobra on tap for curry house traditionalists. They probably wouldn’t be the prime audience for the in-depth discussion of the Patra tradition in Sheetal and Rinkal’s Gujarati food blog Route2roots. It acknowledges that colocasia is a staple across the sub-continent but achieves its apogee in the Patra dishes of the Anavil Bhramins in one corner of Gujarat. 

All very eclectic. Suffice it to say colocasia grows abundantly in warm swampy areas across India, whereas rhubarb originates from the colder corners of Siberia. Both find a home in the kitchens of Prashad. Worth a trip back soon for a forced rhubarb lassi or pickle. Did I mention no-one does chutneys and pickles better than the Patels. I can still taste the basil and green tomato one one with my pappadom nibbles.

Bafela Patra recipe (from the Prashad website)

Ingredients

To create the masala, you will need:

8 medium colocasia leaves

2-4 fresh green chillies (trimmed but not de-seeded)

2-4 cloves of garlic

3cm piece of root ginger (peeled and roughly chopped)

1 pinch of salt

To create the paste, you will need:

50g dried tamarind (from a block)

150ml boiling water

200g chickpea flour

50 chapatti flour

50g rice flour

1½tsp salt

40g jaggery, finely chopped (or soft brown sugar))

1½tsp carom seeds

1½tsp turmeric

2-4tsp ground coriander

1tbsp garam masala

5tsp sesame seeds (4tsp will be used as garnish)

60ml sunflower oil

200ml warm water

Method

Wash your patra leaves and place them vein-side up on a chopping board. Using a small knife, carefully slice off the thick central vein.

Crush your chillies, garlic and ginger together with a pinch of salt with a pestle and mortar (or in a blender) to make a fine masala paste.

Soak the dried tamarind in boiling water for five minutes, then pulp with your fingers and a sieve, draining the tamarind water into a small bowl. Squeeze the pulp to get as much flavour as possible!

Sieve your flours together and mix in your masala paste, salt, jaggery, carom seeds, spices, one teaspoon of sesame seeds and your oil. Mix well to make sure all the masala is worked in.

Pour your tamarind water and warm water into the mixture and mix to form a sticky but workable paste, before leaving the mixture to rest for 10 minutes.

Take one of your larger patra leaves and place it vein-side facing up on a chopping board or your work surface, leaf tip furthest from you. Gently spread the leaf with enough paste to cover with a 5mm layer.

Take a second leaf and lay it on top of the first, again vein-side up. Spread the surface of the new leaf with paste.

Carefully lift the sides of the leaf stack and fold about 4cm in towards the centre, keeping the sides straight.

Spread a layer of paste over the leaf sections that you have just folded in (the new top surface). Then gently lift the closest end of the Patra leaf and fold about 4cm onto itself, then fold again and continue to fold away from you until you reach the tip.

Repeat the pasting, layering, folding and rolling three more times to use up the remaining six leaves, giving you four patra rolls.

To cook, put a flat-based heatproof bowl in a large, deep pan. Pour water into the pan until it reaches most of the way up the bowl, leaving about 2cm of the rim sticking about the water. Place your pan over a high heat.

Lightly oil a medium plate with a 2cm rim or lip that will fit in the pan (the rim will give you something to grip when you remove it from the steamer and help to prevent the patra falling into the water).

Put the four rolls, with the seam of the rolls facing down, on the oiled plate and gently place it on top of the bowl in the pan. Put the lid on the pan, wrap the rim of the lid with a cloth or tea towel (if it is a flat lid) and put weight on the lid to secure it.

Reduce the heat to medium and then leave to steam for 35 minutes, turning the rolls after 15 minutes. To check they are fully cooked, insert a sharp knife into the middle of a roll. The knife should come out clean.

Carefully remove the plate from the steamer and leave to cool for five minutes. Put the patra on a chopping board and use a sharp knife to slice each one into four even slices.

Prashad, 137 Whitehall Road, Drighlington, Bradford BD11 1AT. 0113  285 2037.

There is a thesis to be written on the key role railway hotels have played in the development of French cuisine. Sometimes at the exalted level of the 3-star La Maison Troisgros in Roanne. Legendary ‘nouvelle cuisine’ dishes such as ‘salmon in sorrel sauce’ were created by the brothers Jean and Pierre Troigros in the family hotel opposite the sleepy town station.
In 2017, under Pierre’s son Michel, it moved to a more luxurious site. Another culinary birthplace, though, will still be in situ to greet you three hours to the north in the Sologne. Get off the SNCF at even sleepier Lamotte-Beuvron and cross to the Hotel Tatin, home of the caramelised apple pastry that turned the dessert world upside down. You can also file the now ubiquitous Tarte Tatin under ‘dishes created by happy accident’.

The legend goes that the tart was fortuitously invented at the turn of the 20th century by chef Stéphanie Tatin (b 1838), who ran the hotel with her sister Caroline (b 1847). It was the opening Sunday of the hunting season and a traditional apple pie was expected by the hungry chasseurs. In the kitchen a flustered Stéphanie left the apples cooking in butter and sugar for too long. In a bid to rescue the scrape (sic) she was in she opted to simply chuck the pastry base on top and stick it in the oven. 

Voilà, the succulent, caramelised apples soaked into the pastry, the lunch party loved it and it has never been off the menu since… here and in countless places around the world.

A major boost for it originally was its adoption by Maxim’s on the Rue Royale – one of the great Parisian celeb restaurants of the Belle Époque and beyond. Recently restored to its previous glory, it charges 18 euros for its tarte tatin (compared with 10 at the humbler Hotel Tatin). On a frugal pre-Christmas visit to the French capital I never got to eat it there, but I did BAKE MY OWN at another Parisian institution, the Galeries Lafayette Haussmann, a 15 minute walk away.

The Galeries were in full Dream Before Christmas mode, from an awesome twinkling tree soaring into the department store’s dome and animated window displays from fashion designer Charles de Vilmorin showcasing his “epic story of the little girl and the magic paintbrush who travel to an imaginary land.”

I went one step further, and checked into the Ferrandi’s Kitchen cookery school on the third floor of the Lafayette Maison and Gourmet Store. At the end of my own rainbow a pot of goldenly caramelised apples, no less. There to guide me into not burning the fruit or rolling out the wrong texture of pastry was chef/tutor Lucie Lafontaine.

We were an eight-strong group, so, if necessary I could hide among teamwork. Still, I had made tatins before at home, using apples, plums, quinces and pears, and, less successfully rhubarb and gooseberry, which turned to mush. Pineapple, though, was a success. An apple that holds its shape during caramelisation, such as a Cox, is best. Lucie introduced to us a rival French one that was equally perfect. I‘ve seen instances in restaurants of savoury tarte tatins, but that seems just wrong. As does using puff pastry. 

At the end of our two and a half hour stint all our efforts tasted like the real thing. We had well earned our signed certificate, chef’s toque and goodie bag and got to keep our posh monogrammed apron. 130 euros is the cost of such a course, where savoury dishes are also on the changing roster on offer. Book here.

So, if you can’t make it to Paris or Lamotte-Beuvron, what’s the secret to a true tarte tatin?

Best leave it to the indefatigable Felicity Cloake in her ‘How to cook perfect…” series in The Guardian. Even her researches barely scratch the upside down surface with so many chefs tweaking their own versions.

This is her distillation, which I have employed since returning from Paris and it gets it spot on: “Toffee apples for grown-ups, the tarte tatin is all about the flavour of the fruit – crisp pastry, firm, juicy apples and that sweet, buttery caramel topping, holding the whole lot together. We may have the best apples, but the French really know what to do with them.”

Ingredients

7 medium apples: 4 Cox, 3 Granny Smith
200g white sugar
50g butter
175g ready-made shortcrust pastry 

OR
225g plain flour
2 tbsp caster sugar
120g cold butter
1 medium egg, beaten

Method

Peel, halve and core the apples, then put in the fridge, uncovered, for 24 hours. Put the sugar into a 20cm heavy-based ovenproof frying pan along with 50ml water and leave to soak for a couple of minutes, then cook over a medium heat until golden and fudgy. Take off the heat and stir in the butter, and a pinch of salt, until well combined, then carefully arrange the apples in the pan, round-side down, bearing in mind the caramel will be very hot, and put back on the heat – you may need to cut some of the apples into smaller pieces to fill in the gaps. Cook for 5 minutes, then take off the heat and allow to cool completely.

If making the pastry, sift the flour into a large mixing bowl and add the sugar and a pinch of salt. Grate in the butter, then rub together until it is coarse crumbs. Mix the egg with 2 tsp cold water and sprinkle over the mixture. Mix together into a soft but not sticky dough, adding more water (if required) very gradually. Shape into a ball, and then cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes before rolling out.

Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Roll out the pastry (you’ll probably have some left over if you’ve made your own) to 5mm thick, and cut out a circle slightly larger than your pan. Put back into the fridge to rest.

Put the pastry on top of the pan and tuck in the edges around the fruit. Bake for about 30 minutes until the pastry is golden, then remove from the oven. Allow to cool for five  minutes, then place a plate, slightly larger than the pan, on top and then, very carefully, using oven gloves, invert the tart on to the plate. Best served warm, with crème fraîche. Serves 6.

• To discover what else I got up to in Paris visit this link.

Remember Fleet Foxes, Seattle-based purveyors of glorious indie folk harmonies? Eventually they broke up…  like the waves against the pine-fringed shores of Mykonos. The Greek island gave its name to one enigmatic b-side, offering “a vision of a gentle coast/and a sun to maybe dissipate/shadows of the mess you made”.

Its echoes oddly haunt a shimmering Mykonos-influenced lunch in the very different surroundings of on-the-up, post-industrial Manchester. The ‘wine dark’ Irwell flows nearby with Factory International aka Aviva Studios on its banks, making its eye-wateringly expensive cultural statement. Soho House, come spring, is set to provide a playground for the well-heeled colonisers of the former Granadaland. Shall we all sport something Chanel for the opening?

Shiny new £7m Fenix is, of course, feeding off this vibe. If you thought, Tattu, debut restaurant of brothers Adam and Drew Jones, sprinkled gold dust on the dining scene, this new project is pure platinum – a dreamy homage to the destination that has become the ‘Cycladean Ibiza’. Curvy, sea cave surfaces, an ‘olive tree’ naturally and lighting that glows like an Aegean sunset. The bar is dark and moody, the upstairs restaurant, in contrast, boasts “ash-toned driftwood dining chairs paired with decadent marble tables and refined tableware.”

There is no Zorba, Demis or Nana soundtracking our visit. Less bouzouki, more ambient beats. Whatever, I’m not paying much heed. The quality of the small plates arriving grabs me. Starring roles for taramasalata, octopus, lamb and the fluffiest of pitas, all taken to a level way beyond the vacation tavernas of Shirley Valentine (filmed on Mykonos).

I haven’t quite expected this, having sniffed at the presence of Cantonese spiced ribs, wagyu, ceviches and Andean antichucos on the menu (thankfully no Nobu-esque black cod). Then again Tattu never set out to be totally ‘authentic’ Chinese. 

Let me quote the Fenix ‘story’. Every restaurant has to have one these days.“In Greek mythology, the Phoenix represents triumph over adversity, cyclical regeneration and rebirth. Only one of these rare creatures can exist at a time, and each lives for 500 years. As that lifecycle ends, a nest is built and set on fire. From those flames new life arises, and the process continues. Fenix was born into uncertain and challenging times, and its character is its destiny — breathing fresh energy into a Manchester dining scene when it’s most needed.”

Key players in all this are the two chefs they have hired with strong Mykonos links. Executive Head Chef, Ippokratis Anagnostelis and Head Chef, Zisis Giannouras worked together at the high end Kenshō Ornos suites hotel on the island. Anagnostelis’s CV reads like a roll call of Greece’s finest dining spots, including the Michelin-starred Hytran in Athens, putting a contemporary spin on traditional dishes. The influences are obvious at Fenix, but it feels more relaxed than most destination restaurants with service especially impressive just a week in.

So which dishes did I particularly like?

(Once I‘ve decided to pass on the Wagyu Stifado (£85), one dish that has made it over from Kenshō. A treatment where striploin is glazed with wagyu jus, then served with braised onions, spices and cumin potato emulsion, seemed a deconstruction too far.)

Sea bass off the robato, to share (£95)

For a tenner more, a dish that isn’t strictly traditional but feels heart-stoppingly Hellenic – the boned fish stuffed with spinach and shiitake is served with a lemon-yuzu dressing. Oh, and it looks amazing.

Athenian Tartare with Caviar (£19)

No apologies for hitting a bass note again so soon. Fenix offers it ceviche style with a South American dressing of tiger’s milk, avocado, kiwi fruit and jalapeño, but this fresh treatment serving it with saffron, citrus and Ossetra caviar surpasses it.  

Grilled Octopus (£18)

Can’t resist tender cephalod and this comes with an earthy split pea cream and parsley vinaigrette that’s so powerful.

Orzo with langoustine and feta (£32)

A glorious take on a risotto with the rice-like pasta suffused with a rich bisque cut through with the sharp cheese

Broken Down Tart’ (£14.95)

Meat at last. I presume the presentation is an affectionate homage to the Greek taverna tradition of plate smashing (somewhat suppressed nowadays by health and safety issues). This is basically slow-cooked lamb shank and parsnip cream baked tarte tatin style in delicate pastry.

All this came off the a  la carte, which can soon add up, but there is a variety of set menus, including an attractive lunch deal for £31.50. The wine list is a well-balanced, global offering, straying off, as you’d expect into some mega-expensive ‘trophy’ choices. I’m a huge fan of Greek wines and there is representation from quality operators such as Gaia, Thymiopoulos and the late great Haridimos Hatzidakis, who put Santorini on the map as a cult wine spot.

There’s also an inevitable cocktail project, celebrating the four elements that shape the mythical Greek Isles; Water, Earth, Air and Fire. One example: ‘Whirlpool Fizz’ inspired by Charybdis the sea monster that sucked ships to their doom, combining gin with “a silky backbone of stone fruit and tonic”. Down in one then.

Fenix, The Goods Yard Building, Goods Yard Street, Manchester M3 3BG. 0161 646 0231.

  • I was a lunch guest of Fenix’s owners, the Permanently Unique restaurant group. My main image is of Wagyu Stifado.

Playing catch-up with my Books of the Year recommendations. Late to the party. Every weekend supplement has already been swamped with the buggers. Alas, there has been less evidence than usual of my fave tips – highbrow critics seeking to impress with the likes of “the great belle lettrist Attila Kosztolányi’s magnum opus, many years in the making, has finally seen the light of day. Read in the original Hungarian, it’s a triumph – let’s hope for a translation soon.”
You’ll find my choices less smarmy, I hope. The list is not, as you’d expect, dominated by food books. For research purposes, I have mostly been delving into scholarly old favourites or making practical use of the jus-stained kitchen recipe faithfuls. Blame the lockdown time on my hands for certain continuing reading obsessions – German history and our own 17th century registers of recusants and Roundheads.
Let’s start then with two magisterial examples of the former, published in 2023…

Beyond The Wall by Katja Hoyer (Penguin £26) and In Search of Berlin by John Kampfner (Atlantic £22)

The first account puts a human face on the DDR, taking it beyond the received wisdom of Stasiland, Trabants and steroid-pumped athletes. Hoyer, a British-based historian, is herself an ‘Ostie’, but she was only four years old when the Berlin Wall came down, transforming a country that epitomised the Cold War. In the re-united Germany three decades on reviews have been mixed, but I found it convincing and revelatory. An equally provocative exploration of the reunited state was Kampfner’s best-selling Why Germans Do It Better. Now the former Telegraph foreign correspondent, who reported on the epic events of 1989, puts today’s restored capital in the context of a thousand years of often troubled history. Riveting for an old Berlin hand like myself.

The Secret Hours by Mick Herron (Baskerville £22)

Divided Berlin was, of course, the backdrop for the Cold War spy genre, notably in the works of John Le Carré and Len Deighton. Herron, touted as Le Carré’s natural heir but very much his own man as the laureate of a deadbeat alternative espionage, is best known for his Slow Hours novel sequence, the third of which is currently being screened by Apple TV with Gary Oldman playing grubby anti-hero Jackson Lamb. The Secret Hours is a standalone title but Herron can’t resist giving (an unnamed) Lamb a key walk-on part in a tale that revolves around skulduggery in today’s security circles and an operation to find a Stasi murderer in 1990s Berlin which goes wrong. Intricately plotted surprises come in from the cold.

The Lock-up by John Banville (Hutchinson £22) and Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry (Faber £18.99)

The Irish penchant for fiction is as vibrant as ever with Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song recently scooping the Booker Prize. My own bookish bucket list for Christmas, though, is headed by The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright, the greatest Irish-based female writer (sorry Sally Rooney). No apologies, though, for recommending two genre-straddling novels by male veterans that have delighted me. The garlanded ‘literary’ novels of old school man of letters Banville have always left me slightly cold, but I am besotted with his increasing dips into crime fiction, featuring an odd couple with their own demons (naturally) – pathologist Dr. Quirke and Detective Inspector St John Strafford. The latest tracks back to 1950s Dublin where young history scholar Rosa Jacobs is found dead in her car. The investigation takes in the Italian mountaintops of Italy, the front lines of World War II Bavaria and deepest rural Ireland.

Barry’s novel also features a cop, retired to a castle in the Dublin coastal suburbs but with skeletons in the cupboard just waiting to be rattled as his past dealings are investigated by former colleagues. It’s dreamlike, almost gothic, packed with red herrings and unreliable narrators. Grim, melancholy, I loved it.

The Blazing World by Jonathan Healey (Bloomsbury £30)

Historical fiction may have peaked with the great Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (my own favourite still Iain Pears’ An Instance at the Fingerpost) but it’s in good hands with the likes of Robert Harris, whose Act of Oblivion (2022), featuring the 17th century pursuit across the New World of two Roundhead regicides, offered contemporary resonances. I read it alongside Anna Keay’s magisterial account of the decade after Charles I’s execution, The Restless Republic. What a blessing then the arrival of a complementary yet contrasting “New History of a Revolutionary Century”. It is a vivid, witty account of certain key characters, who exemplify a divisive age. The title comes from the extravagant aristocrat/polymath Margaret Cavendish Duchess of Newcastle, who, after the Restoration, imagined an alternative “Blazing World” of order and tranquillity in contrast to the “malicious detractions” and “homebred insurrection” through which she had lived. My next period read? Likely to be September’s Pure Wit: The Revolutionary Life of Margaret Cavendish by Francesca Peacock.

Invitation to a Banquet by Fuchsia Dunlop (Particular £25) and Stuffed by Pen Vogler (Atlantic £22)

Let’s stay scholarly as we finally stray into food and drink territory with two books I have already reviewed at length. The first explores the vast complexity of Chinese cuisine, combining historical research and contemporary travelogue; the second, as I summed up, is “a surprisingly political survey of feast and famine with a particular emphasis on the damage wrought on subsistence by 300 years of Enclosures forcing 6.8 million acres of communal land into private ownership. The book title is not just about a full stomach, it’s also about being shafted.” So food adulteration in Victorian times is on a ley line to toxic ultra-processed foods in ours. Plus ça change

Flavour Thesaurus 2 by Nikki Segnit (Bloomsbury £20) and Mother Tongue by Gurdeep Loyal (4th estate £26)

Segnit’s book is the sequel to her eye-opening debut The Flavour Thesaurus, which became an instant classic when it was published 13 years ago. There had never been anything quite like it before, this playful exploration of ingredient matches springing from a flavour wheel of her own random devising. A reference book born out of erudite research that was equally at home by the bedside or on the kitchen table. More of the same, yes, but the  new flavours are predominantly plant-based. From zeitgeist-led vegan, from kale to cashew, pomegranate to pistachio, seaweed to tamarind, but eggs and cheese forced their toothsome way in, too.

A la Segnit, I like to be surprised and Gurdeep Loyal’s colourful cookbook lives up to its fusion manifesto declaring: “Food is a living form of culture that evolves: its boundaries are fluid, blurred, porous and dynamic… authenticity is an unending reel of culinary snapshots, an evolving spectrum that captures many transformative moments along flavourful journeys in generations of kitchens.”

Before Mrs Beeton – Elizabeth Raffald, England’s Most Influential Housekeeper by Dr Neil Buttery (Pen and Sword Books, £20)

Fanny Craddock was a Fifties/Sixties celeb chef in black and white telly world. If the box had been invented in the late 18th century I’m sure Manchester-based Elizabeth Raffald would have had her own show, such was her dynamism. Food historian Buttery charts the dizzying career that culminated in The Experienced English Housekeeper (1786). Why she even gave away the recipe for her invention for the Eccles Cake and there are strong claims that Mrs Beeton “adapted” many of her recipes.

The New French Wine by Jon Bonné (£112) mention Andrew Jefford and natural wine and Noma 2 – Vegetable-Forest-Ocean by Rene Redzepi, Mette Søberg and Junichi Takahashi (Artisan £60)

Two door-stoppers that were published first abroad last year and seeped in to the UK. I first encountered Bonné a decade ago when his New California Wine was a valuable companion on an epic vineyard-led road trip of the state. Since when he has moved to France and compiled this deluxe definitive compendium of the country’s wine makers at a time of profound change. I still treasure Andrew Jefford’s The New France but, published in 2002, it is now ‘Old France’, superseded by this remarkable celebration of a unique wine culture.

The groundbreaking cultural phenomenon that is Noma is reinventing itself as a food laboratory (shades or restaurant rival El Bulli). The gorgeous Noma 2, a hymn to foraging, fermentation and a wacky food aesthetic, may read like a swansong but I’ll take it as a launchpad (though it’s very weighty for lift-off).

Manchester’s Best Beer Pubs and Bars by Matthew Curtis (CAMRA Books, £16.99 pb) and A Beautiful Pint: One man’s search for the perfect pint of Guinness by Ian Ryan (Bloomsbury, £9.99)

Two much slimmer volumes that have a practical purpose in guiding you to the authors’ recommended watering holes. Matthew Curtis, author of the refreshing Modern British Beer upped sticks from London to live in Stockport. Result is a CAMRA beer guide like no other, encompassing craft bars, restaurants and taprooms as well as the traditional pubs. The list of ‘special’ starred establishments is spot on, as is this incomer’s research for a potted history of the scene. 

If that’s a perfect stocking-filler for the hophead in your life, it has a dark rival in Cork exile Ryan’s more niche print follow-up to his notorious Shit London Guinness Instagram and Twitter accounts. The writing is no on a par with Curtis’s but the passion shines through, along with some technical stuff I’d never given thought to. Best of all is his Guinness outlets to visit section. Without it I would never have strayed into the beyond marvellous Cock Tavern on Phoenix Road, just a stroll from Euston Station, where Sheila from Sligo served me the best Guinness I’ve ever had in the UK – at an amazing £4.50 a pint.

Steeple Chasing by Peter Ross (Headline £22) and The Wasteland: Biography of a Poem by Matthew Hollis (Penguin £12.99 pb)

There are few books I re-read in a year but Steeple Chasing has been one of them. It’s the Glasgow-based feature writer’s follow-up to A Tomb With A View: The Stories and Glories of Graveyards and is even more fascinating. Which is saying something. Elegiac, yes but more… The melancholy element is inevitable, if not as pervasive as in its predecessor despite the pandemic hovering over the journeys. On first reading I pinned it down as a neo-WG Sebaldian quest for meaning among Britain’s steeples and bell towers, but with its own special radiance, especially when he explores the sacred territory of Suffolk. 

I inevitably re-read TS Eliot’s great poem in response to Matthew Hollis’s excavation of the post First World War milieu it grew out of – like “lilacs out of the dead land”. So much personal unhappiness fertilised his creation, trimmed into shape for publication by ‘ll Miglior Fabbro’ (the better craftsman), Ezra Pound. Let us salute both of them, “looking into the heart of light, the silence.”