The Modern Peasant

Patience Gray may not be a household name, but to many cooking enthusiasts, she is a god. In 1957 she wrote her first cookbook, Plats du Jour with Primrose Boyd.  She wrote a collection of recipes for the Blue Funnel Shipping Line, which was published posthumously in 2005 as The Centaur's Kitchen. Her most famous cookbook, Honey from a Weed, was one of the most influential and beloved cookbooks of the last century.  Gray fell in love with the Belgian artist and sculptor Norman Mommens and the pair set off touring the Mediterranean.  They settled in Puglia in southern Italy in 1970.   Their farmhouse, Spigolizzi, was famous for what it did not have; no refrigerator, no telephone, no electricity.  Yet Gray produced the most wonderful food -- seasonal, farm-to-table when farm-to-table was called simply, dinner.  It was rustic and self-sufficient and intoxicating.

Jojo Tulloh was intoxicated and she happened to know Patience Gray's son, Nick.  Before long, she had arranged a visit -- more of a pilgrimage to Spigolizzi. When Nick and his wife arrived to care for Gray in her last years, they had the sheer audacity to add electricity for lights and refrigerator, though they never installed hot water.  Tulloh was granted the gift of cooking in Patience Gray's kitchen.  She was transformed.  She returned to England with Gray's mantra of "eat more weeds" directing her.  While she would not give up her refrigerator nor her electricity, Tulloch set out to embrace the peasant within and learn to forage and ferment and can and cook  and bake and smoke with the same passion that Patience Gray wrote about.  The Modern Peasant: Adventures in City Food is the accounting of her quest.

The Modern Peasant is a fine DIY book.  It is not some sort of definitive "survivalist" tome to keep you going in the remote regions of the world, but rather a way to put bread and yogurt  on the table, especially if you live in a city. You won't learn butcher a whole hog, but you will be able to turn out a fine sausage.  The most important thing you will get from the book is a new way to look at the food around us.  A willingness to pay a bit more for a handcrafted loaf of bread.  A hesitation at throwing away scraps that can go in a stock.  A joy in growing vegetables.  Not everyone is going to travel the Mediterranean with a sculptor and cook on an open fire, but there are so many things that can be done every day to live like a peasant. I came to this book as a fan of Patience Gray but I stayed because Tulloh's journey was a common one, told in beautiful prose.

Tulloh admits that she is not much of a baker.  She does love to make these honey flapjacks, a sort of granola bar that is a great way to use up a crystallized honey.

Honey Flapjacks

3 tbsp honey

150g butter

a pinch of sea salt

75g unbleached granulated sugar

250g porridge oats

Pre-heat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Line a 20 x 25cm tin with baking parchment; or use a circular tin, if that's what you have to hand.

Place a small, heavy -based pan over a medium heat and melt the honey, butter, salt and sugar together until bubbling.  Pour the mixture into a bowl with the oats and stir well, until the whole mass is well amalgamated. Tip it into the prepared tin and, using a spatula,  press the mixture down quite hard, until flat and smooth.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until the top is slightly browned at the edges -- a good flapjacky smell will probably alert you to this moment.   Using  a  sharp knife, score the flapjack into squares or rectangles in the tin, but leave until cool before turning out.  They keep well in a cake tin for several days.

Your very own honey from the weeds in your cupboard.

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Moro

 In recent years, Spanish food has been all the rage.  It is the other Mediterranean food. Hop a boat to North Africa and you get a whole new spin on Mediterranean.  While elBulli was the moon for molecular gastronaughts, Spaniards have been eating food for quite some time.  

So how does one find out how to cook, simple, delicious Spanish food.  Let's start with simple delicious Italian food.  The River Cafe in London is one of the world's best restaurants.  It offers up, simple, clean, seasonal Italian food.  It has also offered up a slew of fabulous cooks.   If you are a famous chef in London, there is a good chance you once worked at The River Cafe.

That was the case for Sam and Sam Clark.  One is Samantha and the other Samuel but which is which?  After working at The River Cafe and honeymooning in Morocco, the duo decided to open a cafe that would spotlight the flavors of the Mediterranean from a Spanish point of view and in the late 1990's they opened Moro.  It quickly became THE place to eat in London.  In 2001, Sam and Sam published their cookbook which was an instant hit.

Unlike Italian food which now has a stronghold in even the tiniest towns in America, Spanish cooking hasn't exactly permeated the country.  That means there are some spices and condiments that require a bit of shopping.  But once you find a supplier, you are golden.

At Moro they are very fond of harissa.  Harissa is one of those condiment used with the same ubiquitous flare that Americans use mayo.   Those this one is hot and red!   More an more, one can find harissa in larger supermarkets, but Moro makes their own.   Once you try this, store bought will never be OK.   Many harissa recipes call for dried peppers but Moro's spin it to use fresh peppers along side the canned piquillos.

Harissa

250 g long fresh red chiles
4 garlic cloves
Sea salt
3 heaped teaspoons coarsely ground caraway seeds
3 heaped teaspoons coarsely ground cumin seeds
1 level teaspoon ground black cumin seeds (optional)
100 g jarred piquillo peppers, or 1 large red bell pepper, roasted, peeled, and seeded
1 dessertspoon tomato purée or tomato paste blended with a little water
1 dessertspoon red-wine vinegar
2 level teaspoons sweet smoked Spanish paprika
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1. It is advisable to wear rubber gloves when preparing the chiles. Slice the chiles in half lengthwise. Lay each chile, cut side up, on a cutting board, cut side up and gently scrape away the seeds and fleshy veins, discarding them. Roughly chop the chiles and transfer to a food processor. Add the garlic, a pinch of salt, and half of each the spices; process until smooth. Add the piquillos and process. It’s important that the paste is as smooth as possible.

2. Transfer to a mixing bowl. Now add the remaining ingredients—the rest of the spices, tomato purée, vinegar, paprika, and olive oil. Taste and season with more salt to balance out the vinegar. Harissa keeps well in the fridge, but be sure to cover it with a little olive oil to seal it from the air.

Now that you have it made, what to do with it???

At Moro, they bath a nice plump chicken in the paste and roast it.  Couldn't be better!

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