Mr Green, Killed in the Dining Room, with Bacon, by Dr Black

It's high time Dr Black got to kill the bastards who've been murdering him since 1949.

The title of this post is I hope clearly intended to touch on the recent report that the WHO published stating that processed meats are carcinogenic. Do I hear a 'what's new?' May I suggest that billions be saved in nutritional research with the publication of a report that states:

a) Variety in our diet is good for us;
b) Too much of any one foodstuff or food group is likely to be bad for us;
c) More veg and fruit than carbs, more carbs than protein;
d) Eating should enhance our feelings of wellbeing, so the occasional naughty treat is fine;
e) Constantly worrying about food is itself likely to be carcinogenic.

The press is doubtless to blame for the way the report has been portrayed. One starts to imagine that a Sunday morning bacon butty will lead at the very least to a near death experience.

Whatever happened to pleasure?

As a Green Party member (though after a recent phone call from one of their metropolitan fundraisers, possibly not for too much longer) I'd like to point out the environmental side of such foods: sausages make excellent use of bits that we'd otherwise prefer not to ingest; properly air-dried ham is a very eco-friendly way of preserving food (less energy intensive than freezing it, clearly); and bacon is bloody delicious. That latter point is environmental in my mind, as I'm a part of my environment and the way I feel after what is probably a fortnightly indulgence raises the happiness quotient around me by 13.72 per cent.

That percentage is to my mind probably as valid as the much quoted 18 per cent increase in risk of bowel cancer if you eat processed meat: how much processed meat? what sort? how often? what effect does the rest of ones diet have? (our veg- and fruit-rich one I'd hope would mitigate most/all the effects of two slices of Parma ham served with fresh figs as a starter recently), what effect does ones general health have on the calculation? what impact does the quality of the stuff have on nasty things it may do to ones body?

The Mediterranean diet is much lauded by nutritionists and their ilk. Salami, Mortadella, Coppa, Pancetta...

All that said, I'm thinking about applying for a £10 million grant to research the effect of wine gums on men in their mid-fifties. The Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine surely beckons.

More Autumnal Than Falling Leaves

Being able to cook truly seasonally is one of the big benefits of growing your own, though careful shopping can bring the same end - some things like decent culinary pumkins, Jerusalem artichokes and British apples are not always easy to find.

I just got back from spending a happy half hour of my lunchtime picking stuff from our allotment, the day job of writing magazine articles having taken up my morning. Conscience about getting back to it is nudging me gently in the ribs now. The three carrier bags of veg brought home hold turnips, beetroot, kale, apples, runner beans, parsnips, Jerusalem artichokes, leeks, the final pair of tiny pumpkins, and a load of courgettes and patty pan squash. The last two tell a tale perhaps about how our climate is changing: summer squash are now harvested through October and even into November if we're lucky.

Last night's main was venison sausages, potato-pumpkin-and-turnip-mash, roast onions and apple sauce. As autumnal as the brown and gold leaves carpeting sunny Fulwood. More so, as the leaves have been falling since late summer, possibly because it was unseasonably dry then. It may well be my imagination, but I feel more at one with the universe having indulged in something in keeping with our place and time than if I had eaten asparagus from Peru, for example. The Dear Leader lit candles in the dining room, we drew the curtains on the dark night, and the house had a sense and apple-rich scent of the season.

Tonight though the meal will be different the results will, I trust, be similar. Steamed kale with anchovies, garlic and pepper on toast as a starter, a thick vegetable soup with leeks at its heart as the main. To lower the tone somewhat (hugely), no Jerusalem artichokes till the weekend, as the DL is giving a workshop ("Death Rays and How Best to Develop Them," I think) tomorrow, and were she to fart loudly and repeatedly as she addressed her adoring audience of master criminals and dictators it would mean the gulag for me. Again.

Eggs! Eggs! Damn All Eggs! (But Not All Cookery Writers)

So, as regards the eggs, said Lord Worplesdon, as all right thinking people will be aware. The title is prompted by the number of eggs now in our kitchen, seemingly increasing whenever my back is turned, and how to make the most of them.

For a cook it's actually quite a nice problem to have, if it qualifies as a problem at all. We breakfast on them every two or three days, and have enough for scrambled eggs to be served up as more than a small yellow stain on toast. An omelette or fritatta appears on the dinner menu about once a week; egg mayonnaise sandwiches occur at lunch with the same frequency; eggs boiled or poached are added to green salads with lardons and walnuts. The list of favourites goes on, but it's good to add new ways to use them up.

I was drawn to refer to Elizabeth David for eggy ideas recently. Inevitably an excellent one was rapidly found, and it suited another of our gluts - tomatoes ripening on the conservatory windowsill. Every cook has his or her favourite writers, Ms David one of my sacred quartet along with Jane Grigson, de Pomiane, and HF-W. I am pushed to ponder here, rather appositely, a chicken and egg question: have I chosen those four because they suit my cooking and tastes; or did they create my cooking and tastes?

David and Grigson were the first food writers who entranced me as a callow twenty-something, by which time, however, I was already fascinated by and reasonably adept at cookery; de Pomiane came to my notice rather later; and HF-W is younger than I, which points towards them fitting what I look for in a food writer as the correct answer to the above query. That they write well, or extremely well, comes high up the list; that they are rooted in French, Italian and British cookery before other styles is also important; and that their dishes are about making the most of ingredients, not making a show of them, is vital too.

The Elizabeth David dish by the way (from that holiest of texts, French Provincial Cookery) was an hors d'oeuvre of thinly sliced toms layered in a shallow dish with sliced boiled eggs, each layer of tomatoes seasoned as you go, some finely chopped onion strewn on top, the lot dressed with oil and vinegar. So simple, but so satisfying and tasty. It could be tarted up with chopped parsley, gherkins, capers, or olives and not suffer (though it would be wrong to add more than one or two of these).

Alternative Equivalence

The hunt for the ponciest title for a post goes on.

With Halloween less than a fortnight away the shops are full of pumpkins, and I find it sad (and wasteful) that so many of them will not be used for culinary purposes. I have nothing against making lanterns out of the things, but do try to use the scooped-out flesh too please. We have about 10 small pumpkins drying and hardening in our conservatory, to extend their storage life, and a few still to be gathered from the allotment. I don't grow the monster ones anymore, small son having grown into large (student) son unlikely to be revisiting trick or treating and Halloween parties anytime soon, and the dinkier ones (think the size of a crown green bowling wood - how Northern is that?) are tastier and provide enough for a single serving or a soup ingredient.

Soup was what one such became last night, and what a soup. Simple, velvety, delicious. There is a traditional French soup made with pumpkin (potiron in French btw, as enjoyable a word to savour as our own pumpkin) and pounded shrimps, but not having shrimps I ventured crab instead. Tinned crab is a store-cupboard standby here, not as good as fresh, but not too far off. Trying substitute ingredients like that can lead to interesting discoveries.

From start to ready took just 25 minutes. A chopped onion was gently sauteed in butter until opaque, then a sliced clove of garlic added  for a further minute or two. A spud cut into little dice went in, then the chopped pumpkin flesh (peeled, de-seeded and de-fibred). When they had all sweated for five or six minutes a pint of hot chicken stock went in, followed by 1/4 pint of hot milk. Lastly the tin of white meat crab chucks joined them to warm through, and the lot was zhooshed with a hand blender until really smooth, with salt and plenty of pepper to get the seasoning right. It even gained a (pointless) cheffy foam on top with the blending.

That made enough for a bowl and a half each. It was like a crab bisque without the faffage of crushing and sieving the shell. The crab dominated the flavour, the veg lent it just the right consistency. The pumpkin I used - seeds from Garden Organic - is green-skinned and -fleshed, so you'd have guessed pea soup by looking at it. I'll repeat the exercise with one of the orangey-yellow variety, expecting it to be more pleasing to the eye. Definitely to be tried again more than once this autumn.

Simply Seasonal

In the civilised world, and Preston almost qualifies, nobody is truly self-sufficient but we can all be a bit more self-reliant. To that end we recently had solar panels fitted, something that will reduce our carbon footprint a bit more, though I am pretty sure that growing lots of our own food has a bigger impact on that front - but only if we actually eat the stuff.

The trouble is that certain foodstuffs tend to come in gluts. We have half a dozen apple trees of different types, the idea being to spread the season, but it's still pretty much compressed into a tall bell curve with September and October acocunting for 90 per cent of our crop. Cobnuts are worse, you have to harvest them before the squirrels (utter bastards with fluffy tails) nick the lot, so the yield from our two trees is now picked and drying in the conservatory. This year beetroot can be added to that list, as we got relatively few earlier on, but all the remaining ones have started to balloon in the last couple of weeks, and need using up before the frosts get them and/or they go woody.

For a cook situations like that are fun. I veer between thrifty and profligate, and both stances can be accommodated simultaneously in this period. An idea borrowed from HF-W - for a salad of boiled beetroot in apple sauce - led to a gratin of boiled beetroot and two sorts of apple, a cooker reduced to sauce (with a spoon of honey) and an eater chopped small and fried in butter before the lot was mixed together and baked with a cheese topping. It could have been a waste of good produce, but was very enjoyable, sweet and savoury in one blast.

It's good when the gluts can be combined like that. Another recent example was lettuces (oakleaf and cos) cut before the frosts start, made into a big salad with more boiled beetroot, boiled eggs (our chickens working overtime currently), and toasted cobnuts. I could have added chopped parsley and some chicory leaves, but wanted to keep it simple. It was doubly satisfying in both the filling-up sense and in being seasonal, and triply because beyond the dressing the Sainsbury family benefitted by not one penny from it.