Dear Seafoodies
OK, so we’re not yet all fully confined to the four walls of our homes but, whereas just a few days ago we were implored to be so if, for example, showing signs of a certain virus, it seems only a matter of time before we are forced to self-incarcerate should any of our names happen to begin with one of the letters of the alphabet.
With but the last fragments of freedom still at my discretion, I have found myself quite busy in the kitchen. However, for that supplies are required so my local food purveyors have been enjoying the pleasure of my personal and online company. It’s been quite interesting to observe what’s going on out there.
First, it is glaringly apparent how eerily quiet the streets and the shops are. Coffee shops are empty and supermarket shelves bare. In one local supermarket it transpires that even shampoo has found itself in the cross-hairs of, and now been condemned to extinction by preying hoarders. Surely, if stuck indoors, there’s more to do with your time than repeatedly wash your hair and wipe your bum!? The fact that the piles of rubbish on the street awaiting collection contain the discarded boxes of flatscreen TVs and game consoles suggests that there is. Incidentally, the term “box-set” has recently come to the conversational fore but personally, if I am to spend more time in front of the screen, I suspect I will be revisiting my archives of series like “Rick Stein’s Seafood Odyssey”, Simon Hopkinson’s “The Good Cook”, and “Floyd’s India”. Even those toe-curling, unfortunately condescending programmes of Nigel Slater’s that transform my front room into the playing field of an armchair-based projectile sport featuring high-speed airborne beer cans and the TV screen… and some foul language for full effect. Other sports are presently off-air.
But! At the fishmongers, the queue is spilling out onto the street. The butcher has stopped making his legendary pork & leek sausages because he is so overrun there is only time to attend to the run-of-the-mill. And my veg box supplier has been operating close to 170% of usual capacity and their online shop is currently closed to new customers. Could there be a hitherto unidentified division in society? That distinguishing the foodie from the rest? Why are the local, home-grown, specialised food suppliers thriving in the face of a dangerous viral outbreak while the supermarkets are struggling under the strain? Perhaps, for some, it takes a virulent pandemic to remember that they’re there?
Of course, there are reasons and circumstances that explain at least part of what’s going on. But when, in a threatening environment you observe the supermarkets barren and deserted while the local, small, foodie-businesses are attended at least as much, if not more so, by their devoted regulars (plus others), you might be forgiven for conjecturing that the foodie is made unto a constitution of its own. That said, is that constitution one of hardiness or foolhardiness? Time will tell.
I must make mention of our restaurants, pubs, bars and other establishments in the hospitality trade. The news flow has laid bare the arduous times they are confronting and my Instagram feed is awash with announcements of (temporary we hope) closures. I’m sure all our thoughts go out to them and their staff, and may they navigate this storm safely to its other side.
Inevitably we are all going to be indoors considerably more than usual in the coming weeks (hopefully not months), so in a bid to steer activity away from the hair-washing and the bum-wiping and instead toward the cooking, I would like to suggest some recipes that could fill the time in the making and fill the tum in the eating. Recipes that use the more basic, easier-to-get-hold-of ingredients, whether in-store or online, whilst remaining in-keeping with the seasons. Consider, for example (images clockwise from top-left):
