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?