Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table. Nigel Slater
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your arm.
Anyone who doubts that such decadence has a place in a twenty-first-century world of sushi-to-go and travelling cappuccini should attempt to get a table at Betty’s in Harrogate on the turn of four. Or perhaps they might like to step into the Wolseley in London’s Piccadilly at about half-past three in the afternoon. The latter will be awash with silver pots of Darjeeling and three-tier cake stands piled with all manner of little tarts and fancies, the vast room a veritable sea of tea strainers. The clatter of cake forks amid the gentle buzz of gossip can be seen as a cry for sanity in a world obsessed by calorie-counting and pilates.
There is a smell in the hall. Dark notes of burning rubber and something exotic, rich, bitter. I push open the door to the kitchen to see my father concentrating intently on a tall, shiny jug plugged into the electric socket by the Aga, its glass lid covered in dancing beads of condensation. Dad is unusually red in the face, and his tie is crooked. He’s looking slightly panic-stricken. The Formica counter is freckled with dark brown grains, and the silver jug thing with the glass lid is starting to make an excited plop-plipping sound. Steam seems to be coming from both the machine and my dad.
‘It’s the new coffee percolator,’ announces my mother, who is standing next to him with the noticeably resigned air of a woman who has seen canoes, fishing rods, chess sets, marmalade pans and flashing pink Christmas-tree lights that never worked and should have gone back given the same brief moment of furious attention. I am not quite sure why my father has invested in this particular contraption, especially as we don’t really drink coffee anyway, apart from the occasional cup of Maxwell House which we make half-and-half with hot milk. We are simply not a coffee family, and to be honest I am not sure I know anyone who is. Not even the Griptons, and they have an in-and-out gravel drive.
But a coffee percolator we now have, and we all stand round it, excitedly awaiting the result. My father says something about my mother saying she always wanted a perky copulater, which I don’t understand and at which she snaps a disgusted, ‘And that’s enough of that, thank you!’
‘Do you think it’s ready yet? It’s been a while,’ says Mum after a suitable period of awed silence. ‘I don’t know,’ admits my father, who then mutters something about the instruction booklet being in Italian, which is odd, as we can both clearly see the words ‘Morphy Richards’ on the side of the pot. ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day. Let’s give it a bit longer, eh?’
Mum starts to fold some towels, and is in danger of losing interest. I’m wondering what the coffee will taste like, and whether I’m going to have to finish it if I don’t like it. My dad gets out the Midwinter china and opens up a box of coffee crystals and another of ‘petticoat tails’ shortbread, which he arranges on a plate. He unplugs the pot and pours out the coffee, which instantly hits the bottom of the cup and splashes into the saucer and over the table. ‘Take the cup up to the pot, Tony, you’re making a right old mess,’ says Mum, who is now almost as het-up as Dad. ‘I know, I know. The spout’s too wide, it all comes out in a rush,’ he explains, and then we all go quiet.
‘Do you think you put enough coffee in?’ queries my mother as she puts her cup down. We all sit there, looking down at our pale, watery drink, thin, brown yet peculiarly burnt-tasting. My dad has turned his back to us and is at the sink, battling with the last of the coffee grounds, desperately trying to get them all off the sides of the sink and to rinse them down the plughole. He carefully dries the pot, the glass lid, the little aluminium filter thing that held the grounds, and puts it all back together, bit by bit. Lips pursed, he shoehorns the shiny jug with the glass lid back into its box, slips the instruction booklet down the side, and folds the lid in at the sides. He takes the box out to the garage and puts it on the top shelf, next to the chess set and the box of pink flashing Christmas-tree lights.
A well-made faggot is a gorgeous thing, tender as mince, but with a defined shape and delicate spicing. But you need a reliable recipe.
I have minced the requisite dark pig’s liver, the pork scraps, the bacon and the pig’s heart as instructed. I have stirred in the fresh breadcrumbs, the thyme and the sage, the ground mace and the allspice. I have rolled the mixture into tennis balls and wrapped each in a webbing of lacy caul fat specially ordered from the butcher. Laid in an enamel tin like fat dumplings (‘faggot’, at least in this instance, means bundle) snuggled up together to await the oven and their puddle of onion gravy, they look as hearty as a supper could ever be. The sort of meal you might want to eat on an oilrig, or after a long trek up Scafell.
But my attempts have never matched those of a good local butcher, being just too butch, with too strong a flavour and excessively liverish. The last were coarse and chewy, and weighed on the stomach like lead. Call me a wimpish urbanite, but home-made faggots are obviously for someone who is more of a man than me.
The ones you buy in a deep foil tray from a Black Country market or a Welsh butcher are probably the best bet. The Welsh version can contain oats or apples. Those big-name brands that are no bigger than a scallop and swimming in sweet, rather commercial-tasting gravy, are quite passable on a winter’s night. It is almost unthinkable to eat them with anything other than mashed potato and peas, though being a winter dish tradition may have it that it should be a purée of dried peas, known as pease pudding, rather than fresh.
Pros: The glorious gravy and extreme flavour; the frugality of making entrails into something so delicious; few suppers will ward off the cold like faggots and peas.
Con: You are eating pigs’ intestines wrapped up in the lining of their stomachs.
He has swapped his subscription to Playboy for Delicious. He scans the ‘Kitchen Notes’ pages in the Guardian and the Telegraph for the latest gadgets and the hippest ingredients. He orders his organic meat on the internet and gets his groceries by timed delivery. New-man-in-the-kitchen is more au fait with making fettuccine than with putting up shelves. He is more familiar with saucisson than Swarfega, and the only screwdriver he knows comes in a glass with ice and a little dish of olives on the side.
Stroll around London’s Borough Market on a Saturday morning and new-man-in-the-kitchen will be there, picking out a nice sea bass for his supper. Still slightly wary of looking too housewifely, he will go for a big fish, or a piece of meat on the bone, rather than anything ready prepared. It is easier to assert your masculinity when buying a whole octopus than a pack of salmon fillets. Mince is obviously a no-no. Cooking has replaced do-it-yourself as a way to show how much of a man you really are. DIY shops are closing like clam shells in a thunderstorm. Anything involving a knife is fine, though he will probably draw the line at pastry. Kneading bread is now seen as just as much a ‘guy thing’ as knocking down a wall. And he is likely to make just as much mess.
What men’s new-found love of cooking shares with do-it-yourself is that even the most botched attempt will lead to him receiving compliments, having his ego massaged, and being told, repeatedly, how clever he is. As the French say, plus ça change.
There is something about the smooth, almost creamy Murray Mint that seems to soothe one’s troubles away. I have first-hand experience of finding myself lost, late, cross and frustrated, and discovering an elderly Murray Mint in my coat pocket. Within seconds of the sweet hitting my tongue, my mood changed to something altogether more ‘Zen’. Better still, that calmer mood led to me finding my destination in minutes. I was but a block away. Curiously, the soothing effect of the Murray Mint lasts only for as long as you suck. The second you crunch, the spell is broken and the soothing quality completely disappears. Heaven