Nose to Tail Eating

I'm always impressed by friends who go to St. John for the first time and order the bone marrow. My dad always said when I was little (and still says, actually), "If you go to a hamburger joint, order a hamburger." Well if you could characterise St. John by one dish it would be the roasted bone marrow on toast with parsley salad, and that's the thing to order there. It's always on the menu and in the past 13 years it has become a classic (or rather, it's been rediscovered as a classic among the London restaurant crowd.)

Bone marrow and offal in general have had some tricky years this century. Mad Cow Disease didn't help (and we shouldn't forget that beef bones were banned in the UK for some time), but I suppose it all started after the war, when people started to be able to afford to eat more meat. They stopped buying and enjoying cheaper cuts and innards which subsequently fell out of vogue, as did British cooking in general, especially in the restaurant scene. Fergus Henderson of St. John is largely credited (and I believe rightly so) with the renewed respect for British cooking, and for offal in particular.

I'm still not a real convert, so I'm not going to pretend that every time I go to St. John I have the bone marrow, or liver or tripe or any such thing. Most often I have equally delicious but less "adventurous" options. It actually took me a year of almost weekly visits to try the bone marrow, but I advise you to do as I say, not as I do. The jelly-ish interior of the veal bones has a deeply savoury flavour perfectly complemented in taste and texture by the crispy toast and fresh parsley salad. If you can't get yourself to Smithfield (or St. John Bread and Wine in Spitalfields) then check out the recipe - brought to you by one minimalist from another.

Rice and peas, peas and rice

Have you ever tried ackee and saltfish? Macaroni pie? Ever sandwiched a pattie in a soft, sweet coco bread? Do you think Solomon Gundy must be a misspelling of a classic nursery rhyme*?

If you've never travelled to the Caribbean you've probably been missing out on the best of West Indian cuisine. According to Wade Lyn's post on word of mouth, The Observer's food blog, "recent research revealed that in Yorkshire 51% of people have tried a samosa and 46% a Thai curry, while across the whole country, only 13% have tried a Caribbean pattie..."

The question of some cuisines becoming more mainstream than others is a complex one that could be the subject of a PhD thesis. It's worth reading the lively debate in the comments section of the word of mouth post; it provides lots of hypotheses and recommendations from readers for place to find the best jerk and rice and peas.

*Solomon Gundy is a spicy smoked herring paste from Jamaica.

Chocolate-induced stress

Perhaps you have suffered from it too? Chocolate anxiety; that feeling I get when I want to make the perfect creation of chocolatey goodness can’t find the right thing to make. The dreaded feeling happens most just before birthdays or parties. It helps to know that I am not the only one; according to Julia Moskin’s article on brownies in the New York Times, she suffers from the same thing. The quest for chocolate perfection.

I agree with Moskin on many points. I think it’s true that we have become too chocolate obsessed. No dessert menu is complete without death-by-chocolate this or that, or at least one of those omnipresent melt-in-the-middle warm cakes. I like them, don’t get me wrong, but enough is enough. And I am not the first person to feel this way – one-time chocoholic friends have said to me they are now happy to turn away an oozing cake for a fruit tart or crème caramel.

But some occasions still call for cocoa and brownies, as Julia points out, are the ideal fix for the home baker. They are reliable, as long as you get the cooking time right, and they almost always satisfy the desire for a rich, dense, dark chocolate treat. How could you go wrong? Julia takes offense to any additions other than walnuts and pecans. Though I agree that peanut butter, marshmallows and other flavourings are generally over the top, I must say that I often like nuts in my brownies. The bakery at St. John, in London, does a very fudgy version packed with brazils, almonds and hazelnuts (or at least from what I can identify) and it never fails to amaze me how well the flavours and textures meld together. At once dense, smooth, crunchy and soft, the nuts retain some of their natural character since they aren’t crisp and toasted.

My absolute favourite brownie, the one that I recommend to people the most, in fact the one that I make people try when walking past the store no matter what protests they throw at me, is the Boston brownie at London’s Konditor and Cook. This bakery has never failed me – everything I have ever bought there has been scrumptious - but their brownies are more than delicious; they are original and superlative at the same time. They are the best brownies I have ever had and at the same time different to any others I have tried. The key is the Bostonian element: the cranberries. Their occasional tanginess cuts through the richness of the chocolate and brings out the dark flavour at the same time. The cranberries are not overdone, in fact there are only a few in each brownie, but they make all the difference. Unfortunately I have not been able to get my hands on the Konditor and Cook recipe, but I will try. And if I don’t succeed, I will try my hand at recreating them next time the chocolate anxiety comes around. They could be just the thing for it.