My Favourite Shop

Orford General Store - Nominated for National Village Shop of the Year

The beating heart of any village is the village shop.  In Orford we are privileged to have one of the best.  That’s not just my opinion; The Orford General Store has been shortlisted for the Countryside Alliance’s Village Shop of the Year award.  This week I caught up with the owner, Penny Teale to find out what her formula was.

DSFH: “You took over the Orford village shop a year ago.  But 600 rural shops close in England every year, so my first question has to be, are you mad?”

PT: “I don’t think so.  I gave up a lucrative career in corporate retailing to take on this business.  This isn’t a hobby, it’s a livelihood. You don’t make that kind of decision without doing a huge amount of research and being pretty sure that you can make a go of it.  Many of those failing shops may not have been run very well or with a keen eye on costs and the customer offer, but I realized that it was possible to take the things that supermarkets do well and apply them to a small business.  I used my retail experience to put in solid processes and apply up to date technology.  I try to keep on top of my stock control and my market as Tesco or Sainsburys would, but I am able to combine that with a business that has great local product and personality.”

As if to back this up she starts to spout a range of facts and figures.

“My catchment area is 5 or 6 miles.  People come from 5 villages and those villages contain 2000 people”

DSFH: “But what about that market?  You’ve actually got a number of very different constituencies within a village like this?”

PT: “Three. (She nods her head) There are the local people who rely on the village shop for everyday provisions.  They buy little and often.  They are very price conscious and quite conservative.  They are really important because they are here all year round.  I actually keep a close watch on supermarket prices.  We can’t afford to be too far out of sync.  Even though a trip to Woodbridge or Saxmundham is likely to cost £5 or £6 when you add up the fuel and total cost of running a car, people don’t look at it that way.  Also supermarkets aren’t as cheap as you think.  They use a variety of tricks such as hi-lo pricing.  They put things on the shelf at a high price so they can then discount them later.”

“Then there’s the ‘second homers’ and visitors  or what I call the ‘four and threes’, people who call Orford home but in reality they spend half the week in London.  They are almost the exact opposite.  Price is less important to them but they demand quality and they want to be delighted by the range, local product and high quality veggies.  The third group are die-hard Tesco or Waitrose shoppers, who dip in and out around their weekly shop.

DSFH: “So is there a conflict in serving such different needs?  After all you have to decide what you give shelf space to?”

PT: “Not really.  I use the ‘good, better, best’ rule to all of the ranges.  For instance I re-jigged the wine section.  Now you can buy a bottle of wine for as little as £3, £5, or up to £15 depending on your budget.  Take canned produce like beans; we’ve got Happy Shopper in the ‘good’ range, Heinz in the ‘better’ range and Epicure in the ‘best’, for people who want something different.  So everyone can find something suitable.”

DSFH: “So what are your best sellers?”

PT: “We do sell an awful lot of pies!  Locally made homemade pies just seem to fly off the shelves.  But the Deli section generally does ever so well”

DSFH:  “You touched on it briefly but a village shop in a place like Orford can almost be regarded as a social service as much as a business.  Is that a double edged sword?”

PT: “Not at all.  You are right, we are often the first to notice if an elderly customer doesn’t pop in, and you get some people who just come in for a chat, but that makes us a sort of communications hub.  From a business perspective it’s a privileged position.  Customers do expect you to remember their names though.  Everyone knows who I am, so it can be a real challenge remembering theirs!”

DSFH:  “You carry a lot of local produce. How important is that?”

PT: “Absolutely crucial! As a retailer I want to know the provenance of the food I sell.  If a bag of potatoes were harvested from the field in Leiston yesterday afternoon I can be pretty sure that they will be fresh and the customer will be happy.  But it’s more than that.  I’ve now got over 20 suppliers within a fifteen mile radius (and growing).  30% of my shelf space is allocated to local products.  Being local is part of the brand that differentiates us from the supermarket chains.  But Suffolk is a great food-producing county with some wonderful local products.  As a retailer of course I want to tap in to that.”

DSFH: “So did you find local suppliers were ready and prepared to supply a local, small business?”

PT: “Most of them were very enthusiastic but with some we have had to work together on things like packaging or branding.”

DSFH: “You actually run a portfolio of businesses in the village don’t you?  Is that part of a strategy?”

PT: “Absolutely.  There’s The General Store, The Suffolk Butcher and Penny’s Café.  They are all distinct brands that will allow us to do different things with them.  But it’s also about making Orford into a ‘destination food village’.  After all, we don’t get any passing trade out here.  But the other businesses in Orford: the smokehouses, the bakery, pubs, hotel and the craft shop all contribute to make it somewhere people will consciously come to.  We get customers now who regularly come from a wider catchment area to visit us."

Penny's Cafe - Helping to make Orford into a Destination Food Village

DSFH: “But how much can you really expand the market? Ultimately you are restricted by demographics aren’t you?”

PT: “A lot of people do come in to the area: second homers, day trippers and so on. Trade in a place like Orford is very seasonal, but the thing is to extend the season.  We are working with the Orford Business Association to do just that.  I’ve held ‘tasting events’ for wine and local products and we have a Carol singing planned for the 22^nd of December.  There’s a lot more events planned for next year.”

DSFH:  “So the future of the village shop is bright is it?”

PT: “Well I am ahead of schedule according to my business plan.  Year one was all about getting the basics sorted out, but this year will be about growth: more tastings, expanding the range, building a website.”

DSFH:  “And is Orford a unique location or would your treatment work in other village shops?”

PT:  “The model will work in other locations, if the timing and opportunities come up.  But that’s in the future, Christmas is the immediate focus.”

Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr. Osborne?

Is there anybody who doesn’t know that we are in the middle of the worst economic recession since the war?  This week UK unemployment reached its highest point in 15 years, inflation is running at 5%, real wages are falling and business confidence is being held down by the crisis in the Eurozone.  Even if all that has somehow passed you by, you could tell something big was happening just by listening to the language of our politicians.  David Cameron in his first leader’s speech as Prime Minister resurrected Lord Kitchener’s call to arms telling his party “Your country needs you”.  George Osborne, The Chancellor of the Exchequer, caught the prevailing mood and revived his own wartime slogan to tell voters “We are all in it together”, conveniently ignoring the fact that some of us are more ‘in it’ than others in the way that only a multi millionaire could.  Even the Green Party has recently called for a ‘new home front’ against climate change, Caroline Lucas, the party’s only MP comparing climate deniers to appeasers of the Nazis in the 1930s.

Maybe it really is time to look to the 1940s for parallels in our present circumstances.  After all, the whole of Europe is occupied with the plight of the Euro and in thrall to the Germans. Britain alone, it seems, stands on the outside ready to fight the contagion of Eurozone uncertainty on the beaches.  For the most part, the British public has adopted austerity with the usual blend of sangfroid and chirpy resignation.  There is something in the British character that appears to make the hair shirt almost as comfortable as the ubiquitous shell suit, or in the case of George Osborne, the Barbour jacket and green wellies.

I wonder if all this wartime retrospection is having an impact on the nation’s eating habits yet.  After all the extraordinary fact is that the Second World War was the only time in modern history when the entire population of Britain has enjoyed a healthy balanced diet.  In both WWI and WWII when the UK introduced conscription they found many working class men unfit for military service because of malnourishment.  Almost immediately, as affluence returned in the 1960s, a new disease of obesity began to manifest itself, and is now running at epidemic proportions.  But for a few years in the middle of the twentieth century, government rationing ensured that everyone got a fair share and everyone had the basics for healthy living.

In 1939, (for American readers that’s when WWII started for the rest of us) Britain was completely locked in to the Empire System,  which meant we imported 75% of our food: wheat from Canada; butter, cheese and sheep meat from Australia and New Zealand; sugar from the Caribbean and so on.  Next time you hear someone talking about ‘food security’ think about that.  More than 50% of meat was imported, 70% of cheese and sugar, nearly 80% of fruits and about 70% of cereals and fats.

The Germans knew that the quickest way to force Britain to surrender was literally to starve her into submission.  That is what led to the Battle of the Atlantic where convoys of merchant ships ran the gauntlet of U Boats in order to bring basic food stuffs into the British Isles.

As the blockade began to bite, the government had no choice but to take a firm grip on food distribution and introduce rationing for all.  The minimum weekly allowance of butter per person was only 2oz (57g), cheese was even tighter at 1oz (28g) and sugar was only 8oz (57g).  Eggs were rationed at 1 per week, but only if available.  They usually weren’t.  Meat was rationed by price, but again availability governed consumption more often than the official measure.

The only things that were not rationed at any stage during the war were bread and fresh vegetables.  Ironically bread and potatoes only went on ration after the end of the war, as Britain assumed the additional responsibility for feeding liberated Europe.  In fact as members of the public were urged to ‘Dig for Victory’ the supply of home grown vegetables grew steadily.  The whole country it seems  willingly dug up their lawns and flower beds to grow spuds and leeks.  That hair shirt mentality again!  By 1943 over 1 million tons of vegetables were being produced from gardens and allotments.

The Ministry of Food then set about providing information and recipes to help people make the most of their rations.  Marguerite Patten, who later became a famous food writer, was employed to come up with nourishing recipes which she broadcast on the BBC.  Most famous of all was the vegetable pie which came to be named after the Minister of Food, Lord Woolton, but which was in fact created at the Savoy Hotel in London by the head Chef, Francis Latry.

Frederick Marquis,
1st Earl of Woolton

This diet, rich in vegetables, low in meat and fats, was sufficient to “Keep Britain Fighting Fit,” in the words of yet another wartime slogan, and by the end of the war Britain produced almost 80% of its own food.  The figure today by the way, stands at around 60%.

When rich politicians decide to preach to the public, or when they urge people to tighten their belts while standing in front of their chauffeur driven Jaguars, it naturally falls on deaf ears.  The public simply does not believe that they are all in it together while they see bankers receiving huge and unjustifiable bonuses, or MPs fiddling their expenses.  But anyone who is nervously watching inflation erode their savings, or struggling to survive on Job Seekers Allowance could do a lot worse than taking up gardening.  Digging is therapeutic and fresh vegetables are delicious.  You will also find that growing and eating your own vegetables is good for your health, good for your wallet and good for the planet.

Recipe – Lord Woolton’s Pie

Ingredients:

1lb diced potatoes
1lb cauliflower
1lb diced carrots
1lb diced swede
3 spring onions
1 teaspoon vegetable extract
1 tablespoon oatmeal

Salt and pepper to taste
A little chopped parsley

Method:

 Cook everything together with just enough water to cover, stirring often to prevent it sticking to the pan. Let the mixture cool. Spoon into a pie dish, sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Cover with a crust of potatoes or whole meal pastry. Bake in a moderate oven until golden brown. Serve hot with gravy.

Wooltons Pie with potato crust

Notes:  I’m not sure what was meant by ‘vegetable extract’ in the 1940s, but I used Marmite.  Also the original recipe suggests varying the selection of vegetables according to season and availability.  Although I have a long standing love affair with swede we are currently not on talking terms, so I substituted some butternut squash.   I didn’t have spring onions so in the interest of austerity I substituted a small red onion.  I’ve also read comments that the pie could be a bit bland, so I added a chopped leek and used a cheese mash for the crust.  I probably blew my ration for the month!

Verdict:  Using a mashed potato topping made this into a kind of vegetarian shepherd’s pie and it had the same comforting, homely feel.  The taste was evocative of my childhood somehow and I thoroughly enjoyed it, which is just as well because even though I halved the quantities there’s enough for two more main meals.  Quite acceptable as a filling, midweek dinner and economical too.

Moules Marinière

Autumn is well and truly here now.  It’s probably my favourite season of the whole year.  I love the way that it assails all your senses at once.  There’s nothing I like more than walking in the Autumn countryside.  Those dank, dark days where your breath hangs in front of your face and smoke rises vertically from cottage chimneys in the still air.  The only sounds are the doleful cawing of crows in the nearby beeches.   The air heavy with rotting leaves and over ripe fruit still clinging to bare trees.  The whole day seems to be only a precursor to night, with lights burning brightly in distant windows in mid afternoon.

The long period of summer fruitfulness is over, and now is the time to turn from salads and abundant fresh produce to warm nourishing and hearty fare.  Personally I love thick homemade soups and rich slow-cooked casseroles.  How good is it to come home cold and damp from a long walk to the kitchen, warmed by the oven, and the smell of cooking permeating the whole house?

Among the greatest pleasures of the Autumn is the return of new season mussels to the fishmonger.  Mussels are relatively cheap.  I pay £3 for a kilo (£5 for 2kg) which serves two people as a starter, or one person,( me), as a main course.

Thankfully they are also completely green.  Most commercially available mussels are farmed, so they are renewable, and they are reared organically.  Unlike other forms of aquaculture they do not rely on fish meal as food. Mussels are filter feeders; they clean the sea water rather than polluting it.  They are not treated with any artificial chemicals.

If you live anywhere near the sea there’s a good chance that they might be reasonably local too.  Mine come from just up the coast from Blakeney in Norfolk.

Many years ago the first recipe I ever tried with mussels was the French classic Moules Marinière and I loved it so much I have never looked much beyond it.  It makes a quick and delicious lunch or light supper and it could hardly be easier to cook.

Choose small mussels and make sure they are fresh.  Use them on the day of purchase.

Moules Mariniere

Moules Marinière - Recipe

Ingredients

·         1 or 2 kilos of mussels

·         1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

·         2 shallots, finely chopped

·         1 knob of butter

·         a bouquet garni of fresh parsley, thyme and bay leaves

·         1 glass dry white wine

·         120ml/4fl oz double cream

·         coarsely chopped parsley for garnishing,

·         crusty bread, to serve

Method

Begin by cleaning the mussels in the sink under lots of clean fresh water.  Live mussels should close firmly when jostled in the sink.  Discard any that don’t.   Also discard any with broken shells.

Remove any dirt, seaweed or barnacles attached to the shell, and make sure to pull off the beard.  That’s the rough, fibrous appendage that they use to attach themselves to rocks.  Also throw away any that feel particularly heavy.  They are probably just full of mud which will ruin your meal.  Drain them in a colander.

Soften the garlic and shallots in a large pan with the butter and toss the bouquet garni in.

Put the mussels and wine in the pan, turn up the heat and put a lid on the pan.  Steam them in the wine for 3 or 4 minutes only, giving the pan two or three good shakes.

Remove from the heat and take out the bouquet.  Add the wine and chopped parsley.

Ladle into bowls, giving each person plenty of creamy sauce.  Discard any that haven’t opened properly.

Eat immediately with the crusty bread and the rest of the wine

Plenty More Fish in the Sea?

Every Wednesday a mobile chip shop comes to my village.  The distinctive smell of frying spreads throughout the streets and people from miles around queue up to enjoy a weekly treat.  I’ve bought my supper there a few times and they really are excellent fish and chips.  Each fish is cooked to order in delicious crispy batter and the fish are plump, flaky and fresh.  More than any other fast food, there is a whole tradition around fish and chips.  Somehow they taste so much better wrapped in paper and eaten with a wooden fork.  Deep fried in oil, smothered in salt and vinegar, with tartar sauce, mushy peas and bread and butter on the side, it is hardly a healthy meal, but once in a while it’s OK to splurge.

I don’t buy them anymore.  It’s not that I’m health conscious.  It’s not the price, which is actually very reasonable, and the couple who own the van are friendly and polite.  It’s the fish!

They carry a fairly wide range of fish for an English fish and chip shop. In addition to the staples of cod and haddock you can also buy plaice, skate and rock.  The owners are happy to tell you that this fish is freshly caught locally. No doubt that’s a selling point in a seaside community where a few fishing boats do still offload their catch daily at the pier.

Suffolk was once home to a booming fishery.  Herring boats from Lowestoft followed the shoals right up the East coast to Aberdeen while inshore boats trawled for cod and plaice.  Those days are past, but today there are still 95 to 100 registered fishing boats in Suffolk although many of them are involved solely in potting for crab or lobster.  The remaining white fish boats are nearly all small and fish with the baited hook and line method.  This is the most environmentally friendly form of commercial fishing.  It is selective and tends to catch larger, stronger fish.  Spawning fish don’t eat and so they simply ignore the bait.  In some cases any unwanted fish which are brought up can be de-hooked and returned to the water while still alive. Line fishing uses much less fuel than trawling or seining, and does less damage to the sea bed, where 98% of marine species live.  For all these reasons Suffolk fisherman often describe their industry as sustainable.  Unfortunately there’s more to it than that.

Fishing boats on the beach at Aldeburgh

Waitrose is Britain’s sixth biggest food retailer.  As part of the John Lewis Partnership it has an unusual ownership structure and is actually owned by its employees.  While it would be wrong to say that it is not commercially oriented, the absence of shareholders does allow the company to promote ethical or social objectives alongside the pursuit of profit and this has given them a well deserved reputation for being a responsible and caring player in the global food industry.  Although small, their market share in the UK groceries trade is only 4.2%, their influence is much larger, and in the supply of wet fish their market share is roughly double their overall market position.

At a recent conference which I attended, Jeremy Ryland-Langley, the principal fish buyer at Waitrose and the individual most responsible for setting their purchasing policy in the sector, outlined the ‘four pillars’ of the company’s fish sourcing policy.

For a fish to be termed 'sustainable' in Waitrose it must meet the following criteria:

·         Be a species that is not regarded as threatened or endangered

·         Be caught from a well managed fishery with scientifically based quotas

·         Be caught using responsible fishing methods

·         Be fully traceable from catch to consumer

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the way the Suffolk fishermen are catching their fish, but the trouble is that the North Sea itself is in trouble and it’s because of the first two bullets in the list.

According to the EU Fisheries Commissioner herself, 75% of EU fisheries are currently being over-fished.  EU quotas are produced as a result of negotiation with the fishermen themselves and bear no relation to scientifically recommended levels.  In fact, Ryland-Langley states that for the 12 most popular species of fish, EU quotas are at least 33% higher than maximum sustainable levels and that includes North Sea cod, haddock, skate, rock and plaice.  In other words these fish are endangered.  And the North Sea fishery cannot be regarded as ‘well managed’ while it allows over fishing, while it tolerates almost unfettered, destructive bottom trawling, and while only 0.3% is designated as ‘no take zone’ to allow fish a chance to breed.

The North Sea is not the worst affected region.  But it is scant consolation to know that the Mediterranean is in an even worse state.  Mediterranean fisheries are 90% over exploited. Nor does it help to know that this is not just a European problem.  The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that globally 32% of the world’s sea fisheries are currently being over exploited, and a further 50% are at or about safe maximum levels. By some calculations, at current rates of exploitation, fish stocks around the world will be completely exhausted by 2050.

The thing I struggle to understand is why this issue does not resonate more clearly with the public.  Surely nobody can claim to be unaware that there are serious problems with fishing, and yet public behaviour does not appear to change.  If you went in to a restaurant and found the menu full of endangered species: rhinoceros steaks, tiger stew, osprey burgers and so on, you would be rightly outraged.  Yet every day we are happy to chew our way through thousands of endangered species of fish.  But the good news is that there is a lot that we can all do, and it does not mean giving up eating fish.

What can you do to help conserve fish stocks?

1. Learn which fish are endangered and which ones are OK to eat.

The Marine Conservation Society's Good Fish Guide provides detailed advice on its excellent web site about which fish are safe to eat, and when they are threatened it provides a list of alternatives that might be available.  What I particularly like is that it recognizes that fish may be viewed differently in different fisheries.  For example Icelandic cod is currently regarded as sustainable even though North Sea cod is not.  They also provide a handy pocket guide that can be printed from the web site and taken with you on shopping trips.

2. Buy different fish.

For some months now Sainsbury’s, the UK’s second biggest supermarket chain, has been urging customers to Switch the Fish away from the so-called Big 5 species which collectively account for 80% of British fish sales: Cod, Haddock, Tuna, Salmon and Prawns.  This campaign is supported by Sainsbury’s house chef, Jamie Oliver.  Elsewhere many supermarkets often run promotions on less well known varieties which are in any case cheaper than the usual suspects.  Pouting fillet for example is a good alternative to cod fillet and costs about half as much.

3. Choose Environmentally Certified fish

Look out for the Marine Stewardship Council’s ecolabel certificate.  This global organisation is completely independent and objective.  They work with fisheries, seafood companies, scientists, conservation groups and the public to promote the best environmental choice in seafood.  This is equally true of frozen or processed fish and the ecolabel is issued to restaurants and shops as well as individual products.

4. Ask restaurants about their sourcing policy and let them know your concerns

The website associated with the award winning documentary film by Charles Clover, The End of the Line, has a printable feedback form which people are encouraged to take with them and leave together with the payment when you eat out.

I still eat fish twice a week, although I have to deny myself the pleasure of shop-bought fish and chips.  In this way I hope that when I am watching Finding Nemo with my grand-children I may be able to avoid awkward questions like “what were fish Grandpa?” and “didn’t you realize that you were destroying the oceans?”

Handle with Care



Hedgehog (photo Wikipedia)

I have just become a Hedgehog Champion.  Those are words I did not expect to be writing when I got up this morning.  I was moved to look in to the plight of British hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) after listening to a report on the radio over breakfast which talked about a long term decline in numbers.  According to the People’s Trust for Endangered Species a population which stood at around 60 million in the 1950s is now thought to be as low as 1.5 million.

The thing that moved me to action, albeit the sedentary kind at which I excel, was the assertion that the reasons for the decline were unknown. They even claimed it might be because of predation by badgers!  Badgers are the hedgehog’s only real predator it’s true, but the two species have rubbed along together (carefully I imagine) for millennia.  Why is it we always try to blame anyone or anything but ourselves?  In every extinction that we know about in the past 2000 years, man has been implicated as the primary cause.

It seems obvious that increases in road traffic over the past half century have played a huge part in the population collapse.  These small animals are very vulnerable to fast moving vehicles, and rolling in to a ball offers no defence. But it also seems obvious that the adoption of intensive agricultural techniques: insecticides, ploughing up hedgerows and the like must play a part too.  Sustainable farming cannot include the eradication of major species no matter how inadvertent it may be.

The truth is that we just don’t know what the causes of the decline might be, but the situation is even worse than the radio reported. The figure of 1.5 million dates from a survey carried out in 1995.  Some estimates claim that numbers may have fallen by as much as 25% even since then. It seems that on top of everything else a series of mild winters recently have been harmful for many hibernating species.  They interrupt hibernation and increase winter energy consumption.

Now a three year study to be run jointly by the PTES and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society will aim to see how farmland habitats could be better managed for hedgehogs, looking at how hedgehogs use hedgerows and field margins in different agricultural settings.  The public are also asked to help by recording sightings and help put together a true picture of the number and distribution of hedgehogs throughout the length and breadth of Britain, and that is why I have become a Hedgehog Champion.  Maybe it’s because I was brought up on Beatrix Potter, and Mrs Tiggywinkle was a childhood friend, but I can’t imagine Britain without hedgehogs.  After all what other species has its own Preservation Society?

Foragers' Diary - Part Six

A few days of windy weather recently brought me an unexpected bounty courtesy of a neighbour’s walnut tree.  I know legally the nuts still belong to the owners of the tree, but it’s a second home and they are only summer visitors to Suffolk.  I felt justified in picking the nuts up from the road where they fell,  since the alternative was to watch them being crushed beneath the wheels of the enormous farm vehicles which pass up and down on this stretch of road.

Walnuts

I was surprised to learn that the so called common or English walnut (Juglans regia) is not a native at all.  It does so well in British conditions I just assumed they had always been here. But apparently the name derives from the Old English wealhhnutu which literally means ‘foreign nut’.  The idea goes that the Anglo-Saxon settlers came to understand from British residents that the walnut was a recent arrival in these shores.  In other words the Romans brought it here in the third or fourth century.  In Latin the name is Nux Gallica (Gallic nuts), these particular Gauls coming from Galatia in the central Anatolian highlands.  The trees it seems are native to central Asia stretching from Turkey to South West China, hence its more common name, the Persian Walnut.

Now walnuts are packed with goodness. They are one of the richest sources of plant protein and are also high in dietary fibre, B vitamins, magnesium and antioxidants.  They do contain large quantities of fat but these are mainly ‘good’ monounsaturates or polyunsaturates.  Like most nuts they contain plant sterols which are believed to reduce cholesterol levels and they are also high in Omega 3 fatty acids such as alpha-linolenic acid (ALA).  In fact walnuts have significantly higher amounts of ALA than other nuts.  ALA is believed to play a part in reducing stress and protecting against coronary heart disease.

I got about 80g shelled nuts
from 200g of whole nuts

My problem is that I don’t really like raw walnuts.  They have a bitter, astringent taste.  Niki Segnit, author of The Flavour Thesaurus, variously describes the flavour as woody, nicotine, butterscotch and like ‘a newly opened can of gloss paint’.  However my mother adored them.  She would sit in front of the fireplace with a pile of walnuts on her lap and crack them simply by crushing two nuts together in her hands.  So I guess it’s a personal preference.

Fortunately the flavour does complement a wide range of other ingredients both sweet and savory.  I will save a few to sprinkle on salads and serve with Stilton cheese, but my favourite use is in a delicious, sticky walnut pie.  Supposedly cooking reduces the nutritional benefits. What’s more I will almost certainly add whipped cream to my pie, so forget all that stuff about warding off heart attacks.  But this a sinfully wonderful treat, full of rich autumn flavours and I love it.

Walnut Pie

Recipe

Preheat the oven to 180°c (350°F)

Grease and line a 8-inch (20cm) flan or pie tin.

(Economy Tip: I use the wrappers from packs of butter to line pie dishes instead of greaseproof paper)

Ingredients

For the pastry

125g (4½ oz) plain flour
75g (2½ oz)butter
25g (1oz) caster sugar
pinch of salt
1 egg yolk

For the filling

230ml (8 Fl oz) maple syrup
3 eggs
100g (4oz) dark brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt
120g (4oz) coarsely chopped walnuts

Method

Beat the flour, butter and sugar and salt together until it resembles breadcrumbs.  Add the egg yolk and 1 tsp cold water and continue beating until it comes together to form a dough.  Wrap in Clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Once chilled, roll the pastry to about 3 mm and line the tin to make a pastry case.

Beat the syrup, eggs, brown sugar, butter, vanilla and salt together until well blended, then stir in the chopped nuts and pour the filling into the unbaked pastry case.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until the centre is firm to the touch.

Serve hot or cold with whipped cream.

Coriander Seed

This bizarre autumn weather is causing various problems for the wildlife around my Suffolk home.  Butterflies such as the comma, which had disappeared two or three weeks ago, have been making a surprise return to hedgerows, and the neighbours’ apple tree has returned to blossom.  On the other hand the sunshine is rewarding my faith by finally ripening my outdoor tomatoes, and a few days of genuine heat have dried off the coriander or cilantro if you prefer, which I let run to seed way back in July.


Coriander seed

Now that the entire plant is brown and brittle, harvesting the seeds could hardly be easier.  I simply pulled up the whole plant and carefully pushed the seed heads down into a large paper bag.  Plastic bags are not suitable as they can cause the plants to sweat and rot rather than dry out.  Also, most plastic bags these days have ventilation holes for safety reasons and these are a perfect size for little coriander seeds to escape.

I could hear seeds been brushed off and falling in to the bottom of the bag even as I was bagging it. Now I have hung the whole bag in the garage where I will give it a couple more weeks to finish drying. 

After that simply bashing the bag should be all it takes to dislodge the remaining seed, which I will store in jars ready to be used as needed in Indian or Mexican dishes, or even in carrot and coriander soup.