For the Love of British Food

For starters, just a quotation. Nothing to do with the rest of the post, it was on my Igoogle page today and I was watching my cat eyeing up the birds in the garden enjoying the food I’d put out for them. Don’t worry bird fans, he’s much too old and slow to catch anything these days and I’ve had no ‘little presents’ for a long long time.Just thought it would amuse you all.

The scientific name for an animal that doesn’t either run from or fight its enemies is lunch.
  - Michael Friedman

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Now onto my main subject.

It was listening to a favourite song that gave me the idea for this post. Simon and Garfunkel sang their version of the old folk tune ‘Scarborough Fair’ which mentions four of the most beloved herbs that appear in English cooking - parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.

They also feature in quotes from English literature such as Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet “There’s rosemary for you, that’s for remembrance”. In fact, you can find many herbal and floral references in Shakespeare, including fennel, rue, roses, mint, savory and marjoram, over 170 different plants and trees appear in all his known works.

Parsley and thyme are staples of the ‘bouquet garni’ which although we call it by it’s French name, is an essential part of any stew or stockpot along with a bay leaf. If you have some celery, make a little tube with two small pieces face to face, and tie in the bay, rosemary and thyme sprigs.

All of these, except possibly parsley are very easy to grow. There’s an old tradition that says variously that parsley only grows for the virtuous, otherwise the Devil has it, or that you must plant it seven times for Satan before it will grow well for you. In my Wiccan faith, the Goddess and the Horned One are both forces for good and join together to bring my garden fertility.

I would add mint to those four classic herbs as where would I be without mint sauce to go with my roast lamb, or indeed, a sprig of mint in my Pimms.

Parsley is often used just as a green garnish and almost dismissed, yet it has a fresh astringency of its own that would be missed in sauces and accompaniments such as parsley, thyme and lemon stuffing for chicken or turkey, or parsley sauce poured over a piece of fish or gammon, and in the ‘liquor’ that you get in the few pie and mash shops left in London.

I used to go to Manzes in Tower Bridge Road with my husband and his brother and cousins on a Saturday morning before we all went off to watch Millwall football matches at the New Den, and John used to work in their Peckham branch - his first part time job as a teenager, peeling potatoes, and greasing pans for the pies, then washing up. The shops also traditionally sell stewed and or jellied eels, again with the parsley flavoured liquor.

English parsley is the tightly curled variety, the European continental type which I think has a better flavour, has a flat leaf. If you buy it in a bunch in the supermarket, it will keep for a few days with the stems in water.

Thyme has varieties such as lemon thyme, but I prefer the common one. The bees and other beneficial insects love it when it comes into flower. If I’m not making a breadcrumb stuffing for chicken, I put a handful of thyme in the cavity along with half a lemon, and I squeeze the juice over the chicken before it goes in the oven. It goes well with fish too, especially mackerel and sea bass.

Medicinally, you can use thyme made into a tea with boiling water, and sweetened with a little honey. Bruise the sprigs a little to release the oils before pouring on the water. Good for sore throats, bronchitis and gastric problems.

Rosemary marries wonderfully with lamb. Pierce little holes in the fatty side of a lamb joint with the point of a knife and poke in a few needles of rosemary in each hole along with a garlic sliver. Use a whole rosemary stalk as a skewer for a lamb kebab - make the hole with a skewer first. Alternate pieces of meat with cherry tomatoes, pieces of onion and pepper and thick chunks of courgette. You can also throw the green sprigs directly onto hot barbecue coals to make a fragrant smoke to scent your meats.

“Bubble and Squeak” is a traditional way to use up mashed potato and cooked greens such as cabbage or brussels sprouts - just fry together, preferably in the fat from whatever roast meat you last cooked. Finely chop a few rosemary needles and mix into the veg. in the frying pan.

Sage goes in the stuffing with onion for roast pork or turkey and is also excellent chopped and sprinkled before roasting root vegetables. In Derbyshire, sage is used in the making of a semi-hard cheese - Sage Derby, It isn’t herb you want to use raw in a salad, the flavour is much better cooked. Make a sage flavoured butter to pour over filled pasta such as tortellini. Chop and add with fried onion to minced pork, shape and wrap in foil and bake, to make a fragrant meat loaf.

The Greeks and Romans believed that sage was good for snakebite and I’ve even read that it has been trialled as a herbal remedy for Alzheimers disease. You can steep it in boiling water, and cool to make a fragrant hair rinse that will help prevent dandruff.