Slow food: Eat it or lose it

21 May 2014 by
Slow food: Eat it or lose it

As a young chef cutting his teeth on the London scene, Richard Corrigan remembers being put firmly in his place for having the audacity to mention the idea of British regional cuisine.

"It was 22 years ago, and I mentioned the phrase to a famous food historian I was chatting to, and she absolutely humbled me: 'Oh, you Irish do have a way with words'," recalls the chef-patron of Corrigan's Mayfair.

"The reason I said it was that a friend of mine had just brought a cow heel pie down from Lancashire. Cow heel pie! When you start to do a bit of research into what is out there, you find there really is British regional cuisine, just as there is in Ireland. And everything we do with the Slow Food UK Chef Alliance is to help reinforce that notion."

The aim of Chef Alliance, for whom Corrigan is an ambassador, is to champion Britain's smaller producers. The forthcoming Slow Food Week is showcasing seven 'forgotten foods' - lesser-known dishes or ingredients that have fallen from favour in our kitchens.

Each one will be championed by a well-known chef, and they gathered together at London's Grosvenor House, A JW Marriott Hotel to sing the praises of their respective foods.

"If it wasn't for the chefs in this country, a lot of these producers wouldn't be in business, as lots of them are having to get out of it," says Corrigan. "We're about championing the individual with a unique voice in the marketplace. We've got to fight, because when food becomes industrialised, these producers become forgotten - we've got to eat it or lose it."

Angela Hartnett
Penclawdd Cockles

"Whenever a chef thinks of seafood, they think of Cornwall," says Angela Hartnett, chefpatron of London's Murano. "But the south coast of Wales is not that far away and there is some great stuff coming out of there."

One notable delicacy is the cockles from Penclawdd, a sandy estuary that has produced cockles since Roman times. Now, the industry supports two large factories.

"One of the things that makes Penclawdd so special is that it is one of the few remaining places to use hand-rakes and riddles [coarse sieves] to collect the cockles. There are really traditional producers who sum up the whole point of the Slow Food movement and the Chef Alliance - to promote small producers who can only turn out so much, but deserve to make a living."

Treated well, the Penclawdd cockle has its own particular characteristic: "It's juicy and a great substitute for clams," says Hartnett. "I was turned on to them recently by a friend of mine who used them with pork belly, and now I use them with linguine. We all think of the little cockles you get in a jar, but these are so much more versatile than that."

For Hartnett, Slow Food's Chef Alliance is one of the more positive outcomes from the media's obsession with chefs and restaurants: "A lot of us use the media to our advantage, but you can also use it for stuff that is really important. It's so vital that we focus on small producers and help promote them."

Valentine Warner


Westmorland Pepper Cake

"Westmorland pepper cake, or Kendal cake, is a dark sugar and fruit cake, as dense and moist as any [ fruit cake], but more intriguing for its use of black pepper," says television chef Valentine Warner.

"This is not so odd, as many spices can be found in fruit cakes, although black pepper is rarely used with sweet things. I would argue that the pepper in most Westmorland pepper cake recipes is a little underplayed. But, as pepper is not the expensive commodity it once was, you can now ramp up its amount."

For Warner, rediscovering forgotten foods is about reconnecting with our roots. "Once upon a time, if you were from an area, you ate from that area as you were unlikely to leave it.

Forgotten Foods tells you about a locality - there are nature and history lessons to be learned. The minute you go from being a rural to an urban society, it is no longer essential to retain that information. The minute food is made for you, you're no longer relying on an understanding of the cycles of nature or husbandry. There is also little need to inherit
recipes. Lots of information gets lost. However, it is good to understand your land simply because you are from it."

To cook with these ingredients is to do so with one eye to the past, but also one eye to the future: "Endless reinvention has required us to look back to our past," he says. "Forgotten foods are a good place to look once more, especially as when enduring a recession they provide a good source of recipes largely born out of poverty."

Atul Kochhar
Black peas


Indian-born chef-patron of London's Benares restaurant Atul Kochhar chose to promote black peas because it was a natural dish for him: "A black pea is a lentil, and I come from a culture synonymous with lentils," he says.

Black peas are a heritage variety traditional to Northern England and first recorded during the reign of Elizabeth I. Traditionally, they are dried, soaked overnight and cooked to produce carlin, a dish similar to pease pudding. This is popular in Lancashire, served with lashings of salt and vinegar.

However, Kochhar has his own take: "Normally, the peas are simply boiled with salt and served as a snack. However, I am planning on spicing them - I picked up a recipe from Mumbai for a dish similar to this. I will boil the black peas with salt - people here tend to add the salt after, but for Indians that means it absorbs less flavour - then I add a spice mix of
garam masala, cumin seeds, cumin and coriander and finish it with chopped spring onions and chaat masala."

Rediscovering forgotten ingredients is about more than promoting smaller producers - important as that may be - and gives the diner something different, says Kochhar.

"There is a generation of customers who will recognise and cherish these ingredients - that is a plus for me and so is the chance to educate diners. I come from abroad, so to be able to embrace and showcase these ingredients shows I am here to cook with British produce."

Emily Watkins
Cromer crab

"It's just such a great crab," says Emily Watkins of her forgotten food choice. "And the most important thing is that it supports a cottage industry. There are traditional methods of fishing it, which keeps a town going, keeps people in jobs and keeps the product alive."

Historically only caught in the summer months in the north Norfolk coastal town of Cromer, the crab is known for its tender flesh and a high proportion of white meat to dark.

"If people who come to our restaurant have recollections of Cromer crab from going on holiday to Norfolk and can rediscover it, then great," says Watkins, chef-patron of the Kingham Plough in Oxfordshire. "But for me, it's just a genuinely better crab."

For Watkins, the chance to support these artisan producers is a privilege as a chef. "We are lucky to be blessed for produce in the Cotswolds. Every night, since we opened seven years ago, I put in my orders and I don't speak to one or two producers, but to seven or eight.

Food has gone full circle, and after years spent looking for food that is convenient, we are now going back to our roots and looking for food that is artisan."

Shaun Hill
Dulse

Dulse is a wild reddish-purple seaweed that has been harvested on the coasts of Ireland and Scotland for thousands of years and is rarely cooked outside the Celtic countries.

"It's most commonly dried and served with potatoes," says Shaun Hill, chef-patron of the Walnut Tree Inn in Abergavenny. "It needs something big and bland to offset the flavour a little bit and, like all things that taste a bit medicinal, I'm sure it's very good for you."

Dulse is commonly found from June to September and it is traditionally popular in Ireland. Families would collect and dry their own dulse, sometimes crumbling it into a flavour-enhancing powder.

However strange it may seem, it is foods such as dulse that allow chefs to spring welcome surprises on customers, says Hill:
"We're in the entertainment business - not just the nourishment business. People are looking to be diverted as well as fed.

If you can find something interesting to serve, it makes for a better experience when eating out." Hill is incredibly knowledgeable on British food history, and says that trying to rediscover our culinary heritage is almost an impossible
task - but that in itself offers a whole world of possibilities. "Historically, England had a very gastronomic tradition. Under the Normans, who also ruled Sicily, we had access to spices that didn't reach France until much later. But so much disappeared in the industrial revolution.

"While it's nice to try and revive provincial cooking, too much time has passed to make parts of England like Tuscany or Puglia in that regard. What we do have, though, is a relatively clean slate for the possibilities of the 21st century
and discovering what is on our doorstep."

Richard Corrigan

Ulster Corned Beef
"Great corned beef can be very hard to get hold of," says Richard Corrigan, holding a slab of Ulster silverside. "You don't want something full of sulphites; you want the right brining and the right sweetness. The tradition has lived on in Cork and Northern Ireland and it needs to be championed again."

Deriving its name from the corns - or small crystals - of salt used to salt or cure the meat, corned beef was produced in great quantity and exported from the likes of Cork from as far back as the 11th century.

Although it has taken a knock in reputation from canned corned beef, or 'bully beef', over the years, it is still made by artisan producers in small quantities in Ireland and eaten as a festive dish.

For Corrigan, the louder chefs can shout about this kind of produce, the better: "It's about championing the small guy. These people have been trying to champion themselves for years and years, but this is about chefs helping to bring them to the marketplace."

Ross Lewis
Martock bean

"It's an obligation as a chef to support these people," says Ross Lewis. "It's about acknowledging small agricultural producers and protecting them from the legislation surrounding manufacturing."

A local variety of broad bean, the Martock dates from the medieval period, when it was grown extensively in England in the Middle Ages, and it takes its name from a village in Somerset. The plant produces a mauvecoloured flower and there are typically two beans to a pod. Dried and stored, it was a staple of peasants' diets and used in soups and stews.

In Ireland, where Lewis runs his restaurant, Dublin's Chapter One, artisanal producers were more common in the past: Ireland never really had this huge industrial process - we're a country of smallholders with stone walls and a great tradition for things like butchery," he says.

And if a chef can sniff out these producers and use ingredients such as the Martock, it can only enhance the customer experience: "What's different between cooking supper and going to a restaurant is the emotional connection - and if I can get produce that is made with real passion, it helps that immensely."

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