'SAWDUST RESTAURANTS WITH OYSTER SHELLS'

You don’t often find the seaside like it used to be. And I’m not talking Larkin or Margate. This is the world of Daniel Defoe or the Peggotys in David Copperfield. Estuarine mud flats where fishing is the lifeline and where days are governed by tides and currents. The uric smell of seaweed and mud lime mingle in the nose. And on these spring days, larks rise above the furze, burbling their welcome to warmer days.

Of course, Essex has a bad name. Unfairly really. For some of the most important moments of history were enacted on its muddy, shale shores. Romans, Gaels, Angles, Normans and Royalists battled on this front line of England. And today outside the conurbations of 60s modernity and aspirational shopping malls, parts of Essex have a pleasing restraint (outside holiday season).

Nowhere more so than Mersea Island. Linked to the mainland by an ancient Roman causeway, it feels other worldly. Just that here exist some lives unchanged for centuries. Sensing my need for some clear air, my sister suggested the trip. With no more encouragement needed than the promise of lunch at The Company Shed.

If you love seafood and no fuss, it’s worth taking any form of transport to get here. And they do muster from miles around. It’s just a weather board shack on the shore by the boats and the oyster beds. You take your own wine and bread. The rest is indeed an eucharistic feast.

I never think of oysters as food. More like ritual. The Mersea variety, graded by size, are astonishing. Something you do for the sheer pleasure. Slippery, salt jellies nestled in mother of pearl. Teeth against lime and a fishy, lemony swallow. Outer and inner in one glorious gulp. Consecrated with bread and wine. And just a dash of Tabasco. The holy and profane, incorporate.

The Shed is primarily a fishmonger, so all the frills are reserved for the tastebuds. And there are many others to sample here (though not all are local), served by the strict but charming Heather Hayward and her boys. Gorge on razor clams, scallops, lobster and crab. All prepared simply, never letting the flavours ebb far from the sea.

That’s it. And when you have licked the last drip of mayonnaise from your fingers and paid the bill, there is a spring walk to be had. What could renew more fully than ambling along the shores where the plaintive curlew pipes her call, digesting lunch on the fringe of the salt marshes in the raucous company of terns?

Sunny days sail in the sky and the wintry mood finally lifts.

Richard and Heather Hayward The Company Shed 129 Coast Road, West Mersea, Essex. Tel 01206 382700.

TENDER WORDS

Tender (2009) tells the story of Nigel Slater's love affair with his garden in Islington and the many seedlings he has raised in his box-hedged vegetable patches. It’s a magnificent volume, like a medieval knightly treatise with pictures of his Eden, its produce and many of the recipes he has created from them.

23 May, 2010

FOOD FROM THE HEART

Cooking is a basic human instinct. We’ve been eating, chopping, shaping, flavouring, enticing ingredients into something delicious since time began. But as the way many of us live has changed, the basic skills we require to cook, are no longer valued and it’s often easier to let others take control of what we eat.

21 April, 2010

IN A RIGHT FISH STEW

This week we had sustainable fish stew. It’s a quick and easy way to feed a gang of hungries on a Friday night and doesn’t need much else but some good bread and wine. Like all stews, you need balance, rich liquid and a range of potent flavours steaming from your pot.

15 March, 2010