Food 21: the end of summer

tomatoes, eggs, a marrow recipe to convert the doubters (me), greengages, trifle and Scottish dancing

Photo via Judy Kim on Pinterest

From today these food posts are going to be more ‘life, with some recipes’ than ‘every single appropriate recipe I can think of right now’. Substack is awash with brilliant original recipes - I’ve linked to some of my favourite UK newsletters at the bottom of this post - and I want to write slightly less narrowly, more like I do for my paid subscribers.

A couple of weeks ago there was just the merest early-morning suggestion of autumn in the air, like when someone’s perfume precedes them. Now its arrival is clearly imminent. I live surrounded by fields, and the wheat harvest is in. The courgettes are lunatic. It’s fully dark by 9pm.

In her brilliant book about girls’ boarding schools, Ysenda Maxtone Graham correctly notes that anyone who went to one, as I did, has a yearning, homesick feeling on Sunday nights for the rest of their lives. The last days of August give me the same feeling.

Well, minus Matron and Scottish dancing. When the gardener and writer Sarah Raven was on Desert Island Discs recently, she chose the Dashing White Sergeant as one of her discs and I thought, ah, okay, English boarding school. At mine, Scottish dancing was the only way to meet boys - twice a term we’d be minibussed into places like Eton and Radley, ostensibly to Scottish dance but mostly to snog. I’d been to normal co-ed day schools prior to this, so this system seemed absolutely deranged (because it was).

The Scottish dancing has come in handier than you’d think though, at ceilidhs and weddings, and once, eons ago, in a remote bit of Scotland where it was expected after dinner every night. The charming and erudite local GP, a friend of the people I was staying with, was called Donald Duck.

(While I was looking for that Dashing White Sergeant video just now, I found this - it’s the Ghillies’ Ball at Balmoral c. 1990 and features the late Queen Mother, the late Queen Elizabeth, the late Prince Philip, the late Diana, Princess of Wales, the current King, etc etc, all hopping about doing an eightsome reel and looking almost poignantly cheerful).

Sarah Raven also writes very good recipes - here is one for a tomato tart with poppy seed pastry, and a much faster one, using bought puff pastry and an oven-safe frying pan, for a quick tomato tart with thyme and red onions. No pics because the food photos on her otherwise ravishingly beautiful website are endearingly tiny and crap, which makes me think she took them herself on an ancient phone. Have a picture of this ↓ very good tomato tarte tatin instead. If now isn’t tomato tart season, I don’t know when is. I’ll be making one this week, with a thin scraping of Dijon mustard on the bottom of ready-rolled pastry and tarragon leaves among the tomatoes.

Here’s a really good post by Elisabet Juan Roca about how to photograph food, and what on.

Martin Poole for Sainsbury’s Magazine

One of my issues with the end of summer is that although I love the thrilling unfurling of spring and the beautiful fecund ripeness of autumn - gourds and squashes always remind me of pregnant women - I am basic enough to prefer summer and the first half of winter. I don’t always have the patience for the in-between stuff: give me heat or give me Christmas. After a few weeks of mellow fruitfulness¹ I start wanting it to get colder, because I want to make a fire while wearing an enormous jumper. And to slow-cook everything. And to mash potatoes with loads of butter and milk and nutmeg. And to sit in the kitchen with the windows all steamed up.

Maybe I just don’t like things slowly petering out. Which brings up back to late August.

Illustration by Libby Haines, prints here

I am trying to remember that, despite the creeping melancholy, August isn’t over yet, not quite. The roses are in their second flush, the dahlias are utterly magnificent, the tomatoes are tomatoing, the apples are gearing up. Eating outside is still an option, and I think we should all eat outside for as long as possible, even breakfast, which is after all such an optimistic meal. For brunch later this morning I’m making Eggs Kejriwal ↓ from this recipe in The New York Times - that’s a gift link, so you don’t need a sub to see it. It’s basically eggs and cheese on toast with coriander and chilli. It’s really easy and quick to make, like 10 minutes. Would also make a more than acceptable lunch or Sunday-eveningish supper.

Ryan Liebe for The New York Times

We put our spare eggs (we have hens) in boxes in the porch with a note saying ‘too many eggs, please take’ and last week a delivery driver just couldn’t get over the free eggs. He checked with my partner that they really were free, and when he was told yes and to take as many as he wanted, the man was so pleased that he bear-hugged him tightly. I missed this and really hope he comes back because I have courgettes, marrows and black cornflowers for him too (prolific even when grossly neglected, I really recommend growing them).

In further cheering news, the weather forecast here in the east of England perks up from today onwards (it’s a public holiday in the UK on Monday), and the produce in the shops/markets is peak magnificent. I think I mentioned greengages, queens of fruits, in my last food post, but it’s worth mentioning them again.

The other day, after eating one (and then three more) in my kitchen, a friend was amazed and delighted to discover that greengages weren’t in fact a variant of GOOSEBERRIES. He had thought this for 40+ years! He could have been eating greengages all that time! What a tragic waste. This is an excellent example of why it’s a good idea to keep trying unfamiliar things, or things you disliked as a child - it’s how I now love beetroot, which I used to think tasted overwhelmingly of earth (I mean, I wasn’t wrong as such. Beetroots also make a good tarte tatin, like this one).

I’ve undergone another conversion recently. When I mentioned not liking marrows in my last food newsletter, Jane Lovett, whose cookbooks I revere, emailed to say that this marrow hostility was unwarranted and pained her. She enclosed a recipe. So I made it, and what do you know - it changed my mind on the spot. It is absolutely delicious made this way, miles away from the soggy, tasteless marrow dishes of yore. She has very kindly said I could share it you, so here it is. Do make it, it’s very good and like so many of her recipes tastes of much more than the sum of its parts.

Image: Jane Lovett

STUFFED   MARROW

I was brought up on marrow and still absolutely love it [this is Jane, obviously, not me]. Instead of the usual way of stuffing it lengthways I prefer cutting it into rounds, which makes it look more appealing and also easier to serve. The quick toppings turn the whole thing into a lovely warming, bubbling and irresistible gratin.

Serves 3 - 4

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, peeled and chopped

1 clove of garlic, crushed

a pinch of dried oregano

450 g (1 lb) minced lean beef or lamb

2 tsp tomato puree

1 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tbsp flour

150 ml (¼ pt) water

salt & freshly ground black pepper

1 marrow, roughly 1.3 -1.8kg (3 - 4lbs)

Topping 1

2 tbsp crème fraiche & 2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

Topping 2

2 tbsp bread crumbs, fresh or dried & 2 tbsp grated cheddar cheese

1.     Heat the oil in a saucepan, add the onion, garlic and oregano and cook until soft.

2.     Add the lamb or beef and cook, stirring, until it has all taken on some colour.  Add the tomato puree, mustard, flour, water and seasoning and bring up to the boil, stirring all the time.  Simmer for 5 – 10 minutes until thickened a little.  Check the seasoning.  It should be well seasoned.

3.     Meanwhile preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F) Gas Mark 6.  Cut the marrow into rings about 5 cm (2in) deep.  Peel the rings and remove the seeds from the centre.  Arrange in a greased shallow ovenproof dish into which they fit snugly.

4.     Season lightly and fill the marrow rings equally with the mince mixture.  Drizzle over a little olive oil and cook for 45 minutes – 1 hour or until the marrow is soft and cooked through.  This will depend on the size and age of the marrow.

5.     Mix together the ingredients for your chosen topping and spoon over each marrow ring.  Return to the oven for another 10 minutes until golden brown and bubbling.  You may need to raise the oven temperature for speedier browning.

Get ahead:

• Prepare up to a day in advance until the end of step 3.  Cover the marrow and filling separately and keep in the fridge.

• Both toppings can be made up to 2 days in advance, covered and chilled.

• Stuff the marrow several hours in advance.

Hints and tips:

• This is a good way of using up leftover cooked lamb or beef.  Mince the meat briefly in a processor, being careful not to overdo it, and cook as above.

• Leave the skin on the marrow if you like but if it is a bit on the old side, it will be tough however long you cook it.  It also turns a rather unattractive colour.

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I used to get my children to broaden their food repertoire by saying ‘Well, yes, you didn’t like spinach when you were five, but now you are six. You are so much bigger and cleverer than a BABY of five! I know a lot of big six year olds who really love spinach. They’re so cool.' Then I’d look away wistfully into the middle distance and make my eyes go misty with admiration for the imaginary spinach-loving boys. It worked about seven times out of ten, though goat’s cheese (‘MAMMA, NO, IT JUST TASTES OF GOATS’) took roughly another 15 years. And no one asks for a goats’ cheese themed birthday dinner, let’s say. For me the thing with small children was to make it an early rule that they had to try one bite of everything. Fine if they didn’t like it - they were allowed to spit it out - but they did have to try, and chew properly before deciding. Mine often loved counterintuitive things - mussels, whitebait - over more obvious ones (porridge, raw tomatoes).

Image having this many greengages. The dream.

Back to greengages, which really need to be eaten raw, but if they’ve a bit too mushy they sometimes cause me to bestir myself and make a compote to have with Greek yogurt, using plums to make up the quantities. I like this recipe of Delia Smith’s, with Marsala. Her recipes have aged so well. Here’s one for a summer trifle. Trifle is very fashionable at the moment, even though food trends are idiotic.

Image: House & Garden

↑ And here (again) is my favourite trifle of all time, which is rose, lychee and strawberry and ridiculously easy. No custard, meaning it’s light and summery. Have it for pudding today! It’s so delicious.

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Here are a few brilliantly-written, all-recipe or recipe-heavy newsletters I really rate, in no order. They’re all UK-based, otherwise we’d be here all day. I absolutely love reading recipes - so soothing and evocative - but when it comes to dinner I still don’t routinely cook with my phone in my hand. I have done from all of these people though.

• Sue Quinn at Pen & Spoon

• Catherine Phipps at Catherine Is Under Pressure

• Ed Smith at Rocket & Squash

• Skye McAlpine at The Dolce Vita Diaries

• Marc Diacono at Garden To Table

• Debora Robertson at Licked Spoon (the first Substack I ever subscribed to, I think - either hers or Ian Leslie’s, not food but indispensable)

• Angela Clutton at The Kitchen Bookshelf

• Elizabeth Luard at Cookstory - she draws her recipes - it’s heaven, look:

  

• Ella Risbridger at You Get In Love And Then

• Anna Jones at Anna Jones’ Newsletter

• Ben Lippett at How I Cook

• Not primarily recipes, but Karen Barnes of KB’s Joyous Things is the former editor of Delicious magazine and writes wonderfully about food, restaurants and travel.

Loads more on the Recommendations bit of my home page. All the cookbooks I recommend are on my Bookshop page.

Thank you for reading! These fortnightly food posts are free for everyone. They alternate with shortish picture posts, which are also free. Everything else is for paid subscribers. Last week I posted about mushroom lamps and how I write my Substack; this coming week one of the posts will be about cheering mini-treats - the adult equivalents of a new pencil case. If that sounds appealing, do consider signing up below. Either way, have a wonderful Sunday, enjoy the sun if it decides to appear where you are, and if you liked this post then do please super kindly hit the ❤️ button - it makes it more visible to non-subscribers. Thank you!

1. To Autumn is fine - it’s far from my favourite - but it also contains the most atrocious line in all of Keats, namely ‘thou watchest the last oozings hour by hour’.