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ENGLAND ON MY PLATE
By Anne Willan
London,
England. Traditional England is being reborn and I've just had a
sample on my plate. I begin with breakfast at East London's
Borough market, a vegetarian omelet green with fresh herbs and
stuffed with ripe tomatoes, peppers, and tangy Cheddar cheese,
washed down with a brisk espresso from a choice of nearly 40
different beans. Across the way the aroma of frying sausages at
Sillfield Farms is irresistible, the choice varying from a mixture
of pheasant and venison, lamb with mint, wild boar with Chianti,
and Spanish chorizo. Plain sausages are made with rare breed pork
from breeds such as Middle White and Saddle Back, organically
raised. "They taste like the old days", beams Robert Burton from
beneath his brown Derby hat, "and they won't burst with a bang,
we've added no bread fillers here."
This is no ordinary farmers' market. Borough dates back to the
Romans and now shelters beneath Victorian railroad arches in the
shadow of Southwark cathedral in South London on the banks of the
Thames. Over the last 10 years, it has become a center for
international produce, all of it artisan. At Brindisa, Roger
Cortina imports the real Serrano ham from black foot Ibérico pigs:
"there's a strong sense here of looking for artisan stuff, for the
real thing," he says. I pass golden mounds of Echiré butter from
the Loire in France, awarded an appellation controllée
d'origine guarantee of quality.
Cheese vendors, each with their own stand, come from all over
England, Wales, and one from Normandy. I stop to chat with Maja
Binder, a cheesemaker from Germany who has lived in Ireland for 16
years. "There are more and more good cheesemakers in Ireland now",
she says. "At the start it was hard, like mission work". She had
to wait for a place among the more than 50 stalls in the market,
and now comes once a month to sell both cheese and the seaweed
products made by her husband, Olbeier Beaujouan. The merchants at
Borough are an eclectic bunch and Olbeier comes from Toulon in
France.
I spot my friend Prue Leith, a star of the British food scene. Her
latest project is the Hoxton Apprentice, a restaurant that is the
training ground for troubled young people, sponsored by the
charity Training for Life. Participants at The Hoxton Apprentice
stay only six months, working both in the kitchen and out front
with professional staff in a proportion of one to one. A social
worker also keeps an eye on the group of a dozen. "This first
group is almost done, and we've had only three dropouts", says
Prue Leith, "not bad. We're aiming to turn out employable
youngsters -- they are not chefs, not yet, though they may be one
day." The Apprentice is in Hoxton Square, near the City financial
district, and already it buzzes every night with diners who are
young and local, attracted by the modest prices and imaginative
menu.
Given the inexperienced staff, the Apprentice's menu must be
"foolproof", says Prue Leith. It includes simple cold plates such
as a refreshing Cambodian salad of crab and shrimps with
pomegranate, and a white bean salad with chorizo and mint. I tuck
into a giant pork rib bathed in honey, soy, and garlic, after
passing over a salmon cake with hollandaise sauce. "We had a run
around with that," says Prue, "but now they can all make real
hollandaise!"
After a substantial breakfast and a three-course lunch, I cannot
seriously think I have room for afternoon tea, but we are in
England after all. Out in the countryside near Oxford, we turn
down a country lane to the immaculately restored complex of
Daylesford Farms. Daylesford is everything an artisan farmer would
love to be, but so often lacks the capital to achieve. The
pedigree dairy herd grazes organic grass and lives in stone barns
with doors of a soft Cotswold green. The Cheddar cheese made from
their unpasteurized milk is aged for nine months in ideal
climate-controlled conditions before being released for sale in
the farm shop with a wide selection of local and international
organic foods.
Heritage tomatoes come from the Daylesford organic garden and a
master baker oversees dozens of breads, fruit tarts and cakes. I
opt for a slice of deliciously moist carrot cake with raisins,
flanked by a chunk of Cheddar. In Yorkshire where I was born, "A
slice of cake without the cheese, is like a kiss without the
squeeze". If this is the new England, perhaps I made a mistake
leaving it behind.
For more information, visit:
www.boroughmarket.org.uk;
www.daylesfordorganic.com
Hoxton
Apprentice, tel. 020.7749.2828.
CAMBODIAN SEAFOOD SALAD
This refreshing salad from London's Hoxton Apprentice restaurant
can be completely prepared ahead, needing only quick assembly at
the last minute.
-
1/2 a
small melon
-
1
small papaya
-
1/2 an
English cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
-
4
medium white radishes (about 4 ounces), trimmed and diced
-
6
1/2-ounce can crabmeat, drained
-
4
tablespoons chopped fresh mint
-
4 mint
sprigs
Thai dressing
-
4
tablespoons fish sauce (nam pla)
-
4
tablespoons canned coconut cream
-
Grated
zest and juice 1 lime
-
1-inch
piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
-
2-inch
piece lemon grass, peeled and finely chopped
-
Salt
and pepper
To finish
To
prepare salad: Discard seeds from melon and scoop flesh into small
balls. Halve papaya, discard seeds and scoop flesh also into
balls. Put melon and papaya balls with cucumber and radish dice in
a bowl. For dressing: Whisk all ingredients together, taste and
adjust seasoning.
To
assemble salad: Mix crabmeat with fruits, vegetables, and chopped
mint, tossing them with 2 forks. Mix with dressing. Press salad
into 4 ramekins or bowls, cover and refrigerate up to 2 hours. To
extract pomegranate seeds, score skin in quarters and break fruit
open along the cuts. Push skin with your thumbs so seeds pop out
into a bowl. Pick out any bits of pith.
To
finish:
Unmold salads onto 4 plates and top with a mint sprig. Arrange
shrimps around edge of the plates and sprinkle with pomegranate
seeds. Serves 4 as a main course, 6 as appetizer.
© 2004, Anne Willan.
Distributed by Tribune Media Services International.
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