SWEET CHESTNUTS

The clocks go back. It feels as though time moves into reverse. As the sun lowers in the sky, the damp musk of autumn rises. Wet leaves settle on the forest floor and the season of mellow fruitfulness is upon us. An invite from a friend to search for mushrooms got me thinking about wild foods.

I’m not really one for hunting and gathering though happening on some edible treat on a walk is always a delight. Bringing something of outdoors into your kitchen. Wild sorrel and garlic by a Scottish riverside, field mushrooms from grazing pastures, brambles and sloes on November hedgerows. I remember once being searched at Heathrow when my bags were full of camomile and rosemary plucked from the dry hills of Ibiza. My explanations were pointless. Half an hour of questioning and sniffing until a woman appeared who clearly had a garden (and a brain). I was allowed to pass on.

An October favourite for me is chestnuts. Something about their brave attempt to keep out intruders with those thick spiny shells but the inevitable fall makes the having more welcome. The smell and crack as they roast away in the oven or on a fire. And great with a glass of red before dinner. Roasted, they make an unusual accompaniment to game birds like pheasant or quail. The singed, crumbling, meaty texture instead of crisps. If you have the time, Soupe aux Marrons involves boiling up chestnuts in game stock and adding ground meat from a bird - Elizabeth David suggests a partridge. The whole is then sieved and turned out with croutons.

My lazy version involves a tin of chestnut pureé. Mixed with aubergines and parmesan it’s autumnal in every way. Chop up the aubergine and fry it up in oil with salt and pepper. Cover in some stock – homemade is always best, easy to make and store in the freezer whence it can be defrosted on the job – and simmer until soft. Add in the tin of pureé and the parmesan, wizz it and serve with aforementioned croutons.

Actually the Spanish or Sweet Chestnuts we eat are found in mountainous parts unlike our native Horse Chesnuts. Last October I was in Andalucía. The hillsides once covered only with olive and fig trees are now bustling with sweet chestnut groves, invaders from Asturias where for centuries the best castañas have been harvested. On the hillsides outside Oviedo, they hold the annual amagüestu. A fiesta of cider and chestnuts and good people.

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