All Together Now or One at a Time

With good weather we have the opportunity to eat outside, and our favoured way of doing this is for me to prepare a mezze, that is have a variety of dishes ready to bring to the table in one lot, to avoid traipsing in and out of the kitchen with floor cleaning and atmosphere breaking consequences. Behind that is perhaps the additional motivation that this manner of eating reminds us of Greece, hot sunshine and great simple food.

Yesterday, partly because we were too hungry to wait while the roast chicken rested, we opted for a la Russe, i.e. the more conventional series of dishes: pate on toast starter, stuffed peppers as a vegetable course, then the chicken with rice and mushrooms. The day before we had gone for the mezze, with about eight different things on the table at once, albeit in relatively small quantities, though the beef stiffado (that's posh for stew with peppers, paprika and oregano) was substantial.

So I had the chance to compare. The mezze was by far the more enjoyable meal, even though the chicken with rice was really tasty. It's the exchange of plates and bowls, the sharing aspect, and perhaps the informality that comes perforce with such activity, that makes the difference to mood. Of course that preference probably depends on personality. On business travels in my old career I loved visiting mom and pop and middle range restaurants, where there was no danger of maitre D snobbery and whispered conversations. Phillip's Foote restaurant in Sydney where you not only serve yourself but cook your steak yourself is one of the few places visited in those years whose name I recall.

A la Russe as the norm here only dates from the mid-19th century. It has practical benefits with hot food that you want really hot - if soup, casserole and some steaming baked pudding are all brought out together something will go cold before it's eaten. But if the heat of dishes (something about which we British can be maniacal) is not vitally important as is the case in summer, then for me it's all together now.

Missing, Presumed Dead Good

I could recite a litany of tasty and tasteful products that I or my whole family have come to love, but that have been removed from the shelves in one way or another. Yet vile perversions like cheese with candied mango remain. When I see shoppers buying such things I give them a cold stare that would have made Paddington Bear envious.

Take for example Mrs Kirkham's Lancashire Cheese in my local Booth's supermarket. It is one of this country's finest cheeses, and beyond sensible argument its best Lancashire. Yet the shop, perhaps eight miles from the farm where it is made, has dropped it, presumably because of poor demand.

Or the giant Greek beans in sauce that were sold by Sainsbury's, expensive but delicious they were a perfect part of a mezze.

It is tempting to resort to thinking along the lines of the mother at the passing out parade: 'Look at all those soldiers out of step with my son.'

There are ways round the problem. For Mrs Kirkham's I will try the local Waitrose, or call on the farm myself - Graham Kirkham is a top bloke, great storyteller, and cheese genius, I'd hope he'd sell direct if asked.

For the beans I have just made my own, taste-memory harnessed to try to mimic the ingredients of their sauce, and butter beans the nearest equivalent of the gigantes ones in the long lost jars. SC tried some, and thought them good, but the bean texture wrong. So the next step is grow our own. Maybe.

Update: the gigantes bean jars are back in Sainsbury's, not on the fancy gourmet shelves but with various preserves. Excellent.

Pate on the Hoof

Yesterday thinking it was stewing beef I defrosted what turned out to be liver, part of a box of meat that I had delivered by the excellent Henry Rowntree (pictured with one of his prize bulls), whose Aberdeen Angus farm I visited some time ago for Meat Trades Journal and Lancashire Life. We buy a 10kg box from him every few months: his meat is great, and at £120 delivered it is far cheaper than we would pay for similar quality (were it available) in the supermarket. Booth's and maybe Waitrose are the only ones I'd expect to have meat approaching his in quality.

My error, and as my son won't eat liver as is I had to use it to make pate, which he does like. Guess it must be the texture of liver that puts him off. So with a 99p pack of Sainsbury's basic bacon lardons (plenty of the fat needed for the dish), an onion, four small cloves of garlic and a glass of  leftover red wine, plus celery salt, sage and thyme from the garden, and lots of pepper, I set about it. No egg because I zapped the meats fine enough for them not to be too crumbly, and because I forgot to use one.

Using what was doubtless calf's liver made me wonder how it would turn out, pig's being the norm, but reasoning that chicken liver is softer still but makes great pate (I wish I could find how to do the accents) I went ahead.

The result is a very winey-herby-garlicky pate that will be a starter tonight (as ever with pates will have grown in flavour overnight) when we have a friend over taking potluck, and tomorrow when some more are here for what will be a sort of mezze. Or meze.

Making pate always brings home the savings that can be had by doing the cooking yourself instead of buying ready-made. I reckon the amount now garlicking out our fridge would have set us back about £7, maybe more. With a food processor it is ridiculously easy, zap, mix, season, put in a shallow ovenproof dish and cover with foil, put that in a roasting dish with boiling water 1/3 the way up, and cook for about 90 minutes in  an oven at 150C, removing the foil lid 15 minutes from the end to let the top brown. You can tell it's done by the smell, the fact that it comes away from the sides of the dish, and being doubly careful by pricking it with a knife - the juices should be clear, and the knife clean when removed.

Order of Play

Why do we eat as we do in this country, as regards the order in which we serve dishes? In short, why start savoury and end sweet? And why do we, where we can, have a light first course, heavier main, then finish with cheese or pudding, the order of those two last elements being the subject of much disagreement and not a little snobbery.

Thoughts on this were prompted the other day in a conversation with my father that somehow brought to mind the story of an arctic explorer (a real one, not one of the stuntmen self-publicists called such by the media) whose cabin stock of tins was soaked, removing all the labels. He decided thenceforth to use whatever was in the two opened for his evening meal combined and heated together, leading to delights like minced steak and custard. In the end, some would argue, it all gets mixed up in our innards.

The French on the cheese before pud theme argue that it is somehow natural to finish on something sweet. There is no logic to that. And why then allow sweeter starters like melon, or indeed anything with good fresh tomatoes at its heart? What about the logic of all those fruit and savoury mixes we British love or loved (and about which I would dearly love to write a book - notes well on already), from Cumberland Hackin to Hindle Wakes?

Centuries ago we, or rather the wealthy in this country, used to eat banquets with a host of dishes served at once, puddings, pies, meats and salads. We are not wealthy, but have of late enjoyed many meals served like a mezze, though that for us is limited to savoury dishes. Some ingredients don't match one another when combined, but can provide a complement or contrast used separately. It also offers a safe route for the host of a party of the less formal type, putting half a dozen things on the table so that at least one or two will appeal to each guest, whereas one grand dish risks being a pet hate for someone, spoiling their evening and yours. And there is a feeling of generosity about putting half a dozen platters on the table of course.