Skip to content

London

Permaculture and wholesale markets

It’s been a busy week in London, somewhat typically so as it included sun, wind, rain, security alerts on the tube, too much food and drink, too many nights out in a row, a couple of days grappling with bureaucracy (2 days and 3 visits to Canadian high commission offices trying to get registered for a mail-in ballot for the upcoming Canadian election, somehow eclipsed by some other election I think is happening on that side of the pond).

The rest of the time I’m delighted to be back at Sustain for a very brief spell, working on some articles for the relaunch of the in-house magazine the Jellied Eel, which will soon be magically appearing all over London in full and glorious colour.

Tuesday was the London Food Link networking do followed by a wildly over-subscribed talk by Cuban biologist and permaculture activist Roberto Perez. The talk, prefaced by a preview of the irresistably-titled film The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, covered bio-fuels, agribusiness & the food crisis. Perez works for the Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation for Nature and Humanity in Havana; it’s described as a socio-cultural environmental organisation which fronts research, advocacy and educational activities in environmental, sustainability and biodiversity. During questions, Perez revealed his great interest in worms, which it turns out were the subjects of his thesis; and I think we’ll hear more and more about them as vermiculture is a growing trend for building soil, in conjunction with composting.

Wednesday morning I crawled out of bed as early as I could (but not as early as some) to get down to join the crowd

at the New Covent Garden wholesale market for a tour and day of talks and workshops, a Local to London trade event designed to bring together producers, wholesalers and end users in a bid to encourage food service sector to source more regional produce.

There were master classes by an amazing fishmonger from James Knight, who dazzled with the speed of his knifework. He prepared fish

while chef Patrick Williams, of The Terrace in the Fields, demonstrated Caribbean-influenced dishes like this mackerel tartare, seasoned with vodka, lime and salt.
Andrew Sharp, butcher and Cumbrian meat advocate, who also displayed dazzling speed and facility with many different blades while talking about hill lamb and the use and aging of mutton and discussing some of the difficulties of marketing lesser known cuts. He is the marketing face of a farmers’ cooperative and sells beef and lamb at Borough Market under the name Farmer Sharp.
There was also a talk by a herb grower, who addressed some of the difficulties around growing herbs seasonally and importing others to feed a year-round demand for herbs in a climate that is only able to grow what it can for about 8 months of the year. And a fruit wholesaler talked about issues to do with seasonality, size and quality in British apples.

One popular stand: Food Fore Thought supplied the organic bacon and sausage sandwiches for breakfast and the lamb ones for lunch.

Luck in London

Yesterday netted me two excellent meals in a row: a great welcome back to London. Lunch was at the Royal Court Theatre Cafe where we lucked into three delightful dishes, for me a fabulous warm salad of Jerusalem artichokes, mushrooms and baby spinach, with a Parmesan crisp to nibble on…

and reportedly delicious others: a pumpkin and goat’s cheese tart crusted with almonds; and a Lancashire hotpot in its own little basin:

We weakened when faced with the dessert menu, and luckily so: the Sticky Toffee Pudding was ethereal

while the almond and fig tart was exquisite, a study in texture and colour:

Later that same day, at Carvosso’s, I struck gold again with the duck leg confit, with roasted figs, green beans and mashed potato

while my companion fell upon her swordfish with glee and said it was absolutely perfect.

Food & poetry

It seems I am not the only one on the planet with these twinned obsessions. On Friday I went to Farringdon Road and found my way up the near vertical stairs of the Betsey Trotwood, which by its position I’d guess is frequented by Guardian writers and which boasts music and poetry nights, and locally-sourced foods (though I think not including the tiny bag of crisps I purchased from them at some considerable expense: when did they go up to 80p I wonder?). Friday night’s reading theme got its title, as the lucky winner of the bottle of Italian brandy was able to identify, from The Naked Lunch: Unspeakably Toothsome – an evening of food poems. Co-hosts Annie Freud and Roddy Lumsden read and invited a number of other poets to read also, from their own work as well as favourite food related poems by other poets. Each poet participating was rewarded with a food and drink goodies parcel rather than a fee.

Readers included: John Stammers (reading John Berryman, Frank O’Hara‘s “For Grace after a party”), Simon Barraclough (reading from Titus Andronicus, and Anonymous); ex-chef Angela Kirby (Peter Phillips – “I want to be buried in a restaurant” and Anne Stewart “To a melon”); Isobel Dixon (Les Murray – “In a time of cuisine” and Jonathan Swift “Green Leeks”); Mark Waldron (Russell Edson “Mouse” and Mattea Harvey “Setting the table”); Roddy Lumsden (Paul Muldoon “Holy Thursday”, Neil Rollinson “Scampi” – and a memorable poem of his own about the horrors of eating stroganoff in Shannon Airport); Annie Freud (Wendy Cope “The uncertainty of the poet”, DH Lawrence “Figs” and Bertolt Brecht “Buying oranges”); Cath Drake (Michael Ondaatje “Rat jelly”, Jacques Prevert “Breakfast”); Heather Philipson (Wallace Stevens “Floral decorations for bananas”, Frank O’Hara “Animals”); Susan Grindley (Lewis Carroll “Walrus and the carpenter”) and Tim Wells (Rodney Jones “First coca-cola” and Luke Warmwater “Hungry for pizza”).

One afternoon I caught up on some Radio 4 listening and heard a recent Food Programme about anchovies, which told a by-now familiar tale of looming extinction: the best varieties of anchovy are being harvested for volume rather than sustainability, and so we are likely to lose them altogether before too long.

Brunch yesterday was a delightful piece of french toast

at Sam’s…

I now embark on a week without (gasp) internet access. See ya later!

On the ground in England

Safely in England once more where I arrived on a windy, sunny day, and where it’s been the quintessential English weather ever since: cloudy with sunny periods and a chance of rain.

Only a couple of days on the ground, I’ve had a nice bowl of lentil and coriander soup at my dear old wine bar, but otherwise not eaten out. And why should I when the food at home is so good? Tina made us an excellent supper

of guinea fowl in wine sauce last night, with roasted cherry tomato halves, boiled new potatoes and sweetheart cabbage,

which looked pretty cool but didn’t offer anything wildly different in terms of flavour.

Just before I left, Mary kindly sent me this link to an excellent article about the state of fruit these days. I thought this bit said its piece neatly:

..the supermarkets demand that fruit is picked long before it ripens: it doesn’t soften until it rots. This makes great commercial sense. It also ensures that no one in his right mind would want to eat it. But, happily for the retailers, we have forgotten what fruit should taste like.

And vegetables, too, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s noticed. One of those attending the food issues town hall meeting told us that if you pick your fruits and vegetables before they’re ripe (to allow them to be transported and stored by supermarkets) you are also losing the nutritional value they would have if allowed to ripen naturally. So we are at double nutritional risk: picking today’s worsening quality fruits and vegetables (bred for higher yields and durability rather than flavour and nutrition) at less than their peak nutritional stage of ripeness.

I’ve also made a first irresponsible visit to the Oxfam Bookshop where I found a copy of So Shall We Reap, by Colin Tudge who I’ve heard speaking well about food issues on Radio 4. Much to think about in these pages, like:

…at bottom, the problems of humanity as a whole are those of biology. If we really want to survive in the long term (and ten thousand years is ‘the long term’; not the thirty year projections of conventional economics) then we have to begin by thinking of ourselves as a biological species, Homo sapiens, and the earth as our habitat; not simply a stage, or a tabula rasa, on which we can impose any manner of fantasy and whim. We need to see that farming must march to its own drum – that of ‘good husbandry’, founded in sound biology, and steered by respect for human values; and that this in many practical ways runs totally counter to the modern mantra which says, in the chill phrase I have heard so often these past three decades, that ‘agriculture is just a business like any other’.

Which reminded me of the chill phrase that I have heard too often, that poetry or literary publishing should also be seen ‘as just a business like any other’ – which is not and has never been true: there is and always will be a need for subsidy and public support if we want to see Canadian culture survive. The writers of Canada, and other artists, are taking action against recent well-publicised culture cuts by the country’s conservative government, which is about to announce an election. There’s a new website, Department of Culture, to help promote cultural causes in the electoral battle.

Looking ahead, I’m going to a food poetry reading tonight, and on Monday I will disappear off to Shropshire for the week, to attend a food writing workshop.

Hasta luego London

A flash farewell to London left me time only for a sprint to the Tate, where the trees are quite shockingly beautiful,

and Peter Doig’s show was in its best points big and beautiful, particularly, for me, the landscapes and snows that drew on his years in Canada.

A nice box of crayfish salad on a pretty tasty lump of lentils from the Tate’s cafeteria gave me the strength to press on.

And a last lovely lunch on Tuesday at La Trompette gave us goujons of lemon sole with a gorgeous tartare sauce

and seared loin of tuna with green bean and caper vinaigrette, tapenade, sauce vierge and quail’s eggs in darling little panko jackets

followed by red mullet with shrimp and herb risotto, grilled fennel and bok choy

and glazed shoulder of lamb with chickpeas, aubergine and cumin, pine nuts and panisses

finishing with iced yuzu parfait with mango sorbet and passion fruit,

and (super-yum!!) crème brûlée with rhubarb and ginger compote and warm pistachio madeleines.

Then it was time to take to the skies, waving goodbye to the O2

and hello to Baffin Island. Not quite as cold in Victoria, but not all that warm either, so I haven’t missed spring here.

London, briefly

The workshop ended on Friday, after a few more mouthfuls of food and poetry. We had readings several evenings during the week, the first from Tammy who read some of her travel poems; then a reading by all of us; then a reading of poems by others that we wanted to share, which included a few more Elizabeth Bishop poems, including The Moose. I read Maxine Kumin’s Custodian, David Cavanagh’s Montreal Blues, and Carolyn Forche’s For the Stranger.

Thursday lunch featured some of the most exquisite sausages, made by the local butcher (whose shop is, as you might have guessed, the location of the village post office).

On Thursday night, some more of those clever little squiddy things – this time stuffed with meat and cooked in tomato sauce – and a school of big happy sea bass swam our way, with a lucious veggie dish featuring aubergines, peppers and potatoes in a tomato sauce.

One of our number celebrated her fiftieth birthday that night, and there was cake – an ethereal tiramisu that I suspect made all but the celebrant wish it was our birthday too.

On Friday, there were more fab salads and tuna pastries

and a finale dinner of chicken and aubergine and zucchini and some potatoes in cream, followed by fresh fruit with warm custard.

Our last morning was a surprise as those of us who had not already left for the airport before 7.30 am were awakened by drums and flutes and some harmonious singing as the village wound its way to the church, pausing to sing to the saints on the wall plaques on the houses. As we had a plaque, we got a lovely serenade, which receded up the street. The event – the Mare de Deu d’Abril – marks the miraculous end of drought in the village in 1711.

And then before we knew it it was time to leave. A long but mercifully uneventful day hanging about Alicante airport, lunching on more noodle soup

and a bit of tuna

and one last flan,

and then up and away and back to a freshly scrubbed London where the rain had eased off by arrival time. Now readying myself for the journey back to Canada on Wednesday.