Got Soul

An expedition to Kendal last week prompted thoughts on the way the world is going in terms of character, or lack of it. At lunchtime I went into a little cafe and sandwich bar where I got served immediately, enjoyed a nice piece of clearly homemade Bakewell tart at a very reasonable price, and was smiled at. There were only a couple of other customers. Next door was a soulless Caffe Nerobucks, charging pounds for (in my view) not great coffee, and silly money for plastic-wrapped snacks. It was packed.

From a marketing background I understand this - brand power, the knowledge that quality is never bad,though equally you'll never be surprised or delighted. But given the difference in price, how are they thriving in such times when cheaper independents struggle?

There are rays of hope. In my home city of Preston Bruccianis, an art deco-ish survival where food and  coffee are good, is generally full. It has soul. In Kendal I interviewed the manager of Farrer's, a tea-room and coffee house since 1819, the very walls imbued with coffee oils after two centuries of operation. They too were doing nicely, though not as well as the Starnero I saw later.

So it can be done, the little guy can stand up to the corporate bully. Even if the little guy is paying a far higher percentage of his turnover in tax than the giant backed by armies of tax specialists. From managerial days too there is another gleam of hope: such organisations tend to go through various predictable phases, one being departmental empire building. We can look forward to those tax accountants, process facilitators and internal consultants adding PAs (whatever happened to secretaries?), deputies, researchers, administrators, team leaders, IT support and so on until with the centre stuffed with staff black hole-like it implodes back into nothingness. The sooner the better.

The Joy of Simple Chicken Dishes

It is strange to think that a chicken in every pot (an ambition ascribed to Catherine the Great, Herbert Hoover, Francois IV and doubtless others) was once a dream. Nowadays the meat is something too easily taken for granted. The cheapo white and nasty supermarket 'bargain' stuff should not be taken at all, but a good quality butcher's bird or free-range ones from the supermarket can still be made so easily into delicious dishes. At the weekend we had two such.

The first was wings marinated (if that is the right word for something relatively dry) with a paste zapped in the  blender - cumin and fennel seed, garlic, a green chilli, pepper (slightly too much, you forget how potent quite new peppercorns can be) salt and star anise - then left in the fridge for three or four hours covered with clingfilm. Rolled in a bit of oil and baked at 190C for 30 minutes, turned regularly, they were sticky and spicy and delicious, one part of an oriental (-ish) meal. I love wings, the sweetest and cheapest chicken on the shelves. The fennel gives it a hint of the KFC, though the Colonel's changeless recipe may oxymoronically have changed since the last time I dared try it in about 1995.

Second was another dish that is simplicity itself, and a reliable way to perk up an uninteresting bird. How very Sid James. The herbs are looking healthy again in the garden, though the bay has never looked less than perfect all through the winter. I took the scissors to par-cel (leaf celery), the first decent-looking rosemary of the year, a load of sage, 8 - 10 leaves of bay, and what thyme I could cut without the operation being terminal to the plant, and rolled a jointed chicken in them once they had been snipped small. With olive oil poured on and seasoned with salt, pepper and some smoked paprika, I again baked them in a roasting tray (or roasted them in a baking tray, with meat the terms are almost synonymous, doubtless to the annoyance of terminological purists) for 50 minutes or so. Nice and moist, the herbs were very much to the fore and the golden skin was fantastic.

How much KFC would I have got for £7, the price of the chicken if memory serves? Useless factoid out of nowhere, Preston my (adopted-)hometown was the site of the first KFC in Britain, opened in 1965. Still doesn't endear the food to me.

A Sprout is Not Just for Christmas

On my hobby horse of food and fashion again. When was the last time you saw the words 'Brussels sprouts' in a restaurant review, or 'swede'? Parsley root (which used to be called simply Hamburg parsley until it became cheffy) perhaps, or pak choi; salsify and scorzonera on occasion. But not those humblest and most flavoursome of veg. The trouble is that with the swede there is not much to do with it beyond the default mash with butter (with or without carrots) and maybe a sprinkle of herbs; and the sprout has such a powerful flavour that it needs something robust as the core of the meal or it will dominate the plate. As lamb shanks are now in the foodie world snobbishly relegated to mere Gastro Pub fodder robust is not too frequently encountered in reviews either.

We had swede and sprouts with the beery beef and mushroom pie last night. They held their own, went well together and with the pie, and made it feel balanced somehow. Stuff fashion.

I like Gastro Pubs btw, the nearest thing we have to a proper bistro culture here; some of what pass for bistros in Britain tending to be so far up themselves they can see out through their own mouths. And you can usually get decent beer in GPs, which totally illogically you can't very often in a brasserie in the UK. The word means brewery. The otherwise brilliant Paul Heathcote had here in Preston what was called for a time a brasserie: the beers were (a few years back but think this is right) Heineken, Budweiser, and maybe Amstel. If his wine list had consisted of Bull's Blood, Liebfraumilch, and Mateus Rose he would have been ridiculed (except by someone who thought it was post-Modernist irony).

On Markets and Kicking Myself

Doing a piece for Lancashire Life (with a side one for Bass Guitar Magazine - the life of a freelancer) I was in Blackburn today. We lived in nearby Rishton for a few years, the only place I ever regret living. Blackburn has come up in the world since then, its local authority showing the oomph sadly lacking in my home city of Preston. Maybe Rishton has changed, I hope so.

One very clear sign of progress is the market, now beneath a huge mall, and open six days a week. It was always good for food, and now looks better. Markets can be a boon to bargain hunters, or just those seeking variety not found in many supermarkets. I picked up a huge ham hock for £2.60, which will be used on Saturday in a traditional Lancashire favourite - pea soup made with a packet of dried peas (if I can find them tomorrow). It's a one-pot dish, the lengthily soaked peas added to a big pot in which finely chopped onion has been sweated, hock buried among them, then just water added, the lot simmered gently on the stove-top for a couple of hours or more. With buttered bread to dip in the finished article and the meat broken up and returned to the pan it is a rib-sticking meal well worth the inevitable percussive repercussions later.

That butcher's stall also had bacon ribs, which are just as good in the same role, though the ribs cooked in the soup tend to be eaten separately. Something about them didn't grab me, though.

In my Norfolk childhood I remember my father (cooking runs in the family, my WWI-veteran grandfather did quite a bit too) asking a local butcher for bacon ribs, to be met with a blank stare. They thought he was after bacon scraps and bones for stock, so gave him a pile of them for free, which I don't think went to waste.

As I walked around the market I kicked myself for not shopping at such places more often. I was expecting a box of Aberdeen Angus beef today (now in fridge and freezer), otherwise I'd have bought some of the beef flatrib I saw, another bargain. Next time for sure - steamed slowly in the oven for several hours then finished with a BBQ glaze at a higher temperature. Another cut that fits the rule - long cooking means cheap and delicious.