LETTER FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY – Time and Life

In the late 1960’s Time Life released its ambitious multi volume work entitled ‘Foods of the World’.  I stumbled across an almost complete set a few years ago at a school fete and brought the many volumes home in a couple of  woefully inadequate carrier bags.  The collection of rather dated looking books took its place among my many, varied, even obscure, food related tomes and has gathered dust for the last several years. Occasionally I have dipped into one volume or other to remind me of a simple recipe. I say ‘simple’, because anything else is not really my bag.

Each volume relates the story, history, and culture of the food of a different country. Looking for some meat-related information, I opened the volume entitled ‘The Cooking of the British Isles’. I failed to find what I was looking for but I did find a magic window through which I could look back to a different time. This particular volume provides a snapshot of food production, consumption and traditions fourty years ago.

From the vantage point of this brave young 21^st century, and throughout its first decade, there has been a tendency to look back many decades and condemn most of what has gone before, at least in culinary terms. There is a habit of thinking that food in the British Isles has been the domain of Philistines for most of the 20^th Century. We condemn those who claim to recall a vision of on farm production and sales as having invented that very image. We hail the advent of Farmers’ Markets, Farm Gate Sales and traceability as recent inventions. Too much to quote here in full, here is a potted version of what I read.

“British cooking…depends on the excellence of the raw materials, the rhythm of the seasonal crops and a simple style of preparation that gives the flavour of the food a chance…British food is uncomplicated, reassuring, a treasure-house of familiar, cherished flavours.” The writer recalls buying Milk, Eggs, Butter and Chicken directly from the Farm Gate. She talks of how the butter would be a different colour depending on the time of year.

While celebrating, she also warns that:

“A generation is growing up that has never tasted the glories of British Country Food, although it is still possible to find it if you take a little time and trouble.” She concludes:

“Any tradition of food, however sturdy it seems, is really very vulnerable and must be cherished if it is to survive. Let tastes change and customs shrivel, and in no time at all a good part of a centuries-old-tradition will have disappeared, never to return.”

Interestingly, the section on cheese tells three stories relating to the origin of Stilton. The first is that it was first made by the housekeeper at Quenby Hall in the 1730s. Next is that it was made by a Mrs Orton in the village of Little Dalby. The third is that it was first made in Melton Mowbray itself. Avid followers of my ramblings will remember that there was a cheese made in this very room where I do most of my writing here at Northfield right up until the early years of the 20^th Century. I have yet to dig out a description of that cheese, but the thought that Stilton might have also been made here is tantalising.

Northfield Farm is the principal retail outlet for Quenby Hall’s Organic Longhorn Beef. Quenby is about 12 miles away, Little Dalby is just over the hill from here and of course Northfield Farm itself lies in the Borough of Melton Mowbray.

The British Pig Executive has just announced the winners of its annual awards. Northfield Farm has won Gold for its Game Pie and Silver for its Melton Mowbray Pork Pie and Black Pudding.

Jan McCourt

jan@northfieldfarm.com

www.northfieldfarm.com

www.janmccourt.wordpress.com

Gordon Ramsay in India

Ramsay’s Indian experience is interesting, but why the swearing. So disrespectful. Great to see so much use of goat (kid) which of course is available from Northfield! Brings back memories of Goat Brain Curry all those years ago, which he is yet to cook.  I want to go back.

Brilliant section on the cooking on the train. Yet another statement on the cultural differences , the importance of food.

While talking about India, why are the Bollywood films on so late? Put them on in the mainstream in place of all the rubbish repeats constantly being shown. If Channel 4 is dedicating itself to India for a while, its an insult to have so much of it on so late.

Community Vision

I attended DEFRA’s ‘Christmas Market’ at London’s New Covent Garden before Christmas as a representative of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association. We put on a great show, displaying not just the pies, but pigs’ heads and bags of Organic Flour from the Whissendine Windmill which we use to make the pastry. I also demonstrated how to hand raise Pork Pies. The purpose of the occasion was to celebrate Britain’s 40 Protected Food Names, which range from Scotch Beef, through Cornish Sardines, to the aforesaid Pies.

It was a slightly surreal event as there were no members of the public present, so detracting from the ‘Market’ label. It was, though, a well-meant attempt to promote and celebrate these great British Foods. As a farmer, it was fascinating to see and meet Hilary Benn, Jim Fitzpatrick and above all a large number of employees of DEFRA, the government department responsible, among other things for food and farming. I am sure it my imagination, but Hilary Benn did seem to move on very swiftly from at least one farmer who attended. DEFRA gets a pretty bad rap among farming circles, historically rightly so. Those I met this time though, appeared genuinely passionate about British Food and Farming and really eager to learn more about everything connected with it. I have also noticed a brighter, more constructive reception when talking to various DEFRA departments by phone.

DEFRA has just launched the Government’s new Food Strategy – Food 2030. I think this follows on the various food security reports which emerged towards the end of 2009. Sadly, but not without good reason, these initiatives are met by scepticism. Where food and farming are concerned this is because of the feeling among farmers and small food producers of having been ignored for such a long time. In general though, the reaction is because there is no real belief in government being capable of taking a truly long-term view and sticking to it.

It is very easy for the individual to criticise policy as if running the country were an easy job. There do seem to be two areas where that criticism is well founded. Long term vision and education seem to have been the real casualties of politics and strategy for the last many years. These two elements figure in food policy, retailing, production, processing, labelling, consumption and waste. They figure also in examples as seemingly different as cold weather management (January’s big freeze), health care and environmental policy.

The snows in January have brought into focus just how difficult it is to run a farm shop up a steep hill without help from gritting machines. Leicestershire Highways did manage to grit our lane a few times, but we, our few neighbours, our local councillor, friends and customers did have to beg and plead.

Years ago farmers were contracted by County Authorities to help keep the roads clear. Hopefully we will look for more ways for communities to work together in this way in future. Maybe this is all part of a refocus on local issues, communities and economies. Let’s hope so.

Jan McCourt

jan@northfieldfarm.com www.janmccourt.wordpress.com www.northfieldfarm.com

The Christmas Feast

The official mad time of year is now here and in the press, food writers, cooks, chefs and critics are fighting amongst each other to gain the greatest prominence. Wherever you look you will see reports analysing the best birds, cakes, tracklements (accompaniments to food), not to mention liitle black dresses, handbags, knickers and bangles.

One eyecatching headline last Saturday in the Times Weekend supplement shouted the question: “Are Posh Birds Worth It?” Having once been married to one and knowing quite a few others, my first thought was “yes, they probably are”.

Then I realised the was question was being asked about Free Range Turkeys!

Within its pages, I found two references. The first from Tom Parker Bowles, who should know better, wrote, “So this year, stuff  the turkey and celebrate Christmas with a proper British Feast. One of the birds he was recommending to replace it was a pheasant. mercifully he did also recommend a really good Chicken, Pork belly or a rib of beef.

I am sorry Tom, great supporter of Northfield and others like us though you have been, a pheasant is not a replacement for a turkey. Besides, cooking a pheasant remains far more demanding than cooking a turkey.

My concern though, is what if a seriously large number of folks were to take him seriously and boycott proper British Reared Free Range Turkeys? The effect on those specialising in these birds could be far more catastrophic that the threat a couple of years ago of Bird Flu. Like everything we do, from scrapping cars to building houses, we have to consider the ripple effect of our actions.

Tom PB is absolutely right in saying that there are many great alternatives to a turkey, just don’t damn the wonderful British Farmers who are the masters at producing these birds.

Northfield Farm’s Free Rage Turkeys and Geese are produced by local specialists, who do only that, produce great ‘Posh’ birds. By all means ditch the imported or intensively reared birds of all kinds that are available in the supermarkets. Follow the rule of least remove and buy your bird or other meat from someone you know. If you don’t know that someone, well get to know us at Northfield Farm.

Further on in the section Tom Norrington-Davies (this year it seems ‘Posh’ Birds, need posh-sounding critics to write about them) answers the original question with a resounding ‘yes’

“First off, the bad news: anyone hoping to pass off a mass-produced bird as a superior hand-reared one will be disappointed. We tasted the supermarket turkeys against a benchmark of three birds from specialist producers and price would always out.”

Sadly he did not taste a Northfield Farm bird, but the principal holds good,  the bird he referred to closest to ours cost more than £4-00 per kilo more than an equivalent Northfield Farm bird.

In some 12 years of feeding our customers at Christmas, the only complaint about turkeys I can remember was one who phoned up on Christmas Day as he was carving his bird. A good friend as well as a long time faithful customer, he was spitting with rage, complaining at how bony the Northfield Farm turkey was.  A few moments later his wife called to apologise, and explain that she had decided to cook the bird up side down that year, and her husband, taking the bird from the oven to the carving board had failed to notice and was therefore trying to carve the bird bottom up so to speak.

Cooking your turkey upside down can help keep it moist, just don’t forget to turn it back over for carving.

Heaven and Hell

This is short Article I have written for publication elsewhere in January.

Wherever I go, I cannot resist food markets, and so visited five or six in the South West of France while on holiday in October. As a customer of Northfield pointed out, buyers at Food Markets in France actually expect to pay more for their food than they do in Supermarkets. While I don’t advocate that as a principle, it is very noticeable to how great a degree the average food buyer in France demands, expects, and receives a tremendously high standard.

The countryside there is made up of a mosaic of smallholdings. Small herds of beautiful blonde Mirandaise cattle, graze contentedly behind single strands of electric wire, often in and next to vast fields of corn. The corn cobs hang like golden nuggets from the shrivelled stems and leaves of their host plants. They are harvested either entire or stripped of their golden ears. When taken whole, the cobs, complete with ears are loaded back at the farm into tall wood and wire cages where they are dried and stored ready for use to feed the cattle through the winter. Where stripped, the cobs are spat out onto the ground with the shredded stalks. Cattle or pigs or ducks or hens or turkeys might then be grazed on the mixed stubble prior to the remains of the harvest and the grazing being ploughed in ready to start again with a new crop rotation.

The autumn in the Gers was gentle warm and kind to man and beast. Not so back in England sadly.

When I came back, the contrast in pace of life hit home harder than ever before. In one drive from Northfield to Melton I saw more vehicles on the road than I had seen during the whole of the previous two weeks. The land looked less prepared here for the dark season ahead. I cannot compare the media between the two areas as I neither watched TV nor listened to the Radio. I only looked at a local newspaper once. This was a strange experience in itself as the two front page articles were firstly about the higher incidence of road deaths in the Gers compared with every other past of France (strange given the lack of traffic) and, secondly an article about a local well-known Grandfather who took his grandson with his tractor into the woods to show him how to cut logs for the winter. Sadly the old man’s tractor rolled back and killed him. This small sad article, a tribute to the old man, only served to remind me of my own lucky escape some three years ago. I wrote a great deal about my experience. The accident itself, and the extraordinary care which I received from the NHS and other public services, without which I would not be around to tell the tale.

This is a time of year when we all used to make New Year’s Resolutions. Mine must be to finish that writing and to put it to some productive use at last.

The single other greatest contrast, in my little exposure to the media when in France, was how little mention there was of War. As soon as I got back, and ever since, every sense has been bombarded with stories of death of young soldiers, lack of sufficient support and infrastructure. By the time this makes print, who knows what may have happened, but at the moment our government seems like some huge mythical animal, moving slowly towards an inevitable death yet refusing to acknowledge its fate. It chants the same mantra of self-justification, oblivious to life in the real world. The remembrances of Armistice Day had such poignancy this (last) year. Yet they seemed to take place in another world. A world of trenches and naïve anticipation of a short and glorious conflict where we, The Great Britain, would march forward and despatch our enemies quickly and neatly. We remember the sacrifices of those heroes of old. We remember those victims of misguided leaders who basked in glory while sending a generation to ‘The hell where youth and laughter go’. Lets hope against hope that our future leaders will remember the very real hell which week in and week out spews  our youth back at us like evil clockwork.

Jan McCourt

jan@northfieldfarm.com

 

Pastel Blue

We took the road North through Simorre, to Grimont, up around Auch & into Lectoure. Parking just off the main square, slightly down the hillside, it was a short but steep climb back up to the main street and the busy Friday Market. Mainly food, stalls, large & small, strung their slightly random way down the whole length of the street.

The trick of visiting any market for the first time is to walk its whole length, explore each and every corner, visit all its stalls without buying anything. Stop & taste, chat to the stallholders & get to know them a little. Observe how they run their stall & how they relate to other customers. Make a mental note of what impresses & what does not. Then, and only then go back to those that you wish to buy from. That way, not only will you understand the dynamics and atmosphere of the particular market, but also you will not end up kicking yourself for having bought a particular cheese or saucisson when there was a better one a few yards down waiting for your patronage.

Hard work this busman’s holiday so a gentle beer in a bar bedecked with sporting memorabilia and random artwork was needed, followed by a decent but not memorable lunch just off the main drag.

Later, replete & just a little drowsy, I took my boys for a private tour & demonstration at the pastel ‘factory’ which is sandwiched between the train track and a small industrial estate on the outskirts of the town.

www.bleu-de-lectoure.com

The website tells someof the story, but does not really do it justice. It is the story of the humble Woad plant, a weed which when subjected to a combination of processes, turns to a magical blue. A die which secured the fortune for this small area or ‘golden triangle’, as it was known in the fifteenth & sixteenth century. Here, in this spectacularly beautiful mediaeval building I found a description of every young man’s dream. Well one of them.

An essential part of the transformation of the boiled sludge of the woad plant into the remarkable colour which became ‘Royal Blue’ was the need to add urine. So, I kid you not, the original makers of Pastel employed what our pretty french guide called ‘pee-ers’. Apparently the most sought after job in the area at the time was to be one of these pee-ers. Men & boys came from all around to drink as much beer as they could manage and then to pee on the woad. Obviously these specialists were not much good for any other job most of the time, but they were apparently very well paid for their trouble.

So here we had a manufacturing process which involved taking a weed, crushing, boiling, rolling into balls to dry & then waiting 5 or 6 months for the balls to mature. Then all that was left was to get regularly drunk and pee on the broken up balls. This laborious process created a product worth its weight in gold, strictly regulated by law & sought after throughout the known world.

Alchemy?

D’Artagnan Country

For all the recent bitching & moaning about Ryanair, I flew down the other day with my two sons &, despite the feeling of being herded like cattle, the experience was not bad. It seems to me that if one is careful to read all the small print & travel fairly lightly, it all works fairly well.

Having been persuaded to go on my first holiday abroad for several years, I had done little to prepare myself or learn anything about the area in which we would be staying. What little boy does not know the legends of the three musketeers? Whether by written word, by film or by cartoon, the stories come back to life as soon as your hear the mention of  Gascony. It was from here that it all started. D’Artagnan left his home near here around 1630, heading for Paris to find fame, fortune & immortality.

Walk through any of the woods here, and you could so easily be back in those times, even driving around, if you ignore the proliferation of electric fencing and concrete fence posts, very little appears to have changed. France’s least populated rural area has a mediaeval quality to it, especially closer to the Pyrenees which we can see on a clear day and are calling for us to visit in the next few days.

Foie Gras, Armagnac & Prunes are this quiet world’s most famous products. Foie Gras from ducks & geese is available ‘en vente directe’ almost everywhere you look. Some of these farms have not a bird to be seen outside and conjure up the image of the funnel, force-fed birds’ short, dark lives. Others have flocks, large & small scrabbling around outside, ranging freely to different degrees. Similarly, Armagnac is everywhere & equally varying in quality. As soon as you leave Carcassonne there are vinyards to be seen in every direction, but as you reach further south they become more & more scarce until they pretty much disappear altogether. Apparently, Brussels, in its wisdom, some years ago paid the farmers ‘du coin’ to grub out their ancient vines & plough up the land with the result that the price of the wonderful, but variable spirit doubled or more and to some degree another way of life was lost.

I have discovered that combining two of these, Armagnac & Prunes as a dessert makes a near magical dish, especially when served with ice cream. There is even the slightest implication of it being a health food because of the inclusion of the prunes which have never tasted so good in any other company.

You can buy these very Agen prunes from Alex in Borough Market together with the amazing block butter which is produced & eaten here and creamy yoghurts.

The countryside is at once wild & gentle. Above all it is empty at any time of day. All roads seem to lead to the town of Mirande, which we have yet to visit, and the many of the farms have small herd of white cattle known locally as Mirandaise. There are still vast unharvested fields of corn, their stalks long passed from green through yellow to a sad head hangng rusty brown. Some of the farms still have tall clamps made from wire in which the corn cobs are gathered and dried as they are let down into the troughs below as winter feed for the cattle. There are also fields of pink & black pigs, roaming, digging and scratching with the gusto that only pigs can muster. Deer abound and indulge us in brief staring matches before breaking and running away, zigging and zagging to disappear in the woods.

A medium sized eagle perched, dark & brooding on the white concrete entrance post to the memorial to the Maquis not far from where we are staying. As we started the short steep climb up to the memorial itself, the bird, never taking its eye off us, rose from its perch & quickly rose in a series of circles ’til we could barely see it high up in the sky.

Black marble plaques list the names of those who died here & close by. Whole families destroyed in one short three hour battle which was followed by the torture and disfiguring of so many others. The small graveyard of white painted crosses neatly arranged show the names of those who could be identified, others simply show ‘nom inconnu’ and a few, most poignant of all, randomly placed among the others have their Jewishness simply identified by a cross of David. There were many crosses sporting bright fresh flowers, others extra tributes from Maquis remembrance societies from elsewhere. The Jewish marked monuments each had a small stone, barely larger than a pebble placed on its top.

The Rule of Least Remove, Food and Music

The lunch for the Melton & Rutland Conservative Association lunch at Northfield Farm sold out very quickly after tickets went on sale. The obvious draw was Clarissa Dickson Wright as guest speaker, and she did not disappoint.

Her theme was ‘A Life of Honest Food’. Honesty in food remains such a huge issue and for many people a complete mystery.

I received an email the other day which set out the numbers within bar codes showing from which country a particular item originates. China, whose government declared half of it rivers as being too polluted to drink from, supplies some 70% of the fish consumed world-wide. The email showed photos of a Chinese chicken processor sending staff out to collect dead birds from small farms, take them back on bicycles, pluck & wash them in vile, unsanitary conditions & finally die them with a colour rendering their appearance appetizing again. Fish, Chicken & pigs are all capable of thriving to a certain extent in the most vile of conditions.

There is only one way to buy & consume these meats safely. Observe the ‘Rule of Least Remove’. How far removed are you, the consumer, from the producer of the food you eat? Think about it. The fewer steps you are removed from the original producer, the more certain you can be of a product’s honesty and quality.

I suspect the other less obvious draw was a degree of curiosity, not just about Northfield Farm as a venue for such an auspicious event, but also for the opportunity to observe one of the party’s more colourful characters at close quarters. In the event, Alan Duncan proved a charming and very amusing presence and speaker.

It would be fascinating to host a similar gathering for our other major party and to see how appreciative they would be of the food and surroundings.

Our night of music with the Atlantics and Laura Swaine was attended by nearly 100 people. Our next on Friday 13th November with the Hounddogs promises to be even bigger & better. We already have one booking for a party within the party.

Clarissa will be back for our Christmas Fair on 21st November.

Last night I attended a conference dinner at PERA in Melton for the Market Towns debate on surviving the recession.

Our hosts had made a huge effort with the meal and sourced virtually every ingredient from local producers including Northfield Farm. These producers were invited as guests and gave a talk of varying length about their businesses and the food they had supplied. It was a difficult audience to gauge in terms of their genuine interest, but they did clap with enthusiasm after each speaker had finished. At the end of the evening my neighbour shook my hand and told me how much he had enjoyed the event. He made a particular point of saying how interesting he had found the emphasis on the quality and the provenance of the food. ‘Until now’, he said, ‘I did not think I was interested in food. This evening has changed that completely’. The conference organiser had followed the Rule of Least Remove and deserves huge credit for doing so. I think that simple statement was one of the greatest compliments that could have been paid to any of the producers in the room. I, as a food producer cannot conceive of how anybody could fail to be ‘interested’ in what they eat. Yet I must learn that this is so. The challenge therefore for me and other producers is to go out, missionary-like, to convert the disinterested masses. The after dinner entertainment was by the Melton Musical Theatre Company founded 90 years ago by Sir Malcolm Sargent. They were brilliant. They are in desperate financial trouble. They must be saved. See www.northfieldfarm.com for more on everything. Visit us soon. Jan McCourt jan@northfieldfarm.com