The Taste of Britain. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

by Laura Mason and Catherine Brown, without hyperbole, but with a precision and clarity that far better express its authors’ underlying passion and purpose. Another thing that makes it a joy to read is its embrace of the regional food vernacular: Dorset knobs, Puggie Buns, Singin’ Hinnnies, Black Bullets and Mendip Wallfish are all to be revelled in for their names alone. Indeed, some might be tempted to enjoy The Taste of Britain chiefly as a glorious catalogue of eccentricity, a celebration of the cowsheel and the careless gooseberry, of the head cheese and the damson cheese (neither of which are actually cheese) that make British food so charming and idiosyncractic.

      But to do so would be to miss out. Now that this book exists, now that it is in your hands, use it to bring about change. It should not be taken as a slice of the past, in aspic, but as a well-stocked store cupboard, with the potential to enrich our future food culture. See it not as a preservation order for British regional foods, but a call to action. Use this book as a guide, not merely to seek out delicious things that you’ve never tried before, but also to recreate some of them in your own kitchen. Do that and you’ll be actively participating in a great food culture that has always been with us, that is often hidden beneath the mass-produced, homogenous, seasonless food we are so frequently offered, but which may yet have a vibrant future.

      This book is a thorough and splendid answer to the question ‘What is British food?’ Use it well, and it may help to ensure that is still a meaningful question a hundred years from now.

       Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall

       Preface

      In 1994 we embarked on a mission to describe as many British foods with regional affiliations as we could find. We were part of a Europe-wide project working within a framework - handed down from Brussels - which demanded a link to the terroir (soil). In fact the project, named Euroterroir, was more suited to rural southern Europe than industrialized, urbanized Britain. How do you link Yorkshire Relish to the soil? But ultimately we succeeded in writing up some four hundred British entries. And along the way we asked some broader questions - what are our traditional foods? What is the character of British taste?

      We’ve discovered that many rural treasures had survived against the odds. That sometimes foods with traditional or regional affiliations languished unloved. That sometimes British foods, though not always linking directly to the terroir, did have other powerful historical influences which made them special, and distinct, from the rest of Europe. No other country in Europe has a history of spicing to match the British.

      Yet our homogenized food supply was clearly inflicting a far-reaching loss of local distinctiveness and quality. The idea, inherent in the project, that foods should be the property of a place and its community (terroir, in the context of food in France, carries implications of regionality, cultural groupings and the influence of trade and climate), rather than the trade-marked possession of an individual or company, was especially alien.

      Our initial research complete, we felt confident that either the Ministry of Agriculture or Food from Britain would take up the cause and publish a book based on the work which had taken us two years to complete. Instead, it was a small publisher in Devon (Tom Jaine of Prospect Books) who kept the flag flying and Traditional Foods of Britain was published in 1999. Seven years on, we welcome this new publication by HarperCollins.

      We also welcome signs of change. Now, there is more awareness of commercial dilution, and dishonest imitation and therefore the need to protect food names, though the application process for producers is slow and difficult. There are certainly more small producers working locally, but they have to cope with numerous barriers. However much they protest otherwise, powerful supermarket central distribution systems and cut-throat pricing polices are not designed to foster local produce. And consumers do not always pause to consider the more subtle and elusive nuances of foods from closer to home.

      Of course the ties of regionality do not suit foodstuffs, and in any case should be just one of many avenues open to British farmers and food producers. But it would be good to see more raw local ingredients transformed into distinctive foods since records show their rich variety in the past. Shops and markets bursting with colourful and varied local produce are one of the great pleasures of shopping for food on the continent. They exist because national policies and local custom support them. They should not be impossible in Britain. This book is not an end, but a beginning.

       Laura Mason and Catherine Brown 2006

       Regions

      1  South West England

      2  Channel Islands

      3  South England

      4  South East England

      5  East Anglia

      6  East Midlands

      7  West Midlands

      8  Wales

      9  Isle of Man

      10  North West England

      11  North England

      12  North East England

      13  Scotland

      14  North Scotland

       South West England

      Dittisham Plum

      DESCRIPTION:

      A MEDIUM-LARGE RED DESSERT PLUM, OF OVAL-OBLONG SHAPE; IT HAS GOLDEN YELLOW FLESH AND AN EXCELLENT RICH FLAVOUR. THE HARVEST IS VERY SHORT, FROM THE SECOND TO THIRD WEEKS IN AUGUST.

      HISTORY:

      This is a localized plum variety, grown in and around one village in Devon. It is sometimes known as the Dittisham Small Red and, locally, as the Dittisham Ploughman. It is a chance seedling, appreciated in the locality and propagated by suckers. This process (see Cambridge Gage, p.112) is common to a number of plum varieties in England. The Kea in Cornwall is very like the Dittisham although smaller and with a slightly later season.

      A number of myths luxuriate around the supposed origin of this plum: that they were grown from a cargo of fruit or from seedlings dumped by a ship, the villagers planting trees in their gardens; or that the original plum came from Holland or Germany, and that the name ‘ploughman’ is a corruption of the German for plum, Pflaume; or that the nuns of the Priory of Cornworthy, nearby, brought them to the district in centuries past. There is nothing to substantiate any of these beliefs.

      Oral tradition is that before motor transport, people from towns as far away as Plymouth came by horse and cart (a journey of several hours) to collect large quantities of plums. The variety was received at the National Fruit Trials in 1949. A liqueur based on these plums is now available locally. The fruit is macerated in grain spirit.

      TECHNIQUE:

      Dittisham lies at sea level on the estuary of the River Dart, a wide, drowned valley which opens on to the south coast of Devon. The climate is mild and sheltered, protected from the north and west winds by high hills. The soil is slightly acid and shaley. Local people claim that this plum will not flourish anywhere but Dittisham. It is propagated from suckers, and most cottage gardens in the area contain an example. There are also orchards, which generally receive little attention except at fruiting time. Under normal circumstances, the plums flower and fruit without difficulty, but easterly winds during the flowering season may adversely affect the blossoms and,