Tag Archive for: Food

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Berenjenas Almagro from La Mancha’s meseta – not just any old pickle

Regionality is a foodie buzz word. Yet increasingly dishes in vogue transcend their locality. Take the dosa, fermented lentil and rice crepe of South India. Such is its popularity you’ll now find it across the whole of the Sub-continent and in many a street food spot in the UK (though I notice it is absent from the revamped Bundobust menu). Well, I always, felt I wasn’t getting the full masala dosa experience there with their mini-version. I like mine to be huge crispy, stuffed scrolls.

Which brings us, by a roundabout route, to the previous insularity of Spanish regional cuisines. Tapas and Pintxos may be Iberian cousins but  Andalucian and Basque culture and food stem from separate bedrocks. I recall an Eighties Spanish road trip when in some Castilian cantina I ordered a Manzanilla. Expecting a chilled glass of saline dry sherry from Sanlucar de Barrameida in the south, I was rewarded with a glass of chamomile (‘little apple’) tea. That confusion wouldn’t happen nowadays. Ditto on a Seville wine list you might easily find a Galician Albarino alongside sherries and local drops.

All corners of Spain retain distinctive cuisines of their own alongside the tourist staples of paella and sangria, but some very specific dishes named for their place of origin are also now ubiquitous in markets and on bar counters.

The Plaza Major is the glorious architectural centrepiece of Almagro

Take Berenjenas Almagro, pickled aubergine speciality from the sleepy La Mancha town of Almagro. Think a less complicated cousin of the Sicilian Caponata. Tastier maybe. I’d like to say I first came across the dish, which is eaten cold, in situ or even in Bilbao or Seville but it was in Paul Richardson’s revelatory 2007 culinary travelogue, A Late Dinner: Discovering The Food of Spain. More recently I found a workable recipe on Page 202 of Rick Stein’s Spain, spin-off from one of his more informed BBC series. Home prepared, though, it never tastes as good as in Spain.

Perched in the south of the vast meseta that is the Castilian heartland, Don Quixote country, Almagro (pronounced alˈmayɾo) is made for telly. Notably its Plaza Mayor and 16th century theatre, both products of the wealth generated by mercury mining, though it is the lacemaking introduced by Flemish families in that period that is the major legacy today. Oh and for hundreds of years before and after a particular aubergine recipe has been a constant.

Of Indian origin, the aubergine arrived in Spain via the Berbers. You see the name adapt to its new territories – the Persian badingan to the Arab badinjan to the Spanish berenjena, eventually to the French aubergine. Along the way it conquered a bad press, which had it responsible for piles, cancer, leprosy, poisoning and insanity. Indeed, the Italian name, melanzane, comes from the Latin mala insana or ‘mad apple’.

Aubergines or eggplants come in varied sizes and colours

Still it became a fundamental part of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine. Not always as the ample purple specimen that dominates our shelves. Often it was white or green striped and the size of an egg, hence its American name, the eggplant. 

It’s this variant that the folk of Almagro took to their hearts and their pickling vats. If you attempt to recreate it at home seek out Thai aubergines or at a pinch the mini dark varieties in Asian stores. It’s hard to find any canned Berenjenas Almagro in the UK.

Rick Stein’s Pickled Aubergine Almagro Style

1.25kg small aubergines

3 large roasted red peppers

500ml red wine vinegar

120ml olive oil

3tbsp caster sugar

½tsp crushed dried red chilli flakes

2tsp pimentón dulce

25g garlic cloves crushed

2tsp freshly ground cumin seeds

½tsp dried oregano

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

Bring a pan of well salted water to the boil. Make a small slit lengthwise in each aubergine down to within 1cm of the stalk. Drop them into the water for five minutes or until just tender, yet crunchy. Drain, leave to cool. 

Meanwhile split open the red peppers, discard the stalks and seeds and cut the flesh into 5mm wide strips. Push a couple of strips into each aubergine slit and then pack them tightly into two sterilised one-litre Kilner jars.

In a pan mix the remaining ingredients with 300ml water, 1tbsp salt and ½tsp pepper. Bring to the boil, pour over the aubergines, so they are completely covered, put on the lid and refrigerate. They are ready to eat within 24 hours and will keep for up to three weeks. 

From Rick Stein’s Spain (BBC Books, hb £25)

PAUL RICHARDSON, GREAT SPANISH EXPLORER

If there’s one book in English that captures the sheer ‘Duende’ of Spanish regional food it is A Late Dinner, companion piece to the earlier Our Lady of the Sewers, Richardson’s quest for the old, dark Spain. Both are highly recommended. The author has lived in Spain  since 1990, latterly, self-sufficiently with his husband on a remote Extremaduran farm. How he came there is the central theme of a recent When In Spain Podcast.

He has shared many discoveries about his adopted country. A pickled aubergine is not too humble to acknowledge. For A Late Dinner after encountering Maria del Carmen Sanchez Serrano, a berenjerena or ‘one who occupies herself with aubergine’ since she was eight year old, he visits the family pickling works, born out of extreme hardship following the Civil War. The key elements are the aubergines the size of a small fist grown in the richer soils of nearby Aldea del Rey and getting the boiling time exactly right before curing.

“I said goodbye before she stomped off to load up the van; tomorrow she had a delivery. We shook hands. Her arms were stained orange with pimentón – the permanent tan of the aubergine maker. ‘Berenjerenos, berenjerenos, that’s what we are. And it’s too late to be anything else,’ she said with a smile of resignation, tiredness and satisfaction.”

For tourism information on Amalgro and the Ciudad Real region visit this link.

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Digest these tasty books on food, booze and travel that inspired me

My wife is aiming for a new Kindle for Christmas. Helping to save trees. While I’m dreaming of a couple of fat tomes to occupy my stocking. Maybe not on the topics this website centres on. I’m not averse to fiction or books on German history. Hint.

Lockdowns saw me researching into some recherché culinary roads less travelled, hence of late I’ve purchased fewer new publications. So don’t expect any definitive overview from the 2021 suggestions below. Still much delight. In compiling my list I realised I had bookended it with two authors who have been with me most of my post-Beano reading life. Let’s salute two octogenarians who are the greatest living exemplars in their field – food scholar Claudia Roden, 85, and travel writer Colin Thubron, 82, both of whose books this year transcended all those feeble potboilers piled high around them. 

Med: A Cookbook by Claudia Roden (Ebury, £28)

On the cover of Roden’s first new book in a decade there’s praise from Yotam Ottolenghi: “To read Claudia is to sit at her table, with everything, simply, as it should be. Pull up a table for the food; stay at the table for the stories.” The author herself begins what is much more than a recipe book with the epigraph “Cooking is the landscape in a saucepan”. All of which neatly sums up the fault line, dotted with hummus, tabbouleh, baba ganoush and a 1001 other treats, that lead from her groundbreaking A Book of Middle Eastern Food (1969) to the post-Millennium dinner parties inspired by her disciple Ottolenghi’s own oeuvre.

The Med reflects the fact that she has never rested on her scholarly laurels. Egyptian-born with Sephardic Jewish roots, Roden tapped into Spain with her last book, arguably my favourite of hers, and her latest offers a distillation of all her magpie-like culinary excavations radiating from the Mediterranean shores. Travel to Gaziantep, a Turkish city on the border with Syria via a green olive, walnut and pomegranate salad or investigate her pumpkin soup with orzo and amaretti, finding a new use for the traditional pasta filling of Mantua in Northern Italy. All this accompanied by evocative, anecdotal detail ranging from early family life in Aleppo via exile to Britain to the contemporary culinary mores of Barcelona.

Ripe Figs: Recipes From The Eastern Mediterranean by Yasmin Khan (Bloomsbury, £26) 

Claudia Roden us a hard act to follow but many cookery writers have mined that rich Mediterranean/Middle Eastern seam. I’ve been a huge fan of Yasmin Khan since her debut, The Saffron Tales (2016), which is as much about charting the lives of contemporary Iranians as their exquisite cuisine. Its successor, Zaytoun, inpected Palestinian food through an acutely political lens as she journeyed through kitchens in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Raised in Birmingham, the child of a Pakistani father and Iranian mother, she initially worked as a human rights activist. This is fully evident again if you look behind the handsomely illustrated pages of her third cookbook. It covers the food of Greece, Turkey and Cyprus with a set mission – to explore how migration has shaped cultures for the better… with food a vital litmus test.

Hence Ripe Figs is filled with the stories and recipes from families that have lived in the region for generations but alongside, in the midst of the global refugee crisis, she finds positive contributions from the displaced in the Moria refugee camp on Lesvos and elsewhere. In Istanbul kitchens she cooks with Kurds and in Northern Cyprus explores the thorny British colonial legacy. Fascinating reportage but the book is also a  trove of sun-filled recipes that celebrate how the joy of food can bring us all together.

Sicilia: A Love Letter to Sicily by Ben Tish (Bloomsbury, £26) 

Food and joy to me are synonymous with Sicily. Well maybe not gagging on spleen sandwiches from the street stalls of Palermo. I’m thinking proper tomatoes, lemons, capers, olive oil, ricotta salata, scaccia bread, cannoli and, of course, seafood. The image fronting this article is of the remarkable gambero rosso red prawns from the island’s South West Coast. These particular specimens were served to me with an orange dressing and thyme, in one of my final meals out before the first lockdown, at Norma in London’s Fitzrovia. This homage to Sicilian cuisine, with an inevitable Arabic influence, was created for the Stafford Collection by Ben Tish. In his matching ‘love letter’ he puts his own light stamp on a culinary melting pot of so many influences. It’s worth buying the book just for the pudding recipes.

An A-Z of Pasta by Rachel Roddy (Fig Tree, £25) 

Subtitled ‘Stories, Shapes, Sauces, Recipes’, this is an alphabetical exploration of the quintessential Italian food from the Rome-based home cook, whose evocative despatches appear in The Guardian every Saturday. Does it supersede my super-stylish long-standing pasta primer, The Geometry of Pasta by Caz Hildebrand and Jacob Kenedy (of Bocca di Lupo fame)? Neither can do full justice to the full range of Italian pasta shapes, estimated at over 500. She tackles 50, subdivided into six main categories, with 100 accompanying recipes to justify her claim that “pasta shapes are edible hubs of information”. if that sounds daunting just check out the recipes, most of which are eminently accessible. Tagliolini with datterini tomatoes and chanterelles? Or fresh capelli d’angelo with prawns and lemon. Pass the parmigiano, per favore.

To complete my Italian ‘course’ I’d like to recommend the pasta-driven Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci (Fig Tree, £20), but this eagerly anticipated prezzie is still being loaded up at Santa’s Lapland HQ, I’m hoping. There’ll be hell to pay if I’m not tucking into the Big Night star’s comestible memoir amid the messy aftermath of a roast goose dinner.

A Cook’s Book by Nigel Slater (4th Estate, £30)

What’s not to like about chapters entitled ‘Sometimes You Just Want Pie’ or ‘The Stillness of Cheesecake’? Slater’s Observer column readers, he tells us, didn’t want prunes in a chicken and leek pie, so he has left them out for this book of 200 tried and tested recipes, which plays to his strength – a close kinship with his readers. As the title implies, he is a cook, not a chef. As home-based as his near namesake Nigella, he does not share her ease on telly. Still he writes like a cosy angel, drawing you into the foodie diary of his life. Think Alan Bennett with a well-stocked pantry. The Stillness of Cheesecake may read like a riff on Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Soufflés, anyone?) but it offers the homeliest of advice, too, alongside a slavering appreciation of food kept simple. And I quote: “A slice of cheesecake arrives on a small white plate. Cool, calm, silent. A sour whiff of buttermilk, the caramel sweetness of vanilla, Your fork slides through with barely a sigh.

“The sweet, fudgy filling can cloy after a mouthful. This pale and graceful pastry needs a pot of jam or fruit to waken it, and us, from its vanilla-scented slumber. A tart fruit compote will work – gooseberry, plum or apricot – or a little mound of baked rhubarb at its side.”

No space to digress into his discovery in San Sebastian of Basque cheesecake. Never been a huge fan of this over-praised pud, but Slater’s advocacy makes me want to attempt it again.

The Beer Bible by Jeff Alworth, 2nd Edition (Workman, £30, also available in pb)

Beer really is more my thing than cheesecake and the ideal Christmas present for the ale lover in your life has to be this revised version of Alworth’s award-winning magnum opus, first published in 2015. Six years is a long time in the rapidly evolving world of craft beer and the Portland Oregon-based Beervana blogger has been perfectly placed to chart it. Take Manchester’s iconic Cloudwater Brewing – they were just starting out in 2015, fuelled by co-founder Paul Jones’ learning expedition to the American West Coast where Alworth mentored him in the hop-driven scene.

Now Cloudwater merits four pages in this massive, comprehensive work of reference that still has that personal touch in its appreciation of the world’s vast array of beer cultures. Even sake gets a look in this time round. What I particularly like about the book is its even-handedness, giving space to understand how mass market lagers might appeal. Manchester, too, is not just about Cloudwater and Marble (young head brewer Joe Ince makes the index) but traditional family brewers Hydes, Robinsons and JW Lees are also hailed.

Modern British Beer by Matthew Curtis (CAMRA Books, £15.99pb)

Another acclaimed beer writer liked Manchester so much he moved here permanently. Just after publication this autumn I met the LIncoln-raised writer/photographer at the Sadler’s Cat bar in the city centreto discuss its genesis – in a blog born out of a Damascene conversion to beer in Colorado a decade ago. In my interview/review I wrote: “New wave UK beer writers have codified the global beer styles that have been clarified/reinvented across America and then taken up over here. Matthew Curtis goes a step further and charts the creative melting pot of our own mash tuns and barrel ageing projects. Modern British Beer proves we are not just brewing lackeys; our own cask ale traditions remain the envy of the world, our own innovations the equal of anywhere.” 

The Curtis format certainly does the contemporary UK beer scene justice. The book is divided into seven regions with up to 15 breweries from each profiled via a defining beer style. It has already sparked a number of thirst-quenching pilgrimages. Check out this one to Sheffield’s St Mars of the Desert.

Modern British Cider by Gabe Cook (CAMRA Books, £15.99pb

On the surface a companion volume to MMB and, by chance I also spent a fascinating day  in the company of its author. the self-styled ‘Ciderologist’. Not in a bar this time but in the orchards of Dunham Press Cider, a northern outpost of a drink more associated with Somerset and Herefordshire. Later that day, at a tasting at GRUB in Manchester I even encountered a Scottish cider among a remarkable variety of styles.

In my subsequent report I wrote: “Rather than an artisan polemic, Modern British Cider is a careful summation that makes you want to sample all the delights he flags up in ‘The Most influential British Cider Makers Today’ chapter. In particular, to consider the contrasts between West Counties and East Counties, ie. made from tannic bittersweet cider apple varieties on the one hand and from fresher, fruitier dessert and culinary specimens on the other.”

So is all lovely in the orchard? The book is a fine gazetteer of where to find the good stuff but doesn’t fight shy of confronting the challenges for a tipple saddled with tarnished perceptions from the past. And, of course innovative ‘new wave cider’ has its own responsibility to its traditions. My Christmas suggestion – order this book and maybe treat yourself to a fine Pomona or Oliver cider to accompany your turkey or (apple-stuffed) goose.

A Cheesemonger’s Compendium of British and Irish Cheese by Ned Palmer (Profile, £14.99)

Cider, like beer, is a great accompaniment to cheese. And we’re not talking the token Christmas Stilton here. In 2014 Ned Palmer, schooled at Neal’s Yard Dairy, set up the Cheese Tasting Company to proselytise about the golden age of British cheese (it’s now). Two years ago his A Cheesemonger’s History of the British Isles beguilingly explored the artisan wonders at hand and the doughty makers who provide us with an alternative to the slabs of pap that dominate the supermarket shelves. A rollicking read from Ned but this follow-up is the book to slip in your pocket as you seek out a Baron Bigod or a Stinking Bishop or ask to compare a Montgomery Cheddar with a Keen’s Mature. It codifies, via style (mould-ripened, blue, washed rind, hard etc) 158 native cheeses, one to each page with a drawing and a succinct story and tasting note. Highly recommended. Next move is  find a good cheese shop. I’m lucky enough to have the outstanding Calder Cheesehouse just a 10 minute walk away in our little mill town of Todmorden. They do online, too. Visit this link. There’s still time before Christmas.

Wines of the Rhône by Matt Walls (Infinite Ideas, £30)

Early in 2021 I caught up with last year’s Noble Rot: Wine From Another Galaxy. I’d been reluctant to join Dan Keeling and Mark Andrew on their ebullient adventures since I’d already read some of them in their Noble Rot magazine. They’ve been busy boys this year too, opening a second Noble Rot restaurant, in the old Gay Hussar site in Soho and wine retail website, Shrine to the Vine. In prose, they have their finger on the pulse of the contemporary wine scene, opening up new paths.

Less showy is the Infinite Ideas Classic Wine Library, sparsely illustrated, hugely comprehensive survey of countries or key regions, often written by experts with MW after their name. Matt Walls isn’t a Master of Wine but he is Contributing Editor to Decanter magazine, who uprooted his family to a village outside Avignon fo a couple of years In order to really get under the skin of France’s Rhône region, North and South. The result is a revelatory delight, a reference work full of wise judgements. As up to date as it gets and an inspiration for our Christmas dinner wine offering.

The Amur River by Colin Thubron (Chatto & Windus, £20)

It’s a truism that there is nowhere left on the planet to discover, making it increasingly difficult for travel writers to push the boundaries. Well, veteran explorer Colin Thubron, in his 83rd year, is not one to settle for the ‘we’re all tourists now’ get-out clause. Before reading this – in one transfixed sitting – I couldn’t pin the Amur on the map. Yet it is apparently the 10th longest river on earth, flowing 3,000 miles east from a secret source in the Mongolian mountains to the Tatar Strait. Thubron travels he entire length. What gives the book its tense socio-political edge is that much of the journey follows the highly fortified, much fought-over Russian-Chinese border. 

In his quest to chart how the Russian imperial dream died Thubron’s fortitude is astonishing. Early in the trip traversing fathomless bogs at a frantic trot he falls from his squat, primitive nag and twists his ankle badly. Later he brazens out an arrest by the local police. What transcends any sense of mere derring-do is his grasp of the Amur’s tragic history and, of course, his luminous prose. Witness: “To walk here is to wade through a tide of wildflowers: multicoloured asters, gentians, butter-coloured potentilla, peacock-blue columbines. Over farther slopes, swathes of blown edelweiss make a frosty pallor for miles.”

I’ve followed Thubron from his early books on the Middle East through his eye-opening explorations of Russia and China, but this arguably is his elegiac masterpiece. 

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My Italian Food Trail: Tiramisù, the aphrodisiac?

Darkness at noon, torrential rain battering the skylight of my attic office. Can’t get out of my head how many private jets flew in the world leaders to that climate change summit in Glasgow and how ironic that doomsday weather has crippled the rail line up from London.

My antidote to all this gloom? Make a Tiramisù, obviously. In honour of Ado Campeol, whose Treviso restaurant, in North East Italy, was the birthplace of this modern Italian ‘classic’. If Neil Young is the ‘Godfather of Grunge’, Ado, who has died at the age of 93, is the ‘Godfather of Claggy Chill Cabinet Desserts in Restaurants With Checkered Plastic Tablecloths’.

Retro flashbacks. It doesn’t have to be like this, as I rally my tiramisù resources. Rum? Check. Marsala? Check. Eggs and sugar? Check. Dark (but not too dark) chocolate? Check. But just a small amount, augmented by cocoa powder. No espresso machine, but I’ll concoct a wired-up batch of dark roast Monsoon Malabar. OK, it will require a trip out, dodging the toppling trees, to garner a couple of tubs of mascarpone and some boudoir finger biscuits (or their equivalent. I’m tempted to factor in too, some Amaretti that have been a store cupboard fixture for too long, but would that be sacrilege?

Not really. Even a dish less of a parvenu than tiramisù, which dates back to those checkered seventies, is not set in stone (check out various versions below). It’s why every nonna across Italy treasures her own special ragu recipe. 

How many of those ragus, mind, have claims to aphrodisiac effects? This promotable urban myth stems from the word tiramisù, literally translated as “lift me up”, from the Treviso dialect’s “tireme su”. There’s a quite wonderful ‘heavy breathing’ Australian article, tracing the dish back to Treviso’s historic warren of brothels.

“For centuries, up until 1958 when brothels were shut by the government, the cake was served to reinvigorate exhausted clients inside so-called “casinos” (closed whorehouses) non-stop: Before, during and after heavy and multiple sex sessions to keep them going and the money flowing.”

The Campeols are sticking by their more edifying version of tiramisù’s origin. Aldo’s son Carlo, who now runs the Campeol family restaurant, has recalled: “When my mother Alba was breastfeeding me a few years earlier, she had turned to mascarpone mixed with sugar and biscuits soaked in coffee to keep her energy up, which is traditional in Treviso. Then, with her chef, she turned those elements into a pudding.”

According to that chef, Roberto Linguanotto, it was all down to an inspired accident while making vanilla ice cream. He dropped some mascarpone cheese into a bowl of eggs and sugar and, wowed by the pleasant taste, he told Alba. The pair then perfected the dessert by adding ladyfinger sponges soaked in coffee, and sprinkling it with cocoa.

The dish was never patented, pressure to win EU certification to validate (or ossify) the original recipe has been in vain and rival claimants have occasionally surfaced. That’s alway the case with these Eureka! moments in popular cuisine. Take universally revered ‘Indian speciality’ Chicken Tikka Masala. Tikkipedia (sorry Wikipedia) dates its creation back to the start of the Seventies and Glasgow’s Shish Mahal restaurant, where proprietor Ali Ahmed Aslam improvised a sauce made from yogurt, cream and spices after a customer complained his Tikka was too dry. Apocryphal? Definitive?” Who knows?

Similarly, in my travel memories of Berlin I name checked Kadir Nurman as the creator of the donner kebab (again in those fertile early seventies), but other Turkish immigrants to Germany have also staked their claim, apparently), while the invention of Berlin fast food rival Currywurst is attributed to one Herta Heuwer way back in 1949. She was a dab hand with ketchup and curry powder sourced from British squaddie stationed there.

But back to my tiramisù, which has been chilling nicely while I have meandered through this maze of modern culinary classics. Alcohol wasn’t originally included in this family friendly recipe; now it inevitably features. My version, which I’m sampling contentedly, does. Laced with rum and marsala (oh and there was an inch of brandy to use up), it turned our really well. Now the sun has even come out. Saluti! 

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What a carve up at Kala as guinea fowl rules the autumnal roost

One bane of a food writer’s life is reviewing a restaurant only to discover post haste that the menu’s about to change. Big time. Fortunately when I wrote up a September visit to Kala in Manchester my focus was on the glories of their featherblade steak, a signature dish across all the Elite Bistros group. 

This perennial stalwart remains on the new Autumn Menu, along with the obligatory truffle and parmesan chips, but there’s a whole raft of new dishes. I was alerted to their arrival by a chance meeting at a wine tasting of an old sommelier friend, who works out of Hispi, Kala’s sister restaurant in Didsbury. He was raving about a dish just created by Elite exec chef Richard Sharples  – a spiced field mushroom doughnut with sesame creamed spinach and caramelised celeriac gravy.

Solid reason to swiftly revisit Kala. It felt like fate when an invitation to sample the new menu suddenly dropped in my inbox. The doughnut turned out to be terrific, but the surprise package – and what a package – was the whole stuffed guinea fowl to share. OK, we were gannets to order both this and the surprisingly substantial doughnut as mains, ‘Mais nous ne regrettons rien’ as they say in Montparnasse or Montpellier.

Indeed there was something quintessential French bistro about this bird (let’s call it Le Pintade), while the fennel and apricot stuffing summoned up all our Christmases coming early. Better early than never with the current prophecies of festive dearth this year.

Our bird, encrusted with fennel and caraway seed, the moist stuffing lubricating the legs, came boned and ready to slice, a pool of pickled pear puree a neat enhancement for its  succulent interior. I couldn’t resist ordering the chips, but the bowl of the most delicate sauerkraut would have sufficed as a side.

We’d preceded the guinea fowl with that doughnut, its stretchy carapace harbouring  a teeming interior of braised fungi. Did it count as vegan? Jury’s out on the earthy creamed spinach, but the celeriac gravy was an inspired plant-based conceit.

Since the return to comparative dining room normality Elite Bistros boss Gary Usher has given his six venues leeway to branch out from the standard group menu, particularly with changing fish of the day picks. At Kala that Wednesday it was a choice of grilled whole plaice or pan-fried stone bass. 

My starter came from the fish specials because I’m a sucker for octopus and I was curious about how Kala’s daring combo would work, pitting the flamed cephalod against equally charred smoked corn and pickled currants. Maybe a red currant hot sauce gilded the piquant lily too much, but it’s typical of a hugely to be trusted menu that is still not afraid to push bistro boundaries.

An unqualified success was my partner’s starter, even if her initial qualm was: doughnut and dumpling in the same lunch? Fear unfounded. The dumpling was a light, gnudi-like pillow of great delicacy, as beautiful to look at as it was to eat, topped with grated Killeen cheese, all nutty and floral, a cauliflower puree base dotted with blobs of lemon and chive oils plus pickled shallot.

We finished off with Chocolate ‘Oblivion’ and poached pear with Sauternes jelly, the former with mint choc chip ice cream, the latter with walnut praline ice. Comforting autumnal bistro staples both. Wines by the glass had been appropriate for each dish and special mention for the Delicioso ‘En Rama’ Manzanilla that got us off to the perfect start, partnering Gordal olives and Don Bocarte anchovies. Isn’t autumn really rather wonderful?

Kala, 55 King Street, Manchester, M2 4LQ. 0161 839 3030. Reservations 0800 160 1811. The three course menu costs £40 for three courses, £35 for two. There’s a £16 supplement for that guinea fowl. There’s a limited choice bistro set meal available lunch and early evening.

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Rachel and Baratxuri the big winners at 2021 Manchester Food and Drink Awards

It’s always great when some of your favourite food and drink acts get the major plaudits. The weekend buzz was all about Erst in Ancoats being praised to the skies by Observer critic Jay Rayner. Deservedly so. I last reviewed it pre-pandemic and still remember a remarkable experience.

Equally immense has been the contribution of Pollen Bakery, not far away at New Islington Marina. Check out my recent celebration of their 28 hour sourdough. The public obviously share my opinion. They voted them Artisan Food Producer of the Year in the Manchester Food and Drink Awards on Monday, held in the really rather remarkable Escape To Freight Island Ticket Hall. Fittingly Escape themselves won Pop Up/Project of the Year. 

Chef of the Year Rachel Stockley gets a well-deserved hug from Baratxuri co-owner Fiona Botham

But the big winner on the night was Baratxuri, the Ramsbottom pintxos bar that also has a wood-fired outlet at Freight Island. It won Restaurant of the Year and its chef Rachel Stockley (above) Chef of the Year.

Receiving her award, she gave an impassioned speech about the role of women in the hospitality industry. To see what all the fuss is about re Baratxuri and its big sister Levanter read my glowing review from earlier this month.

In total 16 award winners were announced from food and drink establishments across Greater Manchester in this fitting climax to a resurgent Manchester Food and Drink Festival, which saw a record 80,000 visitors coming to the Festival Hub at Cathedral Gardens. 

This year it was an Awards with a difference. The shortlists were compiled by the MFDF judging panel, made up of the region’s leading food and drink critics, writers and experts (including yours truly). Amid challenging circumstances, the ‘mystery shopping’ element of the judging process was paused this year. Instead, the winners were decided entirely by the public – with food and drink fans voting in their thousands via the website. And the winners were…

Restaurant of the Year – Baratxuri, Ramsbottom

Shortlisted: Adam Reid at The French; Erst, Ancoats; Hawksmoor; Mana, Ancoats; Sparrows; Street Urchin; Where The Light Gets In; Baratxuri, Ramsbottom.

Recognising the ‘best of the best’ dining establishments in Greater Manchester in 2021, this category refers to venues visited primarily for a full dining experience featuring table service, alcohol license etc.

Chef of the Year – Rachel Stockley

Shortlisted: Adam Reid (The French); Eddie Shepherd (The Walled Gardens), Mary-Ellen McTague (The Creameries, Chorlton); Patrick Withington (Erst, Ancoats); Sam Buckley (WTLGI, Stockport); Simon Martin (Mana, Ancoats); Terry Huang (Umezushi); Rachel Stockley (Baratxuri, Ramsbottom).

Aiming to recognise the most talented and outstanding work of chefs cooking in Greater Manchester kitchens – their skill, menu, commitment and contribution to the dining scene.

Newcomer of the Year – Ramona, Swan Street
Shortlisted: District, NQ; Open Kitchen MCR; Osma, Prestwich; Pho Cue; Schofield’s Bar; Society; The Moor, Heaton Moor; Ramona.

Recognising the best new food and drink operations to open in Greater Manchester since the last awards decision period (August 2020). Date eligibility: Establishments opened between August 2020 and June 2021. Sponsored by the Manchester Evening News.

Bar of the Year – Albert’s Schloss, Peter Street

Shortlisted: Henry C Chorlton; Kiosk West Didsbury; Schofield’s Bar; Speak in Code; 

The Blues Kitchen; The Jane Eyre, Ancoats, Three Little Words, Albert’s Schloss.

Recognising the best drinking venues in the region that specialise in a “wet-led” offer and aren’t considered ‘pubs’. 

Pub or Craft Ale Bar of the Year – Edinburgh Castle,  Ancoats

Shortlisted: Beatnikz Republic; Cob and Coal, Oldham; Heaton Hops, Heaton Chapel; Society, Manchester; Nordie, Levenshulme; Reasons To Be Cheerful, Burnage; Stalybridge Buffet Bar; Edinburgh Castle.

Recognising the finest pub and beer bars in the region, focusing on quality and range of ales, beers and atmosphere. 

Artisan Food Producer of the Year – Pollen Bakery, Cotton Field Wharf,

Shortlisted: Bread Flower;  Companio Bakery, Ancoats; Gooey, Ducie Street Warehouse; Holy Grain Sourdough, Great Northern Mews; Just Natas, Manchester Arndale; Lily’s Deli, Chorlton; Manchester Smokehouse; Pollen Bakery.

Celebrating the fabulous array of food producers popping up around the region, including bakeries, picklers, pie makers and everything in between.

Pop Up/ Project of the Year – Escape to Freight Island, Baring Street

Shortlisted: Eat Well MCR; GRUB, Red Bank; Homeground, Medlock St; Kampus Summer Guest Events, Aytoun Street; Platt Fields Market, Platt Fields Market Garden; One Central, Charis House, Altrincham; MIF Festival, Festival Square; Escape to Freight Island.

Recognising exciting projects and events and showcasing innovation and creativity within the food and beverage sector.

Neighbourhood Venue of the Year – Lily’s, Ashton-under-Lyne

Shortlisted: Bar San Juan, Chorlton; Levanter, 10 Square St, Ramsbottom; Erst, Ancoats;

The Fisherman’s Table, Marple; Porta, Salford; Oystercatcher, Chorlton; Stretford Foodhall; Lily’s.

This award is set to recognise the superb establishments that are based in the suburbs of Greater Manchester. Sponsored by Roomzzz Aparthotels.

Food Trader of the Year – Wholesome Junkies, Manchester Arndale

Shortlisted – Abeja Tapas Bar, Hatch; Archchi’s; Gooey, Ducie Street Warehouse; Honest Crust; Maison Breizh; Pico’s Tacos; Tender Cow; Wholesome Junkies.
Awarding the Greater Manchester-based food heroes that are gracing our food halls, markets and events with an ever increasing range of gastro goods. 

Affordable Eats of the Year – Rudy’s, Ancoats and Peter Street

Shortlisted: Abeja Tapas Bar; Chapati Café, Chorlton; Ca Phe Viet, Ancoats; Little Yeti, Chorlton; Lily’s, Ashton-under-Lyne; Mi & Pho, Northenden; Platt Fields Market Garden; Rudy’s Pizza.

Recognising the best venues that are visited for a high value, quick and simple dining experience. Sponsored by Just Eat.

Coffee Shop of the Year: Federal, Nicholas Croft, NQ

Sortlisted: Another Heart to Feed, NQ; Ancoat’s Coffee, Royal Mill; Ezra & Gil, NQ; Grindsmith; Grapefruit, Sale; Just Between Friends, NQ; Pollen Bakery, Ancoats; Federal.

Recognising the best coffee shops and bars in Greater Manchester.

Veggie/Vegan Offering of the Year – Bundobust, Piccadilly

Shortlist: Eddie Shepherd (Walled Gardens, Whalley Range); Four Side Pizza, NQ); Herbivorous, Hatch; Lily’s, Ashton-under-Lyne; Sanskruti, Mauldeth Rd; Wholesome Junkies, Manchester Arndale; Vertigo, several venues; Bundobust (also now on Oxford Street).

This award recognises venues that provide innovative and exciting dining options for vegetarian and vegan diners.

Independent Drinks Producer of the Year – Manchester Gin, Watson Street
Shortlisted: Bundobust; Cloudwater Brewery; Diablesse Rum; Hip Pop (Formerly Booch & Brew), Dunham Massey; Northern Monkey, Bolton); Pomona Island Beer Brew Co, Salford; Steep Soda Co,; Manchester Gin.

Celebrating the many exciting and innovative producers of artisan drinks in Greater Manchester.

Food and Drink Retailer of the Year – Ancoats General Store 

Shortlisted: The Butcher’s Quarter, NQ; Bernie’s Grocery Store, Heaton Moor; Grape to Grain, Prestwich and Ramsbottom; Isca, Levenshulme; Out of the Blue, Chorlton; Unicorn Grocery, Chorlton; Wandering Palate, Eccles; Ancoats General Store.

The Best Food and Drink Retailer celebrates the best food and drink shopping experiences in the region.

Foodie Neighbourhood of the Year – Altrincham

Shortlisted: Heaton Moor, Prestwich, Ramsbottom, Sale, Stockport, Stretford, Urmston, Altrincham.

New for 2021, this award has been set up to celebrate those thriving communities and neighbourhoods in Greater Manchester that continue to build a name for themselves as a foodie destination outside the city centre.

Outstanding Achievement Award – Mital Morar (Store Group)

Recognising someone who has contributed something outstanding to the hospitality industry in Greater Manchester.

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OBSESSION RETURNS TO NORTHCOTE WITH A LINE-UP CELEBRATING THE VERY BEST OF THE UK AND IRELAND

It’s too easy to pin ‘Magnificent’ to Obsession but it’s a perfect fit for Northcote’s gourmet festival. For over two decades, with ever-starrier line-ups of guest chefs, it has lit up the depths of January. Last year, alas, the lights went out as the shadow of Covid cancelled all hospitality.

Now it’s storming back, ambition undimmed, from January 21 to February 6 2022 at the Michelin-starred Ribble Valley stalwart. Caution remains with an absence of global big hitters but this is more than made up for by 16 chefs, with 15 stars under their belt, from the UK and Ireland.

In announcing the cast of Obsession 22 Northcote exec chef Lisa Allen was quick to point out the big plus of this approach and I’m inclined to agree. After a torrid 18 months and more for the industry, and with staffing and supply headaches that won’t go away let’s celebrate ‘our own’. Their world class quality but also their energy and durability in the circumstances.

Not that there’s anything remotely parochial about the schedule below, tickets for which go on sale on Tuesday, September 28. It ranges from the high profile Michelin likes (above) of Matt Abe (Restaurant Gordon Ramsay), Simon Rogan (L’Enclume) to Obsession newcomers Roberta Hall McCarron from Edinburgh and Jordan Bailey from Co KIldare (below) alongside familiar telly faces Tom Kerridge and James Martin. Bailey, who runs two Michelin-starred Aimsir with his wife Majken, particularly intrigues me. Once a key part of the Restaurant Sat Bains team, he was later head chef at 3-star Michelin Maaemo in Oslo before they moved to Ireland in 2018.

As is traditional, Lisa Allen kicks off the 14 days of dinners on January 21 and she returns for a formidable female Grande Finale on February, when she teams up with Monica Galette and Nieves Barragan Mohacho.

The lineup: 

  • Fri Jan 21: Lisa Goodwin Allen, Northcote, Ribble Valley (1 star) 
  • Sat Jan 22: Matt Abe, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, London (3 stars) 
  • Sun Jan 23: Mickael Viljanen, Chapter One (previously The Greenhouse), Dublin  
  • Mon Jan 24: Jordan Bailey, Aimsir, County Kildare (2 stars) 
  • Tue Jan 25: Simon Rogan & Tom Barnes, L’Enclume, Cumbria (2 stars) 
  • Wed Jan 26: Roberta Hall McCarron, The Little Chartroom, Edinburgh 
  • Thu Jan 27: Alex Bond, Alchemilla, Nottingham (1 star) 
  • Fri Jan 28: Galton Blackiston, Morston Hall, Norfolk (1 star) 
  • Sat Jan 29: Hrishikesh Desai, Gilpin Hotel & Lakehouse, Cumbria (1 star) 
  • Sun Jan 30: Kenny Atkinson, House of Tides, Newcastle (1 star)  
  • Wed Feb 2: James Martin, celebrity chef and TV presenter 
  • Thu Feb 3: Tom Kerridge, The Hand & Flowers, Marlow (2 stars) 
  • Fri Feb 4: Atul Kochhar, Atul Kochhar Restaurants, London  
  • Sun Feb 6, Grande Finale feat Monica Galetti, Mere, London; Nieves Barragan Mohacho, Sabor, London (1 star); Lisa Goodwin Allen, Northcote, Ribble Valley (1 star) 

Lisa said; “Obsession 22 is particularly special. After having to cancel this year’s festival due to the pandemic and with the hospitality industry taking such a hit, we’re all ready to put on a show of culinary brilliance. This year it was only right to bring all corners of Britain and Ireland together, focusing on the incredible talent that we have on our shores, but still with an injection of different styles of cooking, different regional ingredients and different flavours. We have some great emerging chefs like Alex Bond, and much-loved household names, as well as some of the UK’s best female chefs, joining us.”  

Tickets for Obsession 22 go on sale on September 28 and are priced at £160 per person, including a Louis Roederer Champagne and canapé reception, five course menu, coffee and petit fours. A specially paired wine flight can be added, starting from around £65 per person. For more information visit this link.  VIP hospitality packages are available to book for six or more people in the Louis Roederer Room or at the Chef’s Table, from £2,350 + VAT. A few lucky (and swift) guests might be able to book one of Northcote’s 25 boutique bedrooms. Northcote, Northcote Road, Langho, Blackburn BB6 8BE. 01254 240555. Here’s my review of Northcote’s five-course tasting menu.

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Getaria – heady Basque mix of woodsmoke and wild turbot

Chewing the fat, not literally, on a dinner date with a fellow food critic (her review bosses were paying) we inevitably strayed into the territory of ‘What’s been your most memorable meal?’, knowing on both sides of the table there had been plenty of contenders over the  years.

Memorable can mean many things, of course, not all of them positive, but we’ll pass on the shockers. And when we are just seeking superlatives, there is so much to factor in – setting, service, food and wine obviously, company, though if you are reviewing professionally that shouldn’t be taken into account. 

So when I say ‘boning’ clinched it for me I am not being naughty about my all-time favourite. I was swept off my feet by the whole ceremony of separating a turbot from its skeleton. Not just any turbot but the legendary wood-grilled rodaballo (wild turbot) of Getaria on the Basque coast. Elkano was the shrine we sought, arguably Spain’s finest fish restaurant. Unique for a Michelin starred establishment with its cast iron grills glowing intensely outside the front door.

There are several wood grill rivals in this working fishing village but all will doff their berets to this prow-like restaurant way back from the harbour where the legend was born 50 years ago. Founder Pedro Arregui’s magic formula – the fish sprayed with his own oil and vinegar elixir and then grilled for a precise 12 minutes.

Of late the rodaballo dish has travelled far. It’s the calling card of Brat in London, where chef Tomos Parry readily acknowledges its Basque origins; up north it’s a speciality of Joe Botham’s Baratxuri in Ramsbottom and Manchester’s Escape To Freight Island, while a steady stream of 4kg turbot are shipped up from Cornwall to the mighty Pennine grill of the Moorcock at Norland. 

All quite rewarding but in situ? Accept no substitutes. We had managed to get an Elkano lunch booking on a Monday. It was for 2.30pm, giving us plenty of time for a limbering up hike along the wild sea front to Zarautz and back through vine-clad hills producing the seafood-friendly, tart local white, Tzakoli.

Settling into the comfort of Elkano, we asked Pedro’s son and keeper of the flame Aitor to pick a Tzakoli for us from a dozen on the list, all at very affordable prices. He  recommended one particular example, whispering “it’s the only one not from the Getaria area. You’ll love it.” We did and it was a perfect match.

We did. It went well with an unforgettable ‘warm-up’ parade of seafood – notably txangurro (spider crab meat, sautéed with leeks and garlic, spiked with brandy, put back in the shell and browned) and the classic Basque treat, kokotxas (hake throats in a salsa verde). “Just tip them down your throat – it’s all about texture,” said our mentor. 

Yet, of course, this was just the supporting cast for our Wild Turbot to share. It had arrived on the quay at 8am with the rest of the catch. If it had been landed a few hours earlier it wouldn’t have made the cut. Elkano only sticks the freshest fish on its embers. 

Did our rodaballo rock? You bet. We were introduced to the fish by our server before it was salted, sprayed and grilled

Encountering the result on the plate was magical. Aitor, who now runs today’s more stylish restaurant, gave us a masterclass in the various constituents of the fish as he carved them – from the delicate fillets and dark fatty back sections, ribs from which he leached the gelatin with his knife and the succulence of the cheeks. The simple accompaniment just the sweetest of roasted red peppers. 

At dusk we walked off the long lunch around the San Anton headland, known as Getaria’s Mouse because of its shape. It protects the working harbour, once a famous whaling port,  from the Biscay swell. 

Our lodging was the Pension Katrapona. We had arrived the previous evening via a 50-mile shuttle from Bilbao Airport. Equidistant is San Sebastian. The Getaria grills greeted us. At nightcap time the wood smoke from two floors below forced us to retreat indoors from our balcony with its great view of the harbour. We found supper refuge at Jatatxea Iriba in the old town where we devoured a supper of house-cured anchovies, then langoustines and monkfish – from the outside grill naturally.

How did Elkano get its name? From one of Getaria’s two great sons. Balenciaga and Juan Sebastian Elcano make an unlikely pairing. One, the gay son of a sailor and a seamstress who rose to be Paris’s 20th century king of couture, the other an iron man mariner, who after Magellan’s death completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth with a skeleton crew. 

Born 400 years apart, both men are honoured in the town. Balenciaga with a vast modern museum housing 3,000 of his creations, attached incongruously to a palace once home to his aristocratic mentors. Elcano with two statues, the more impressive crowning an old bastion overlooking the port, and his name on the restaurant shrine to the blessed rodaballo.

He’s buried in a less secular place of worship, Getaria’s fortress-like seafront church, San Salvador, which dates from the 14th century and slopes oddly as if it’s about to launch like some fantastic Gothic galleon. How appropriate.

Factfile

Neil flew from Manchester to Bilbao with easyJet. Below, nearer home, a ‘wildharbour’ turbot at the Moorcock and expert carving at Baratxuri.

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Ta-ta taties! But is celeriac in colcannon complete sacrilege?

I ought to be reassured by Richard Corrigan writing “there’s no such thing as a recipe for colcannon really,” but all he’s doing in The Clatter of Forks and Spoons is dismissing the need for exact measurements or debating whether you can substitute kale for Savoy cabbage. The great chef is not jettisoning the spuds, bedrock of this rustic Irish classic.

Both colcannon and its country cousin champ can be made using fresh or leftover potatoes, but they have to be the floury sort, boiled in their skins. The texture is all wrong with waxy varieties. Parsnips can be added but mustn’t be a puree.

My ‘Colcannon Royale’ with celeriac and pancetta gilding the cabbage lily

The champ mash variant is proof, though that dishes mutate with the times. Originally it was made with stinging nettles – peasant stuff indeed – but over the years spring onions, green and white parts, became the norm. The word colcannon is from the Gaelic term cal ceannann, which means white-headed cabbage while cainnenin can mean garlic, onion, or leek.

But does all this looseness give me carte blanche to make colcannon with mashed celeriac, albeit kept deliberately lumpy? After all, the Scots equivalent of an avenue for leftover mashed potatoes, rumbledethumps, can easily incorporate swede or turnip, while England’s own bubble and squeak has licence to use up a whole gallimaufry of fridge remnants.

In this company, celeriac is a class apart, especially when the mash (never a puree) is augmented with cream and butter, then stirred into lacy Savoy and young leek, braised but retaining a certain bite. Oh and I couldn’t resist adding crisp pancetta to the mix. I call it my Colcannon Royale.

My combination of traditional coq au vin and colcannon was wickedly delicious

It would have made a fine bowlful on its own, but I partnered it with an old school coq au vin, which made for a testingly rich lunch. Before I had a much-needed lie-down I continued some cursory research into the role of colcannon in Irish life and its curious association with Halloween.

Indeed the first written mention was a 1735 diary entry of one William Bulkely, a traveller from Wales who had the dish on October 31 in Dublin: “Dined at Cos. Wm. Parry, and also supped there upon a shoulder of mutton roasted and what they call there Coel Callen, which is cabbage boiled, potatoes and parsnips, all this mixed together. They eat well enough, and is a dish always had in this kingdom on this night.”

Bulkely didn’t know the half of it. For Halloween the Celts developed their own souped up fortune telling equivalent of coins in Christmas pud. It all kicked off with a blindfolded spinster plucking from the garden the head of cabbage or kale that is to be cooked in the colcannon.  

Charms were mixed into the dish itself. Which charm you found was seen as a portent for the future. A button meant you would remain a bachelor and a thimble meant you would remain a spinster for the coming year. A ring meant you would get married and a coin meant you would come into wealth.

To seal the deal unmarried women would stick the first and last spoonfuls of Halloween colcannon into a stocking and hang it on their doors. Guaranteeing the first man who walked through the door would become their husband.

There’s even a 19th century folk song, ‘The Skillet Pot’ that celebrates the dish:

“Did you ever eat colcannon when ’twas made with yellow cream,
And the kale and praties blended like the picture in a dream?
Did you ever take a forkful, and dip it in the lake
Of the heather-flavoured butter that your mother used to make?”

Time to consult Alan Davidson’s Oxford Companion To Food, one of the greatest books in the English language. An immediate surprise in the colcannon entry is its adoption by the English upper classes in the late 18th century. According to one account: “A more elaborate mash was prepared of potatoes and Brussels sprouts, highly flavoured with ginger and moistened with generous amounts of milk and butter.” Now that is a ‘Royale rival’.

Caldo Verde is a distant Portuguese relative of colcannon and all the other cabbage/potato combos

Still for those lower down the social ranks it is so often a leftover dish. And I’ve still got three quarters of a Savoy cabbage and half a bag of Rooster potatoes. Onions, garlic and chorizo are yanked from the larder, chicken stock from the freezer and soon, small world, a big pot of Portuguese Caldo Verde is simmering on the hob. Shall we call it Sopa de Colcannon’?

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Five Manchester Food and Drink Festival star turns to sink your teeth into

The Manchester Food and Drink Festival kicks off on Thursday, September 16 with the full raucous backing at the Cathedral Gardens Hub of Mr Wilson’s Secondliners (above). As usual the Festival is packed with events and should profit from a huge public appetite for some kind of tasty ‘new normal’. Here is my choice of five very special MFDF opportunities to enjoy yourself and support a resurgent hospitality industry…

Bull & Bear Festival Hub Takeover, Cathedral Gardens, 7pm, Mon, Sep 20. £55. 

Tom Kerridge’s posh operation in the Stock Exchange Hotel will will be bringing the pub to the hub on Monday 20 September for a three-course feast with music, too. Expect potted Loch Duart salmon with apple jelly and cucumber chutney to start and a braised beef and cheese pie with English mustard for your main and a pud of banana custard with dates, pistachio and honeycomb. The Festival Beer Bar is there to add to the pub experience.

MFDF x Eat Well Dinner, Mana, Blossom Street. Tue Sep 21. £200.

This is the big one – a collab between some of the city’s finest chefs at its only Michelin-starred establishment, all to raise money for Eat Well, a social enterprise tackling food poverty in Manchester. Participating are Mana’s own Simon Martin, Mary-Ellen McTague (The Creameries), Ben Humphries (District), Eddie Shepherd (Walled Garden) and Anna Søgaard (Erst), each preparing one course. Tickets go on sale Friday, September 10. 25 spots only are available. Book here.

Elnecot x It’s Alive Supper Club, Blossom Street. 6pm onwards. Tue Sep 21. £65.

Much-loved Ancoats pioneer Elnecot are joined by their wine suppliers It’s Alive for a menu inspired by the British Isles. Natural wines will be paired with the likes of a Yorkshire hogget broth, a surf and turf and a rendang doughnut.

Tast Meets The Macallan, Tast, King Street. 6.30pm Thu Sep 23. £125. 

Exec chef Paco Perez and head chef Julià Castelló have designed a five-course gastronomic tasting menu that includes octopus, oysters, autumn rice with mushrooms, cheese and figs plus poussin, beetroot and truffle. There’ll also be one limited-edition Macallan whisky that pairs with this feast. Choose Barcelona but also choose Scotland via Manchester. Choose a ticket that costs £125.

Sustainable Wine Evening, Open Kitchen Cafe & Bar. 7pm, Thu Sep 23. £28.

Launching a run of seasonal events, Open Kitchen, inside the People’s History Museum, showcase a selection of wines from the Bolney Estate in Kent, a winery known for its sustainable land management since 1972. Taste six wines across the evening (I particularly recommend the Lychgate red) with table snacks and a wider small plates menu available to purchase.

Check out our preview of MFDF – Manchester’s Biggest Chippy Tea Is In The Bag and Your Vote Counts for Everything for a full list of MFDF Awards nominees. For the latest updates on the programme (Sept 16-27) and to vote for your favourites off the shortlists visit the MFDF website.

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Beet, carrot and radish tops – chuck these beauties at your peril

“Good cooking is a result of a balance struck between frugality and liberality,” wrote Patience Gray in the introduction to her seminal 1986 work, Honey From a Weed, an account of her peripatetic roughing it around various primitive corners of the Med.

“It is borne out in communities where the supply of food is conditioned by the seasons. Once we lose touch with the spendthrift aspect of Nature’s provisions, epitomised in the raising of a crop, we’re in danger of losing touch with life itself.”

Her mid-century foraging across forest and shoreline is a far cry from our well-stocked global larders. She never purchased a plastic pack of ‘wild’ rocket in her life. It grew outside her rustic stone dwelling and like all the other edible ‘weeds’ tasted far more intense.

Not quite at this level, but a return to frugality may be closer than we think as post-Brexit the supermarket shelves are increasingly stocked with tumbleweed. The grande dame of making do, Patience’s ways may yet be a virtue.

As a dog owner myself I’m reticent about urban foraging; at the same time I’m averse to buying drab pre-packed veg, preferring to grow my own limited crops or to seek out growers (preferably organic) who cut out the middle man. 

I invariably take two bags to a local market on a Sunday, where farm folk travel over from West Lancashire, guaranteeing 80 per cent of their seasonal, conventional produce to be from their own fields (lemons I don’t expect from outside Ormskirk). Two bags? To fit in the bunches of beetroot, carrots, celeriac and radishes all with their ample fronds still attached. 

They are the tops, in more ways than one. We are talking young specimens with bright, spry leaves and stalks; if they are muddy and wilting just chuck them. And fear not they aren’t toxic;  indeed they are rammed with goodness.

Juicy beet bits are reminiscent of rainbow chard  – a member of the same family – but I also love the uber pepperiness of radish tops added to a South Indian dal. It takes moments to turn either into the simplest of fresh salads. With the iron-rich beetroot briefly blanch the stalks and reunite them with the leaves, dressed with a splash of sherry vinegar and olive oil.

Carrot tops contain around six times more vitamin C than the root, plus potassium, calcium and phytonutrients. The abundant lacy leaves soon lose their swish, so I’d recommend swiftly turning them into a pesto that does not lose by it slight bitterness. By all means blend the tops with native hazelnuts, rapeseed oil and cheddar or, better still, go the Ligurian way (minus the basil but using pine nuts, parmesan and extra virgin olive oil. If you’ve got me trofie pasta in the pantry all the better. I substituted linguine.

Radish tops are the most perishable of all. Separate them, store in a fridge and use within 24 hours. Perhaps substitute them for spinach in a herby filo pie with feta and nigella seeds or just wilt them in butter with grated nutmeg. Postscript: they are perhaps the most nutritious of the trio. They rank right up there with broccoli and kale in terms of antioxidants, while they’re also packed with vitamin C and calcium.

Now come on, eat your greens.

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