Foodie Cold Cures

I'm not at all convinced that any foods can cure the common cold. In fact I'm pretty sure they can't. But there are definitely some that make you feel better more quickly. 

SC is currently suffering with stage 2 man flu, thus the topic of this post came to mind. Stage 2 is when you still manage to remain brave, especially after 12 hours of deep and dreamless. 

My favourite specific against the cold is noodle soup. Slithery starch from the noodles, chili to kill all known germs, hot stock for soothing the throat and rehydration, and a solid thrutch of garlic combine to bring a little hope to the sufferer. I just served that for a most un-English Sunday lunch, given the lad's dire need. 

I'm not Chinese, and nor really is that soup. When I did go down with man flu in the Far East I was advised by the wonderful Agus Sutono to eat star fruit, which really did help. Whatever happened to the star fruit? I can't remember seeing one in the UK since the turn of the century. 

Jewish mothers of course swear by chicken soup. My friend Ben Patashnik was insulted when I called him a cliche as he pined for his mum's cure-all broth. Sorry Ben. A University in America (where is the city of A btw?)  has, if memory serves, proven there are anti-viral properties in well-made chicken soup. As there probably are in any decent foods. Again, it cannot hurt to pour nourishing hot liquid down the patient's throat. 

Chocolate sales got a boost a year or two back when the dark version was shown to help people with bad coughs. (Which prompts the question, what is a good cough?) Not only did it coat the irritated bits, but some marvellous chemical in chocolate did us good, or so the chocolate marketing foundation claimed to have demonstrated. I reckon wine gums would do the job too. 

Given he has now been home for a week, and by my (how sad is this?) calculation we have had more than 50 different fruits, vegetables, legumes and leaves since he got here, I wonder about the preventative powers of foods. I have served enough garlic to make an Italian peasant roll his eyes. Not a day has gone by without us enjoying fresh citrus juice in our brekky smoothie. Still the germs rule.

Maybe he brought it back from Wales. The Dear Leader has not succumbed yet, and for the good of all mankind I trust she will not. Being dropped nto the shark tank is as nothing to the fate of her minions when she has the sniffles. Only one in a relationship can wear the trousers, and luckily I look good in skirts. In accordance with that situation she gets man Leader flu, than which there is nothing more terrifying. 

Squash - not the Robinson's Sort

Diversity being my watchword, I've determined of late to explore the wonderful world of the squash, as few if any vegetable families match it for the range of shapes, colours and tastes. Actually for pedants like me it's one of those annoying vegetables that taxonomically is a fruit. E.L. Wisty had a similar dilemma with the banana, which he pointed out is in fact a whale. Such matters aside, the squash offers the intrepid cook (and cultivator) great opportunities to explore new worlds of flavour.

We have grown the giant pumpkin of Halloween fame for many years, and while some have been sacrificed to lantern use, others have ended up as pie, custard, soup, mash and curry. Sadly the big pumpkins tend to have a rather dull flavour, a bit earthy, pleasantly savoury, but not exciting, so we have branched out into more exotic options. Some - the Turk's Turban for example - is a bit more interesting on the flavour front, and much more as a gardening status symbol. The patty pans we've given a go have been hugely prolific, and rather sweet and green on the palate, to date no disappointments there.

This year the greenhouse and conservatory are nurturing perhaps 20 different plantlets, all grown from seed. We'll be stuck for space, even with an allotment, as they tend to spread far and wide, but if we can select and raise say 10 of the healthiest among them I'll be happy. If I remember I'll report later in the year on the culinary worth of whatever squashes we grow and cook.

The supermarkets appear to be getting in on the act too. Last night we ate a squash, red lentil and chickpea soupy-stew (based on an HFW recipe with plenty of amendments), using a squash that while similar in appearance to the butternut was a different flavour - think marrow with a touch of new potato. Very enjoyable, and as part of our partially reinstated alternative eating programme (all having slipped a pound or three upwards since Christmas) a filler-upper with few calories. It was a one-flame dish too, cooked in phases - onion 5 mins; spices and garlic 5 mins; squash, tin of toms, stock, red lentils 25 mins; orza pasta 10 mins. No need for late-night snacks after such a dish. I leave it to the reader's imagination, however, to contemplate the other night-time consequences of a squash, lentil and chickpea combination.

The French Country Hotel Test

In my distant youth family holidays were largely spent camping in France and Switzerland. Finances were rarely flush, so we lived off dishes cooked beside the tent, or later in the caravan, bulked out on occasion with frites from the camp shop. When economies allowed we had a special treat of eating a meal out, generally in a small hotel restaurant. The quality, simplicity and generosity of that food is part of my culinary DNA now.

Best of all such places was the Midi Papillon in St Jean de Bruel, south of pre-bridge Millau. My parents had found a campsite nearby at Nant that was so good they did a deal to leave their tourer there permanently, Ruth and I free to use it when they did not.

By chance they and we discovered the Midi Papillon, and pockets by then being deeper would eat there maybe three times in a fortnight. Buying The Sunday Times on our way over we were delighted and annoyed to find it listed in their top 10 restaurants in France. Yet a seven course tasting menu cost little more than a Berni Inn steak and chips follwed by Walls Ice Cream.

The Midi Papillon (run by the Papillon family - how nice to be called Mr Butterfly) merited the honour. Highlights included stuffed sheep's feet: gelatious, meaty, herby, delicious; freshwater crayfish in a muscat and cream sauce (with a bib unpretentiously provided, the sauce flew everywhere); the best Vieux Cantal and Roquefort cheeses in the world (Roquefort is made half an hour away by the hazardous Cevenne roads); and soups.

The aroma of beautiful freshly cooked soup at home still conjures up memories of such pleasures in those hotels. For the hotelier of course it is a cheap dish, made no doubt with vegetables past their very best, stock that uses bones and trimmings from other dishes, and enormous care. Such soups appear daily as one of the two options on the Table d'Hote menu. But nobody objects, especially as they will be eaten with baguette of perfect crispness. Tired and troubled on a business trip I once arrived late on at a small auberge in Bourgoin Jallieu. That soupy smell greeted me, and I chose soupe au pistou for my first course. It was so good I finished the tureen. The chef-proprietor, clearly pleased by my appreciation of his food, chatted with me - he'd worked at the Dorchester it turned out.

Earlier this week we had such a super soup moment ourselves. A cauliflower bought for a salad I never got around to making needed using up, or so I thought - once the leaves were peeled back it was revealed as blemish-free. Cooked with butter and cream (a rare treat these days), an onion, a few chopped celery stalks and leaves and some chopped chard stems for bulk and depth, and using cheaty bouillon vegetable stock, its scent pervaded the house and greeted the Dear Leader when she returned from her travels and travails. It would have passed the test of acceptability in a small country hotel in France. There were no leftovers.

Hops Are Not Just for Beer

As someone deeply in love with beer I find the title of this post slightly apostatic (can you be slightly apostatic? I guess the Inquisition in such cases would singe people alive), but it fits. A week back I cooked a risotto using hop shoots from the plant we put in a decade ago at the end of the garden. Every year I say I'll do it, every year I forget. Till now.

In Norfolk where I spent my formative years you'll see loads of wild hops in the hedgerows, or at least the few that have not been grubbed up by the greedy bastard corporations that own the ever-expanding prairies there. Yet I never enjoyed hop shoots as a food in the six-fingered county; I came across it thus in Italy on my business travels, then researched the stuff here. Oddly the only shop I ever encountered them in was a Morrison's near Bury in the Nineties, bought and used never to be seen in store again.

The risotto also included wild garlic from the edge of the stream that marks the southern border of our vast estates. The smell in situ is stronger than the flavour, but the wide leaves added colour and a bit of texture, backed up with some peas and wilted spinach. Very green all round.

Sadly I over-cooked the shoots, not having done any for about 20 years. Happily by way of contrast there are plenty more on the way, so I will learn from my error and improve.

The free of charge bit delights me, naturally, but so too does the addition of something new to our diet, albeit fleetingly seasonal. My aim in cooking for pleasure and for health is to use a wide range of fruits and vegetables, and of funghi, meats and fish, the logic being that we are omnivores designed for such a diet. There is more chance of getting all the micro nutrients you need if you eat a bit of everything except people.

I've just ordered a book by Tim Spector (who should be a secret agent with that name, but is a professor of interesting things to do with genes and our tummies at UCL) that looks at the same idea from a different angle, namely that the vital microbes in our lower gut need variety, and they largely determine our digestive health, our weight, and even mood if I understand aright. Can't wait to read it. Men and their fixation with bowels, hey?

Market Forces

A timely reminder yesterday that supermarkets are not the only, or the best, places to food shop. The Dear Leader took me to Preston Indoor Market while we were in town, and it was worth the detour. Two best buys were duck-egg-sized cream aubergines from the Asian veg stall, and un-vinegared whelks from one of the fish stalls (it also yielded some fine naturally smoked haddock enjoyed for breakfast this dreary Bank Holiday Sunday). Not only was the fish stall offering a wider range than Sainsbury's or Booth's, but it appeared better kept/more freshly sourced. And the prices on both were competitive - a huge bunch of coriander for 70p for example, easily four times what you'd get for the money at JS.

We'd invited some friends for a pretty impromptu Chinese-y meal, so most of the market finds were included in that, the little aubergines (the Americanism egg-plant in their case would have been perfectly valid) in a Thai green curry with other veg, the whelks as one of the starter dishes.

In my old life I travelled frequently in Taiwan, several times taken to one of those fish restaurants with stalls outside displaying the available ingredients. Asked what I fancied one time I opted for the whelks, partly because I love seafood, partly to see what Chinese cookery would do with them - this proved to be a simple dish of just the whelks barbecued with chili aplenty, and it proved a revelation.

I rinsed our £2.50 worth, then marinated them for three or four hours in a paste made with red and green chilis and coriander, a little soy sauce and sesame oil. Stir fried with some more green chili, soy, and sping onion they were lovely rather than rubbery as it were.

Whelks are, if not a superfood, a terrific one. Stuffed full of protein, minerals, vitamins and a little carbohydrate they're little packets of goodness. But equally importantly, they bring a taste of the sea in the way the more revered oyster does - and at a fraction of the price.