Not much going on here, just the fixings for a lazy afternoon at our home from home in Vieux Nice: what more could you need than a chilled bottle of Côtes de Provence rosé, a package of freshly sliced finocchiona (fennel salami), crunchy taralli with chili, baguette still-warm from its wood oven, a block of freshly churned butter and a wee pot of taramasalata, all picked up during the course of a leisurely shopping stroll around the old town streets? Well, I can tell you, a copy of Nice Matin to read on the balcony, that’s what.
My first husband’s idea of wit was to exclaim, whenever the opportunity presented itself (surprisingly, gratingly, often); “Anchovies? Smelly little fish!” The marriage didn’t last long, but if by some warped circumstance we had found ourselves strolling the markets of Vieux Nice last week, I should have been delighted to waterboard him with a vat of poutine in response.
Now, fresh poutine is not smelly but it is most certainly a preponderance of tiny little baby fish: the fry of sardines and, yes-you-guessed-it, anchovies; rather rare, rather restricted and rather delicious, netted strictly by licence, only along the Côte d’Azur between Antibes and Menton, and only for a month at the end of winter (February/March): very local, very special and altogether too good for no-good husbands. Happily for the peace of the Vieille Ville, I was accompanied by the darling Mr T, whose adult approach to things piscine is a joy, an ichthyic ideal.
A la saison de février, lorsque brille, sur les étals, la nacre de poutine, les rues des villes – vieilles ou nouvelles – retentissent de l’appel des marchandes: “A la bella poutina! A la bella poutina!” qui inspira mon vieux camarade de classe Gilbert Becaud dans sa chanson sur les marchés de Provence.
Around February, as the pearly sheen of poutine gleams on the market stalls, town streets – old and new – ring with the call of the vendors: “A la bella poutina! A la bella poutina!”, the inspiration for my former classmate Gilbert Becaud’s song, The Markets of Provence [Gastroplod’s rough & ready translation]
and for your extreme pleasure, here’s Gilbert Becaud himself – listen out for him calling “A la bella poutina” at the very end and you will have a charming early-spring echo of Place St-François in Vieux Nice.
I took my first and as-yet-only taste of poutine at the Café des Fleurs on the Cours Saleya, in one of its traditional preparations in the form of an omelette. No surprises here, it tasted just like an omelette with all the briny flavour and savour of very fresh anchovies and sardines, and I did enjoy the sparkle of their teeny-weeny little eyes glinting in the sunlight.
* this poutine has nothing to do with that somewhat-stodgier Québecois fries-gravy-curds speciality also called poutine: although I used to enjoy that version now & then in Vancouver, I know which I’d prefer now…
Cured meats, two of our favourite convenience foods: sitting on the left side of our slate roof tile we have saucisson with pimento and mustard seeds and on the right, prosciutto crudo – home-carved from the boneless joint I scooped at Lidl just before Christmas…
….add rosé Champagne, one of my favourite things to drink, and we had the raw ingredients for a very Happy Valentine’s Day. This Taittinger was an unusual tawny-orange, possibly from the extra year’s bottle age and meatier than most, possibly from the Pinot Noir, maybe the terroir: whatever the reason, it stood its ground with the charcuterie. Sighing with satisfaction I could only hope everyone was having such a lovely, lazy afternoon last Sunday: everything came up roses.
Valentine’s Day luxuries without spending a fortune
Saucisson with pimento and mustard seed £3.99 new at Waitrose (paid £1.49 on sell-by date)
Prosciutto crudo joint £11.74 at Lidl (about £8 a kilo as far as I recall)
Taittinger Prestige Rosé £14-ish on the sale shelf in Sainsbury last Spring – total bargain! – now £36 approx.
btw: it was quite something to see the bunfight at the steak counter in M&S on Saturday – don’t these people have any imagination?
And then I tried the Maltese sanguines: smaller and cheaper by 50p, sharper and less fragrant. A much milder thrill than the stunning Sicilian Tarocco, but a welcome dose of sunshine all the same.
Treat time at Waitrose: Tarocco “blush” oranges are on the shelves again, it’s Blood Orange season!
Much as I disapprove in theory, I do understand blood oranges’ rebranding to something a little less daunting; I remember as a child when presented with a carefully peeled and segmented Blood Orange I used to wonder if it really might be blood I was eating, and if so, whose, and how did it get there and how did they die – and then losing my appetite. It’s a hard sell to the impressionable.
Blush might not be original nor evoke the sunshine blazing from the heart of each fruit, but if it means we can still get hold of these sparkling gems of the citrus world then I’m all for it, and as wrote Shakespeare for Juliet,
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
And the Tarocco is certainly sweet: it’s one of the world’s most popular oranges, apparently, thanks to its sweetness, juciness AND glorious subtleties of flavour. I’m told it also happens to contain the highest Vitamin C content of any orange variety grown in the world, PLUS a bucketful of anthocyanin antioxidants (thanks to the red bits). As if that weren’t temptation enough the wonderful Tarocco is seedless and its thin skin is easy to peel – very little pith too.
It’s also pretty right-on, what with having its own AOC – or is that IGT – or DOP? Not sure, but it’s EU protected, its production having been under threat from the ubiquitous and frankly dull in comparison Navel and Valencia oranges (of no fixed abode). BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme about blood/blush orange growing in Sicily is excellent, full of information and an aural evocation of sunny Sicily, most welcome with our bleak British winter as yet unwilling to relinquish its icy grip: listen again and again…
I don’t advocate doing anything with a Tarocco during its short season of availability other than devouring it raw and alone (the orange, that is). You could admire its rosy beauty in a salad with chicory or fennel with a strew of black olives, but don’t waste the exuberance of its flavour and fragrance by cooking a Tarocco – better buy a Seville for that.
One of my all-time favourite dishes is brandade de morue – salt cod whipped up with olive oil and mashed potato plus a wee hint or more of garlic and a scatter of parsley. Much as I adore the taste, though, I’m not about to pack in my suitcase a whiffy hunk of dried North Atlantic cod just so I can then rehydrate it under a running cold tap for a couple of days before cooking.
Authenticity be damned in this instance and come to think of it, I don’t remember when I last peeled a potato to make mash – certainly not since discovering this wonder-product from Lidl: 99p for a four-pouch box. If you’ve ever read the ingredients list on a packet of Smash and its ilk, the relative purity of this product will come as some surprise, for it reads thus: Dehydrated potatoes (97%), salt, emulsifier (E471), nutmeg, spices, stabiliser (E450i), preservative: sodium metabisuphite (E223), antioxidant (E304), Acid (E330). May contain traces of milk: that’s it.
And before you start squealing in horror at the E numbers allow me to enlighten:
The others are arguably possibly slightly dodgy, in that:
E223 can be an allergen, not recommended for consumption by children
E450i = disodium diphosphate, high intakes of which may upset the body’s calcium/phosphate equilibrium, so excessive use may lead to imbalance of mineral levels, which could potentially lead to damage to bone density and osteoporosis (drinking too much fizzy anything destroys your bones too)
E471 = mono and diglycerides of fatty acids; could be animal in origin or from genetically modified soya.
I can live with that, especially when pretty much all you have to do is scald 250ml milk with 500ml water and sprinkle one sachet over the top for some pretty good pommes purées. It’s definitely French-style though so don’t even think of using this stuff for fishcakes – for that you need the real McCoy! The consistency is purrrfect however, for a creamy brandade. I take a few fillets of smoked fish – here I was fortunate enough to have hot-smoked sea bass and cold-smoked haddock cruising around the freezer – and poach them in the milk & water with finely sliced garlic, a strip of lemon peel, bay leaf and a pinch of saffron. I then remove the fillets, skin and flake them hot in the few minutes while the potato flakes do their magic in the hot liquid, then stir the fish back in with a fork to blend. Sometimes I shred them finely and actually whisk the mix to more closely approximate brandade but it’s not strictly necessary by any means.
Piled into a ceramic dish and finished off in a hot oven it’s a fantastically hearty meal for two on a cold night, accompanied by a woodcutter’s pile of steamed carrots and courgettes and a lightly oaked chardonnay. Somehow winter doesn’t seem so bad after all…
Don’t get me wrong here folks, I have huge admiration for Michelin-starred chef/restaurateur/TV presenter/cookbook author Richard Corrigan, with his salt-of-the-earth bonhomie, clear-eyed yet unjaundiced worldview and his solid, down-home cooking style. But I did a double-take when I saw his latest publication, The Clatter of Forks and Spoons placed next to Big Flavours & Rough Edges: Recipes from the Eagle – wouldn’t you?
It’s a terrific image so I don’t begrudge it at all – that’s my charity-shop-chic silver plate cutlery! – and Corrie’s text is so environmentally and politically astute, I can even find the recycling of a cover idea eco-fabulously forgiveable. It’s almost a shame he couldn’t have borrowed the title too, but the rattle of battered flatware on a hard surface is even more gorgeously evocative of his writing. Not a plain celebrity chef collection of restaurant recipe formulae, this book follows the current fashion, being a collation of discursive thoughts and memories, favourite dishes and discoveries: recipes sharing equal space with long tracts of text and a smattering of mood-evoking photographs; similar to Georgio Locatelli’s Made in Italy, for example. To which I say hooray, by the way – who ever learnt anything about food or cooking from a mere recipe book?
On the other hand, I was going to recommend David Eyre’s excellent-in-parts Eagle gastro-pub-grub book – for its informative recipes but not its crummy index – until I realised it’s out of print and £95 – bloody hell! – so I’ll just be wiping the spills and splashes from my precious copy a little more assiduously in the future. I will however, soon be sharing its best recipe: root vegetable & greens soup. Prosaic-sounding, I know, but absolutely ambrosial, and to which I return time and time again: a soup apart. Big Flavours & Rough Edges: Recipes from the Eagle The Clatter of Forks and Spoons
And if you’re not into reading or cooking, sample Richard Corrigan’s hospitality at Bentley’s Oyster Bar 11-15 Swallow Street, London W1 (just off Piccadilly) – bliss – or scroll down and watch this captivating video of him talking about this book
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His new place sounds pretty nice, too: Corrigan’s Mayfair 28 Upper Grosvenor Street London W1
waiting in line at the boucherie, Place St Francois, Vieux Nice
Talk about a view – this was mine for a full 50 minutes last Saturday. We waited and we waited and we waited: and then we waited some more. All I wanted was to pick up a couple of grillades de boeuf at a great price, but the entire population of Vieux Nice descended simultaneously on la Boucherie Chez Francis, standing 12 or more deep, with a mission to supply themselves and their extended families with sufficient meat to outlast the current geological era. And every piece cut precisely, if you don’t mind…. We noticed a certain correlation between the apparent poverty of a customer and the exactitude they demanded of their butcher (of whom I counted 10 either working the counter or sawing away in the backroom). Escalopes of this, paupiettes of that – yes, joint those rabbits and cut their heads in half while you’re about it. Surely some kind of class warfare going on – the well-dressed expressed their outrage at the wait, only to be rebuffed by the garrulously painstaking staff, while each scruffy personage, once having achieved first place at the counter, prolonged their position in power for as long as their wallet extended. Many euros and even more minutes later they would finally relinquish prime place and saunter over to the cash register to pay and collect their spoils – all bagged, tagged and delivered by overhead conveyor belt. What an amazing operation.
the crowd starts to thin - note mountain of orange body bags bottom left
Happily we had already bought tickets for a charity gala at Nice Opera House – a splendid neo-classical edifice with sumptuous interior – which turned out to be an evening of unmitigated musical delights and the perfect gilt-edged, velvet-trimmed, crystal-chandeliered antidote to our afternoon of waiting in line with the hoi polloi: and just a five minute walk from home through the Old Town’s pedestrianised streets.
Boucherie Chez Francois : Place St. Francois, Vieux Nice
Nice Opéra House : 4 & 6 rue Saint-Francois-de-Paul, 06300 Nice Tél. 04 92 17 40 00
A couple of weeks ago we dashed up to the Big Smoke on a sunny Saturday to catch the last weekend of the Courtauld Institute’s Cezanne exhibition – which was stunning, btw. And what a stunning day all round: Somerset House itself; at the far eastern end of The Strand, children frolicking under its courtyard fountains in the autumn sunshine and the chiaroscuro effect of the afternoon light on the Neo-classical quadrangle’s façades filled me with a sense of satisfaction and contentment normally only induced by a lazy luncheon with a glass of wine. Or two.
My delight had much to do with having sourced our train ride snack from the countertop cornucopia of Carluccio’s caffè. A can of San Pellegrino Limonata for me: sharp, tart and truly lemony; very grown up and tasting nothing like pop, and a tinny of Peroni birra for he. Mine came with a foil cover to keep the sipping hole clean, which doubled up nicely as a micro-plate for our delectable little savoury biscuits: one each of parmesan/herb and walnut/rosemary flavours. Mmm – crisp and crumbly with the quality of their ingredients resonating on the palate: not much more than a morsel per piece yet intensely satisfying.
I do hope the delightful Antonio is feeling better after his recent knife mishap. His erudite books and television works are informative and entertaining, and although he is no longer involved with the caffè chain which bears his name, it’s still a civilized pleasure to stop by and shop. Best wishes for your recovery, Mr Carluccio!
We visited another bastion of civilization that day – the ever-urbane Fortnum and Mason on Piccadilly. A lunch date elsewhere meant foregoing the joys of the 1707 cellar wine bar, but who wants to be underground on a beautiful day anyway? I did discover, however, what the deli counter does with the leftover fat from their Pata Negra Gran Reserva ham – they send it to the kitchen, clever devils. I was hoping to acquire it cheaply for my own devices but at F&M they’re not fools. Instead I came home with a goodly package of saffron – saffron indeed – salami, and a very goodly thing it turned out to be: resembling more a lomo than a salami – no casing, the meat wasn’t chopped and fat evident only in the marbling – but all the more enjoyable for it, especially at just £3 for 100g.
The saffron-gilded edge was beautiful to behold and its flavour subtly enhanced the top notch pork flesh. I wish I could say more about this product but there was no information on the label and my server, although charmingly helpful, knew as much as I of its provenance. The mystery remains…anyone out there know?
Spotted at my local Saturday market: chewy snacks for the discerning doggie.
Top from left: cow throats, pig trotters, “paddy whacks” – what’s that?
Front from left: pig snouts, postman’s legs, honey roast bones
Also on display were rinds, knuckles and shanks plus a wide variety of unidentifiable edibles for – and by – animals. Although it’s good to know such things aren’t going to waste, I rather hope the credit crunch is over before we’re feeling the need to sneak them into a stew…and eating a dog’s dinner for real. Although Mr T is such a flesh fiend he wouldn’t mind at all, I’ll be needing the fabulous, the fearless Fergus Henderson to hold my hand and show me the right way to deal with extremities: respect, Fergus!!
And then I tried the Maltese sanguines: smaller and cheaper by 50p, sharper and less fragrant. A much milder thrill than the stunning Sicilian Tarocco, but a welcome dose of sunshine all the same.
Gastroplod 