What Tastes Good?

Eating the last of the British asparagus I'll get to taste this year made me think about cultural taste differences, as the French, Spanish and Germans all go for the flabbier white asparagus, that has to my palate an insipid taste nothing like the green stuff. There are innumerable other such differences of national opinion: the various rotten fish dishes that Iceland and Scandinavia offer are at the extreme end of the scale - as far as this Brit is concerned anyway; but then I never liked the bitter gourds that I tried in the Far East either; or the nasty Japanese sweets made with bean paste.

That is not to say that they aren't good, just that I for reasons of custom, upbringing, and experience found those gourds and bean sweets unpalatable. 

Our national tastes do change over time, however. Witness the shift from bitter to lager. Witness more pertinently as regards food at least the shift from salads where the only ingredients were lettuce, mustard and cress and cucumber, to the many bitter leaves you'll find in your supermarket pack today - endive, radicchio etc. Doubtless foreign travel has been one driving force; commerce another - add a bit of chicory to a salad bag and increase the price by 20p; simply being able to try these things is another factor. 

Which makes me wonder what we will have in store, as it were, to taste in future. There are many vegetables and fruits never seen here: young coconut I've never seen in Britain; Durian (thank goodness, musky flavour but it smells of sewage); Kalamansi, lovely little limes with a bit of sweetness to them; so many varieties of banana. 

Sadly as we add these exotics, and we doubtless will, we are losing much of our native produce. I'm working on a piece for Cheshire Life about local apples, and find there are at least 33 still around, though many lost already. Will I ever try a Withington Welter? Or a Millicent Barnes? In an ideal world we'd keep those and add the others. Variety is the spice etc. Happily some bodies are fighting to keep the old varieties, and more power to them. When we get to plant an orchard, as we one day hope to, it is the obscure ones - though those with reputedly good flavour - that we'll go for. Even there we have differences between nations, the Japanese fruit I've tasted so bland as to leave no taste memory at all - Golden Delicious (which the French actually like) a feast of flavour by comparison. 

Creamy Austerity

There is no reason why austerity cooking shouldn't get a little luxurious lift every now and then, especially if it doesn't cost much. Last night we used as prime ingredients two vegetables from our allotment, the ever dependable kale and a whole bunch of small leeks - planted a bit late to make big fatties, but they haven't suffered and we still have loads to pick.

Luxurious kale? By adapting a Sara  Raven (and I think HFW) idea I cooked a rather delicious even if I say so myself first course: thick slice of toasted bread loaded with a mix of steamed kale, garlic, a tin of anchovies, boiled egg, and grated cheese, all chopped up together with a bit more cheese on top. Very robust flavours, and a feeling of virtue from that iron-rich greenery.

The main was leek and potato soup, with an onion, carrot, two big spuds and about 20 small leeks, sweated in a slick of butter then simmered with the water from cooking the kale, a small carton of double cream added at the end just to warm through before everything was zapped with the hand blender. More bread to dip and the meal was both enjoyable and filling. You don't need a protein-fest every day, though with the egg, anchovies and cheese (and grain in the bread) it wasn't without either.