RIP Parson Woodforde

I finished reading Parson Woodforde's diary at the weekend, and was strangely moved as I saw the last words were about food, roast beef in fact. I have never read a more engrossing book, the little dramas, passing friendships, his mixture of charity and snobbery, were far more fascinating than television crime dramas or block-buster movies. I can almost (not quite) begin to see the attraction of reality TV. Except the people on those shows generally seem to be arses. Posh arses, common arses, celebrity arses, obnoxious arses. Arses.

From the austerity cook's point of view there is much to learn from the parson's household. Not of course the dinners he gave when entertaining, as he so often did (not in the party sense, but feeding friends, relations,  the squire and his wife, so rather than entertaining hosting may be a better word), which would feature several different meats - maybe roast leg of mutton, roast beef, boiled chickens, boiled roots and a variety of tarts and puddings along with fruit and nuts as what he then termed dessert. No, the things his cook prepared for him when it was just the parson and his niece-companion Nancy at home are of greater interest to the careful cook.

I am intrigued, for example, by how pig's face (a frequent dish at his table) was prepared. Giblet soup I can understand better. The bonier cuts too - breast of veal, neck of mutton and suchlike - were reserved for such ordinary meals. And the humble fish - flounders, mackerel, plaice and so on - that were fetched from market at Norwich - speak volumes about making the best of ordinary ingredients.

More unusual for our times, at least for native Brits if we can use the term, was his enjoyment of freshwater fish like tench, carp, eels, pike and perch. Our coarse fishermen tend to throw back their catch (probably best to do so with eels which are in decline here currently), but then a lot of sea anglers don't actually like to eat fish, which is decidedly odd.

I've eaten perch in France and Switzerland, and love pike quenelles when prepared by a good chef. Perch is actually quite tasty, slightly reminiscent of dab to my palate. Our dream once son has flown the nest is to downsize to a cottage with enough land for a small orchard, and to have a fishing pool - his at one time Woodforde's greatest diversion and almost obsession. Visiting religious houses like Furness Abbey always at some point leads to the spot where the monks kept fish in vast ponds and pools. Yet we now only keep Koi Carp and similarly decorative creatures, whose owners would blanch at the idea of eating them. As our population grows and our grasp on the world's resources loosens we may revert to such medieval models of self-sufficiency (or better, self-reliance), though as Woodforde's facility showed we were still keen on this just a couple of centuries ago.